Western Monasteries - Anuradhapura

In the quieter parts of the sacred city of Anuradhapura lie the Western Monasteries or the Tapovana Monastery. The Monastery was inhabited by meditating forest dwelling monks who came into prominence in the seventh century. More info and images inside.

The main component of the hermitages of these monks was the padhanagaras or the meditation houses, which were beautifully built of well proportioned and meticulously-dressed plain stone. A curious feature of these monasteries is the ornamented urinal stones. These are the only elaborately decorated features found in the Monastery which is otherwise characteristically devoid of ornamentation except of the simplest kind.

Architecturally the habitations of these monks of the tapovana sect also called Pamsukulin are generic, and are duplicated in many other monasteries of the fraternity as at Ritigala and Arankele. However according to scholars the monasteries at Anuradhapura represent the padhanagara pirivena in its most developed form.
Source - http://www.angelfire.com/in4/anuradhapura/tapovana.htm

All the images shown above were shot with a Canon 400D with an EF 50mm f1.8 lens. The image of the cave comprises 6 images stitched together using Hugin.