Dimbulagala

Dimbulagala also known as Gunners Rock during the British colonial period, is a rock formation in the Polonnaruwa District of Sri Lanka. By the time anthropologist Charles Gabriel Seligman visited the location in 1911, a cave within the rock had become a refuge of the indigenous Vedda people. During the 12th century AD, The Sinhalese people had constructed a Buddhist monastery within the rock formation. The Dimbulagala Raja Maha Vihara monastery was restored in the 1950s. In 1990’s villagers around the rock are of mixed Vedda and Sinhalese ancestry. They all speak Sinhalese language and the Vedda language is extinct.