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පානදුරා / පාණදුරා වාදය - 1873

Until the second half of the 19th century Buddhism did not have much to do with Western culture and the English language. This is not strange in a context where these were associated with a colonial power that did not support Buddhism in the way in which Christianity was supported. The majority of Buddhists, both lay people and monks, associated the English language with the false religion or mithya drsti. During this period those who desired to study English had to attend the schools managed by the Christian missionaries. Some of the Buddhists who had their education in these missionary schools gave up Buddhism and became Christians. This was true not only of lay Buddhists but even of some English-educated Buddhist monks who gave up Buddhism and supported Christianity.

Gradually, especially among the middle-class urbanised elite, there developed a group of people who studied English yet remained Buddhist. Without any doubt the best example in this regard is a person commonly known as Anagarika Dharmapala whose former name was Don David Hewavitarne. Some of these people were able to go to Western countries and continue their studies, and in this way had the opportunity to experience realities such as liberalism and freedom of religion which were the current issues of that time. This gave the group an awareness of the value of freedom exercised and treasured, especially by the British people. This awareness strengthened the Buddhists to speak or rather to challenge Christians, with the immediate result that there were debates among Christians and Buddhists in various places in Sri Lanka. These debates came to a climax at Panadura in 1873 .

It is a well-known fact that this dialogue was instrumental in the arrival of Henry Steel Olcott and Annie Blavatsky in Sri Lanka in 1880. Their arrival paved the way for a new chapter in the history of Sri Lanka. The important feature of this chapter was the increasing participation of lay people in the matters of Buddhism. In the earlier debates, although lay people supported the monks, it was the monks who championed the cause of the uplifting of Buddhism in the face of challenges from Christians. Olcott’s arrival gave the extra strength that the English-educated Buddhists needed to uplift Buddhism to survive along with the more powerful Christianity of that era. In this situation, Olcott was able to present Buddhism in a more suitable and effective way.

He was supposed to have been the first to prepare a Buddhist catechism, which was a popular Christian way of teaching Christian doctrine. This was a clear example of adopting a Christian method to serve a Buddhist purpose. Although Olcott was not the first to start schools for children he was able to make the school popular island-wide using the Christian missionary school method to promote Buddhist values. In the Buddhist theosophical society that he started, the activities were carried out in line with existing Christian societies. This is not strange considering the fact that at the beginning, most of the pioneering members of this society were educated at the Christian missionary schools.

The above affairs of the Protestant Buddhists were greatly influenced by the activities of Moratuwa. When these Protestant Buddhists began to erect Buddhist temples in urban areas following the pattern of Protestant Christians, Moratuwa became one of the first places to implement this. The Palliya godelle temple in Rawatawatte, Moratuwa, is a good example in this regard. It is believed that this temple was built on the site of an old Portuguese church of the 16th century. The name of this temple, Palliya Godelle, reflects this opinion since palliya is popularly used to denote a Christian church. This belief was strengthened when some artefacts were unearthed from this site in the late 1970s while the site of the present temple was being excavated. These artefacts included tombstones that very likely belonged to a Roman Catholic cemetery of the 16th century.