From Epic Ramayana - Sita’s Agni Pariksha (Fire Test) Temple in Sri Lanka
In my quest to personally see where the legendary Sita wife of Rama “Agni” or Fire Test to prove her chastity I travelled all the way to Welimada on the Nuwara Eliya Road and found the temple with some difficulty!
About 2 kms from Welimada town, on the Welimada-Nuwara Eliya Road, (this place lies about 14 km from Sita Eliya in Nuwara Eliya) lies a small Buddhist Temple called the Divurumpola temple. This is the place where Sita Devi underwent the “Agni Pariksha”. After Rama successfully defeated Rawana in the final battle, the road was now clear for him to unite with his wife Sita.
Sita was overwhelmed with joy that she was once again going to be united with her husband Rama. But Rama kept his distance as he seemed in doubt about her purity after her stay with Ravana. She strongly declared her loyalty to Rama and wanted to prove herself by doing the Agni Pariksha or the Fire Test. She instructed Laksmana, Rama’s brother, to build a fire to walk through, and flames would swallow her had she been disloyal to Rama in thought or in deed. Everyone watched in horror when she walked through the flames calmly. Sita emerged out of the flames without any harm, Rama embraced her and told her something like “I never doubted your loyalty but it was my duty to satisfy the minds of others and to retain respect as their King.”
I reckoned few locals visit this place but it has become very popular among Indian tourists who have to buy a ticket (Rs.250) to enter the temple. Though the legend is about Sita and her Fire Test, I found a number of statues of Lord Buddha, and I could not understand the connection between the two. However, the Buddhist temple authorities have taken great care to preserve the place and kept it in an immaculate condition. The exact place of the Fire Test appears to be a walled enclosure where there is a Bo Tree and a Buddha statue at present.
There is a huge statue of Hanuman, an intellectual monkey and minister of army, who helped Rama to go in search of Sita over the ocean and found her imprisoned in Lanka by Ravana and also helped Rama in his battle against Ravana. The story of Hanuman in the epic Ramayana itself goes into huge volumes!
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