Abstract:
Atkanda Vihara is the modern name of the site of an ancient Buddhist
monastery, situated in the village of Kotakanda, Allepotana in the A. G.A.’s
division of Kahatagasdigiliya in the Kanadara Korale, Nuvaragam Palata
East of the Anuradhapura District. According to an inscription found at this
monastery site it is dateable to the second or third century B. C. Bell has
recorded its discovery and has given an account of this site in the Seventh
Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon, 1896 as follows:
“Kotakanda (‘Squat hill’) is an insignificant looking cluster of wooded rocks,
bearing slightly east of north from Kok-ebe-kanda about one and a half to
two miles in a B line, and less than a mile north-west of Elapattava, a small
Moor village.........