Samanalakanda,Sri Pada or Adam's peak in history

By Haris de Silva

Samanalakanda, rising to 2243m or 7362’ is in the Ratnapura District of the Sabaragamuva Province. Perhaps, there is no other mountain in the world, as famous as Sripada, and so extensively referred to, down the ages, in various literatures, as Adam’s Peak.

Traditional belief among Sinhala Buddhists is that the peak holds the footprint of Gautama Buddha. However, various other religious groups too lay claim to it according to their own creeds. Thus, Fa-Hien (413 AD) mentions it to be of Foe, Gnostics of Ieu, Mohammedians [in Soleyman 851 AD] of Adam, Rajatarangini, a work of about 1150 AD, says that about 24 AD a king of Kashmir visited the mountain, Portuguese in the 16th century had believed that it was of St. Thomas or of the Eunuch of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia. (Tennent’s Ceylon (1859, 1977, Vol.II, p.652), and the Hindus believe that it is of Siva. As seen above, these believers had discovered the religious significance of the footprint at different times in history.

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