Asia | Plain stupa

Sri Lankans are squabbling over monuments

Tamils and Sinhalese have found something else to row about

Aerial view of the Kurundi Temple in Sri Lanka — A plain stupa rowImage: Romesh Madushanka

Nov 30th 2023|THANNAMURIPPU

On a wooded hill edged by rice fields in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district sit the ruins of an ancient Buddhist monastery. Members of the country’s Sinhalese majority call it “Kurundi Viharaya”. For Tamils, who are mostly Hindus and consider the war-battered north their homeland, it is “Kurunthoor Malai”. Since 2018, when the state archaeological department began excavating the site, Tamil and Sinhalese nationalists have rowed over which community has a greater claim to it.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “What’s mine, what’s yours?”