Battaramulla

History

Battaramulla is adjacent to Kotte, which lay on the opposite side of the Diyawanna Oya. At the time of the Kotte Kingdom, the cooks at the royal palace would travel there daily by ferry across the Diyawanna Oya. The place they embarked was called bat-tota-mulla ('cooked rice-landing-corner', 'cooked rice' being a synonym for a meal), which became 'Battaramulla'. Kotiyagoda, a suburb of Battaramulla, derived its name from kotuwe-egoda ('the shore opposite the fortress'). This pattern was followed when the Parliament was shifted to the Doowa island in Kotte, several government offices being set up in Battaramulla thereafter. After the British invasion of the island, they built a church in 1850 in Battaramulla and called the village Thalangama. The invaders wanted to eliminate the name of the old village Battaramulla and mentioned the area as Thalangama in every legal document. However, the old Sinhalese Buddhist villagers wanted to protect the old village named Battaramulla. In 1887 a temple called Sri Sudharmaramaya was established in Battaramulla and the Buddhist monks in the temple emphasized the importance of protecting the old name of the village, which belonged to the Kotte kingdom earlier. After establishing the postal service in Sri Lanka, the post office was established in Battaramulla called as Thalangama sub-post office. Sri Lanka gained independence on 4 February 1948, and in 1970 the sub-post office was promoted into the main post office called Battaramulla.