Tissamaharama

Tissamaharama stands on the site of Mahagama, the capital of Ruhuna, the southern principality that formed one of the three divisions of ancient Sri Lanka. Tradition places its founding in the third century BC under Mahanaga, a brother of the Anuradhapura king Devanampiya Tissa, and it was from here, in the second century BC, that the prince Dutugemunu set out on the campaign that ended with his defeat of Elara at Anuradhapura and the unification of the island — a story central to Sinhalese historical memory.

The kingdom's wealth came from irrigation. Kings dammed the Kirindi Oya and built the Tissa Wewa and other reservoirs, turning dry scrub into paddy land, and monasteries followed: the great stupa of the Tissamaharama vihara, the Yatala Wehera and, out in the jungle, the rock monastery of Sithulpawwa. The port of Kirinda and the nearby coast connected Ruhuna to Indian Ocean trade, and excavations around the town have turned up evidence of those long-distance connections.

Ruhuna served repeatedly as a refuge when the northern capitals fell to invasion, and armies of reconquest were raised here more than once. After the medieval kingdoms moved south-west, however, the irrigation works decayed, malaria spread and the district emptied; the ruins lay in jungle until the 19th and 20th centuries, when the British and then independent Sri Lanka restored the tanks and resettled farmers under new colonisation schemes. Tissamaharama grew back as an agricultural town. Since the 1970s, and more so after the end of the civil war in 2009, safari tourism to Yala has become its second livelihood.

The town's identity is bound up with Ruhuna and with pilgrimage. The great dagoba is a working temple rather than a monument: on poya full-moon days families come in white with lotus flowers and oil lamps, and almsgivings are set up along the roads. Monks are prominent in public life, and the monasteries in the surrounding jungle keep a strong forest-meditation tradition.

About fifteen kilometres north lies Kataragama, one of the most unusual religious places in South Asia, where Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and the indigenous Vedda community worship at adjoining shrines to the god Skanda, known here as Kataragama deviyo. Its Esala festival in July or August brings processions, drumming and kavadi dancing, and pilgrims from Tissamaharama and far beyond. Vows made at Kataragama, and the coconut smashed at the shrine, are part of everyday religious practice across the south.

Rural custom governs much of daily behaviour: shoes off at temples, the right hand used for eating and giving, respect shown to elders and monks, and modest dress. Village life still turns on the tank, the paddy calendar and the temple, and traditional beliefs about the guardian deities of fields and forests persist alongside orthodox Buddhism. Visitors are common enough not to attract attention, but safari-town manners — early nights, early starts — set the rhythm of the tourist side of town.

The town has a population in the tens of thousands, part of a Hambantota District of roughly 600,000 people. Farming is the base: paddy under the restored ancient tanks and the Kirindi Oya irrigation scheme, together with bananas, papaya, chillies and onions, and cattle and buffalo whose milk becomes the curd sold along the roads. Fishing at Kirinda and the coastal lagoons, salt from the Hambantota pans and government employment fill out the local economy.

Tourism is the other pillar. Jeep drivers, guides, guesthouse owners and cooks depend on Yala, and the town wakes before dawn as vehicles leave for the park gates. The trade collapsed during the pandemic and again during the fuel shortages of the 2022 economic crisis, and its recovery has mattered greatly to household incomes. The large Chinese-financed projects in the district — the port, the airport and the conference hall — brought less local employment than was hoped.

Days start early in the fields and end soon after dark. Human–elephant conflict is the district's sharpest problem: elephants raid crops and break fences, and people and animals are killed each year. Water management, crop prices and the crowding of Yala by too many jeeps are the other recurring local arguments, alongside concern about the long-term effects of drought.

Cooking here is dry-zone and coastal at once. The daily meal is rice and curry: rice with parippu, the dhal curry, a green such as gotu kola sambol or mallung, fried aubergine in sweet and sour moju, and pol sambol of grated coconut with chilli, lime and dried fish. Freshwater fish from the tanks is fried or cooked in a red curry sharpened with goraka, and prawns and crab come up from the lagoons and the coast at Kirinda.

Curd is the district's best-known product. Buffalo milk is set in unglazed clay pots in the villages around the town and eaten with kithul treacle or palm jaggery; roadside stalls sell it by the pot along the main routes. Kurakkan, finger millet, is made into dark roti and porridge, and jackfruit, breadfruit and cowpeas from the chena plots appear in season. Wood-apple, divul, is beaten into a thick juice, and thambili, the orange king coconut, is opened at the roadside for its water.

Evening food is the same across the south: hoppers with an egg in the middle, string hoppers with a thin curry and sambol, pittu steamed with coconut, and kottu chopped noisily on a hot plate. Bakeries turn out fish buns, rolls and patties for the afternoon, and strong sweet tea is drunk through the day. During the Kataragama festival, stalls and free almsgivings feed pilgrims on a very large scale, and sweets such as kavum and kokis are made for the April new year.