Kappetiyagoda Sirivimala Thera

Sirivimala Thera had been ill for some time and was receiving treatment at a private hospital in Kandy, where he died on the morning of Sunday 18 October 2026, aged 95 and in his 96th year, according to Ada Derana. Hiru News broke the news, followed by Ada Derana, the Daily Mirror, Newsfirst, Newswire and The Morning. A specific cause of death was not made public.

The funeral committee said it would announce the date and venue of the cremation ceremony later. This page will be updated when those arrangements are confirmed.

Very little about the early life of Kappetiyagoda Sirivimala Thera has been made public. His date and place of birth, his lay name and the names of his parents were not given in the reports of his death. Ada Derana reported that he died in his 96th year, aged 95, which places his birth in 1930 or 1931.

In Sri Lankan monastic tradition a monk's religious name is usually preceded by a place name, here Kappetiyagoda (also spelled Keppetiyagoda or Kappitiyagoda), but no source reviewed for this page states where he was born or where he was first ordained.

He was ordained into the Ramanna Nikaya, one of the three main monastic fraternities of Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhism, of the Maha Vihara lineage. Details of his ordination date, his teachers and his formal education in the pirivena system have not been made public in the sources available. By the 2010s he was a senior member of the Karaka Sangha Sabha (executive council) of the Sri Lanka Ramanna Maha Nikaya, as News 1st described him during a presidential visit.

Sirivimala Thera became Chief Incumbent of the Getambe Rajopavanaramaya at Peradeniya, beside the Mahaweli River near Kandy, after the death of his predecessor in May 1985, according to a 2013 Sunday Observer feature, and he led the temple for more than four decades, as Newswire noted at his death.

The temple is known for its ancient sacred Bodhi tree, said in press reports to be about 500 years old, which survived the devastating Mahaweli flood of 14 August 1947. That story made Getambe a favoured place for Bodhi puja and for travellers seeking blessings on the road to Kandy. Under his leadership the temple was developed and became one of the best known places of worship in the Central Province.

Getambe was also a regular stop for national leaders visiting Kandy. Heads of state including President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as well as prime ministers, governors, ministers and opposition figures, called on him, and his comments to them were frequently carried by Ada Derana, Hiru News, Swarnavahini, Newsfirst and the Daily Mirror.

In 2022 Sirivimala Thera was elevated to the office of Anunayaka, or Deputy Chief Prelate, of the Sri Lanka Ramanna Maha Nikaya. On 18 December 2022 a ceremony to present his act of appointment was held at the Getambe Rajopavanaramaya under the presidency of the Mahanayaka of the Ramanna Nikaya, Aggamaha Pandita Makulewe Sri Wimalabhidhana Thera. Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena handed over the act of appointment and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa presented the ceremonial fan (vijini pata). The Nikaya also conferred an honorific title on him.

The ceremony was attended by the Supreme Mahanayaka of the Amarapura Maha Nikaya, Dodampahala Chandrasiri Thera, the Anunayakas of the Malwatu and Asgiri chapters, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Central Province Governor Lalith U. Gamage and other ministers and MPs.

As Anunayaka he also led the Central Province Sangha Sabha of the Ramanna Nikaya. In September 2022 the monks of that body, meeting under his leadership at Getambe, resolved to switch off the lights of all their temples on Vap Poya day in protest against the government's electricity tariff increase.

Sirivimala Thera was known for blunt public comment on politics and governance. In February 2019 he told Central Province Governor Maithri Gunaratne that President Maithripala Sirisena had to take responsibility for the chaotic situation in the country, while adding that the President was a good person whose powers were being used by others.

He was seen as close to the Rajapaksa family. In August 2019 he told presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa that the election was "the last chance" for the country. After Rajapaksa resigned and left Sri Lanka in July 2022, the Thera wrote to President Ranil Wickremesinghe on 1 August 2022 asking him to invite the former president home and provide him with security and the privileges of a former head of state. In that letter he called Rajapaksa a war hero and described the aragalaya protest movement as having been used by conspirators.

He repeatedly argued that politicians should retire at 60, as public servants do. He made the case to G.L. Peiris in December 2022 and to former Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe in March 2024, warning that otherwise Parliament would become an elders' home and that new laws might be needed. He also criticised what he saw as unequal justice, saying ordinary people were punished harshly for petty theft while the powerful escaped for stealing billions.

For years Sirivimala Thera pressed governments to protect the Getambe temple grounds from erosion by the Mahaweli River. In September 2022, after heavy rain, he warned that the roughly 500 year old Bodhi tree, the cetiya and several temple buildings had developed cracks and were in danger of collapsing into the river. He said a protective wall project costing about Rs. 210 million, begun in 2021, had stalled for lack of funds. Minister Roshan Ranasinghe inspected the site and promised to complete the work, according to ITN and the Daily Mirror.

His principal honour was his elevation to Anunayaka of the Sri Lanka Ramanna Maha Nikaya in 2022, formalised at a state attended ceremony on 18 December 2022. The Ramanna Maha Nikaya conferred an honorific title on him at that ceremony, and in later references he was styled with the honorifics Chandrakeerthi Sri Amarawansa Saddharma Vagishwara. He was also addressed as Nayaka Thera, reflecting his seniority.

His comments to visiting leaders were a staple of Sri Lankan news for more than a decade, covered by Ada Derana, Hiru News, Swarnavahini, Newsfirst, ITN, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Times, Ceylon Today and The Morning. In December 2022 The Buddhist Media Network broadcast a profile of him in its Yathiwara Abhiman series on senior monks. The 2019 Sunday Times photograph of Gotabaya Rajapaksa kneeling before him at Getambe became one of the memorable images of that presidential campaign.

His open political positions drew criticism as well as support. His August 2022 letter urging President Wickremesinghe to bring Gotabaya Rajapaksa back with full privileges, and his description of the 2022 protest movement as conspiratorial, came at a time of deep public anger over the economic collapse. Reader comments under reports of his temple preservation appeals and the Vap Poya lights protest in 2022 also questioned public spending on temples during the crisis. No allegation of personal wrongdoing against him was reported in the sources reviewed.

Kappetiyagoda Sirivimala Thera is remembered as the monk who shaped Getambe Rajopavanaramaya for more than forty years and as one of the senior leaders of the Ramanna Nikaya in the Central Province. Ada Derana wrote that he rendered an immense service to the Buddhist revival and the cultural development of Sri Lanka, with Getambe as the centre of his activities, and that he was held in high esteem for fearlessly speaking up for the nation and the religion. His long campaign to protect the Getambe Bodhi from the Mahaweli and his call for politicians to retire at 60 remain the causes most associated with his name.