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Kalyāṇi-vihāra

A monastery attached to the Kalyāṇi-cetiya. It was from the earliest times the residence of eminent monks, such as Dhammagutta (the Earth-shaker) and his five hundred colleagues (Mhv.xxxii.51) and of Godatta Thera (MA.i.100). Here a thera, called Piṇḍapātiya, once recited the Brahmajāla Sutta, and the earth trembled as he finished his recital (DA.i.131). Near the vihāra was the village of Kāladīghavāpigāma, where monks who lived in the monastery went for alms (SnA.i.70; AA.i.13).

King Kaniṭṭha-Tissa built in this monastery an uposatha-hall (Mhv.xxxvi.17). Vijayabāhu III restored the vihāra, which had been damaged by the Damiḷā, and reconstructed the cetiya, crowning it with a golden finial. He also built a gate-tower on the eastern side (Cv.lxxxi.59 f).

In the fourteenth century Alagakkonāra seems to have bestowed great patronage on the monastery, and to have done many things for its improvement (See Sri Lanka Antiquary and Literary Register i.152; ii.149, 182).

Even in the fifteenth century the monastery was evidently considered one of the chief centres of the Saṅgha in Sri Lanka, for we find that the monks, sent by Dhammaceti from Rāmañña to Sri Lanka, received their ordination in the sīma of Kalyāṇi-vihāra, and that on their return they consecrated a sīma in Pegu known as the Kalyāṇi-sīmā (Bode, op.cit., 38).