Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka from southern India in the 3rd century BC and took root among the Singalese, themselves from India, during the early stages of the island's first great kingdom ... Anuradhapura.

The early form of Buddhism, carried to the island by Mahinda, son of the Indian emperor Ashoka, were enthusiastically embraced and developed into the Theravadan - or Middle Way - school that spread into South East Asia's Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

The Aukana Buddha was carved in the fifth century, during the reign of Dhatusena
from 459 to 477AD and who was responsible for many great works - including building the enormous Kala Wewa tank (or lake) at Aukana.

The statue looks towards the tank and, at a certain time, the eyes are level
with the water.

It is beautifully upright with the tip of the nose exactly over a 'plumbline marker' between the feet. The pleats of the robe are seen as an artistic masterpiece of the time.

And while the right hand, the one that
usually indicates meaning in Buddha statues, is in the gesture of 'the giving of the blessing', the symbolism of the left hand involves the gathering up of the robe in preparation to step over a river - a representation of the cycle of rebirths.

In stories that find echoes through the rest of the Theravadan Buddhist world of Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, only local people knew of the Buddha during the years of decay and external threats.

Then, around 1850, British archaeologists came upon the statue. Sir James Emerson Tennent, writing in Ceylon (1859), tells how an associate ''chanced to follow the track of a herd of wild elephants near the tank of Kala Wewa when he suddenly found himself in front of a gigantic statue in the forest, whose existence had been previously unknown to Europeans. He led us to the spot and our surprise was extreme on beholding a figure of Buddha, nearly 50 feet in height, carved from the face of a granite cliff, and so detached that only two slender ties had been left unhewn at the back to support the colossus".

Aukana means ''sun-eating'' and some writers have linked that to the statue rather than the location, pointing to the way that it lights up in the sun to reflect a rich sand colour constrasting with the blacks and greys of the granite cliff from which it was carved.


It is easy to imagine the reverence and ceremony of the Aukana Buddha during the centuries that followed its carving: the monks who attending it, the people worshipping there, the splendour of the kings and their couriers who looked to Buddhism for their guidance and sovereign legitimacy.

But, in the 500 years from when it was carved until Anuradhapura was abandoned in favour of the new capital at Polonnaruwa, there were desperate times too - with invasions from sourthern India.

There were periods of neglect when the jungle reclaimed the land and the Buddha was partially covered, hiding and protecting it from the island's enemies and preserving it from the elements.

Today, as you sit under the Bodhi tree and gaze across at the Buddha, it is hard to imagine how the jungle reclaimed it.

It is far easier to see the distant past of monks and kings, farmers and traders, men and women with their children ... the living serenity of a temple from 1,500 years ago.