KONESWARAM TEMPLE - SRI LANKA

This wonderful Hindu temple is now the most popular venue for the Tamil population and also foreign visitors. 

KONESWARAM TEMPLE, is an important Hindu temple in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The Koneswaram temple has a recorded history from 300 CE, and at its peak was of significant size and heralded as one of the richest and most visited temples in Asia. Built atop Swami Rock, overlooking the Trincomalee harbour, the temple has lay in ruins, been restored, renovated and enlarged by various royals and devotees throughout its history. Its bronze idol statues from the 10th century CE are considered some of the high points of Chola art. Throughout its history, the temple has been administered and frequented by Sri Lankan Hindu Tamils and is located in Trincomalee, a classical period port town with a mixed Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim population.

Myths surrounding the temple of Koneswaram associate it with the popular Indian epic King Ramayana, and its legendary King Rama. Koneswaram was developed in the post classical era, between 300 CE and 1600 CE by kings of the Tamil Pandyan and Chola empires, and Vannimai chiefs of the Eastern Province, with decorations and structural additions such as its famous thousand pillared hall furnished by kings of the Tamil Pallava dynasty and the Jaffna kingdom. This culminated in Koneswaram becoming one of the most important surviving buildings of the classical Dravidian architectural period by the early 1600s. 

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