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The Unawatuna enigma

by Derrick Schokman



Unawatuna beach

The southern coast of Sri Lanka is steeped in history, legend and mystery. Unawatuna, a few miles beyond Galle on the southern highway, is such a place.

Today Unawatuna is a much sought-after beach resort. This happened only after Closenburg, a favourite resort for bathers and surfers, was filled up under the Galle Port Development Project for the construction of warehouses.

Dutch

Historically Unawatuna was a Galle suburb when the Dutch were in occupation of the maritime region and Galle was an important port. It was a place where Dutch Commanders and merchants resided or had their "Buiten Platsen (country residences).

Some houses there still retain their Dutch architecture. "Bathfield House" for instance, the old Dutch Commanders' Lodge with its "Nooit Gerdacht" inscription on the gateway, and another house on the road to Velle Kovil with wooden posts, large windows and doors.

Ramayana



The Galle museum, an example of Dutch architecture

The legendary part of the Unawatuna story is associated with how it derived that name. This is where we have to turn back the pages of time to the 2,000 year old Sanskrit epic "Ramayana" and the story of Rama and Sita and the Demon King Ravana who kidnapped Sita and brought her to his stronghold in Lanka.

Rama, aided by his ally, Hanuman, waged war on Ravana to regain Sita. In the course of that war Rama's brother Lakshman was seriously wounded. The only herbs available to cure him were located on the Himalayan mountains in north India.

Rama asked Hanuman to go there and bring the necessary herbs. Hanuman complied but was unable to identify the desired herbs. In desperation he grabbed a whole chunk of the mountain and brought it back to Lanka, dropping a piece off on the southern tip. This place came to be called "Onna-wetuna", which in Sinhalese means "there it fell", and gave rise to the place name Unawatuna.

The piece that dropped off is known as Rhumassala-kanda, a hill which looks quite out of place on the natural flat landscape of that region. It is coincidentally, strangely, call it what you will, a natural pharmacy of medicinal herbs.

Deep pit

So much for the legend. Now for the mystery. Yes indeed, something did fall there in prehistoric times, not on the land but 100 km away from Unawatuna in the sea. It has caused a huge deep pit into which the whole island of Sri Lanka seems ready to slide.

Sir Arthur Clarke in one of his books has stated that whatever fell is still there disturbing the gravitational field of the earth. It is labelled Terran Gravitic Anomaly I, 110 metres below the zero reference on the Goddard Space Flight Centre's 3 D map of the Earth's Gravimetric Geoid.

Ponder



The well inside the Galle fort built during theDutch period

So there you are, when next you visit this popular beach resort with its beautiful bay, look out over the Indian Ocean and ponder on what could have plunged into the sea. Was it a meteorite, or something more terrible like an asteroid... or whatever?

Then look up at Rhumassala-kanda and think about the forgetful Hanuman who accidently dropped off a piece of the Himalayas there.

And having thus pondered on the legend and the mystery of the pit in the sea, what conclusion would you come to?

If I were asked, I would say that legends are so much easier to understand than mysterious objects that plunge into the sea and disturb the earth's gravitational field.

And having said that I'd do what I came to Unawatuna to do in the first place - to swim in the calm waters of the bay and skin-dive with goggles and frog-feet to examined the underwater world.

HNB-Pathum Udanaya2002

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Crescat Development Ltd.

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