By the mid-18th century,
upasampada – higher ordination as a
bhikkhu (monk), as distinct from
sāmaṇera or novitiate ordination – had become extinct in Sri Lanka. The Buddhist order had become extinct thrice during the preceding five hundred years and was reestablished during the reigns of
Vimaladharmasuriya I of Kandy (1591–1604) and
Vimaladharmasuriya II of Kandy (1687–1707). These reestablishments were short lived. During this period the
Vinaya was virtually abandoned and some members of the
Sangha in the
Kingdom of Kandy privately held land, had wives and children, resided in private homes and were called
Ganinnanses. On the initiative of
Weliwita Sri Saranankara Thera (1698–1778) the Thai monk
Upali Thera visited Kandy during the reign of
Kirti Sri Rajasinha of Kandy (1747–1782) and once again reestablished the Buddhist order in Sri Lanka in 1753. It was called the
Siam Nikaya after a name for
Thailand. However, in 1764, merely a decade after the reestablishment of the Buddhist order in Sri Lanka by reverend Upali, a group within the newly created Siam Nikaya succeeded in restricting upasampada only to the
Govigama caste. It was a period when the traditional nobility of the Kingdom of Kandy was decimated by continuous wars with the Dutch rulers of the maritime provinces. In the maritime provinces too, a new order was replacing the old. Mandarampura Puvata, a text from the Kandyan period, narrates the above radical changes to the monastic order and shows that it was not a unanimous decision by the body of the sangha. It says that thirty-two 'senior' members of the Sangha who opposed this change were banished to
Jaffna by the leaders of the reform. The Govigama exclusivity of the Sangha thus secured in 1764 was almost immediately challenged by other castes who without the patronage of the King of Kandy or of the
British, held their own
upasampada ceremony at Totagamuwa Vihara in 1772. Another was held at Tangalle in 1798. Neither of these ceremonies were approved by the
Siam Nikaya which claimed that these were not in accordance with the
Vinaya rules. King Rajadhi Rajasinghe (1782–1798) had made an order restricting the right of obtaining higher ordination to the members of a particular caste. As a consequence of this 'exclusively Govigama' policy adopted in 1764 by the Siyam Nikaya, the Buddhists in the maritime provinces were denied access to a valid ordination lineage. Hoping to rectify this situation, wealthy laymen from the maritime provinces financed an expedition to Siam to found a new monastic lineage. In 1799, Walitota Sri Gnanawimalatisssa a monk from the
Salagama caste, from Balapitiya on the south western coast of Sri Lanka, departed for Siam with a group of novices to seek a new succession of Higher ordination. Two Sahabandu Mudaliyars and the other prominent dayakayas undertook to bear the expenses of the mission and make the necessary arrangements for the journey. But during the trip, they had an incident where the ship suddenly stopped moving. Once it was able to move again, the Dutch-national captain of the ship suggested that Buddhism was in a more flourishing condition in Amarapura, Burma, than in Siam. The monk agreed to the suggestion of the captain and the latter, through the Dutch consul at
Hanthawaddy (now Bago, Burma), obtained the necessary introductions to the religious and administrative authorities in Amarapura. The first
bhikkhu was ordained in Burma in 1800 by the
Sangharaja of Burma, his party having been welcomed to Burma by King
Bodawpaya. The members of the mission studied under the Sangharaja for two years. The initial mission returned to Sri Lanka in 1803. Soon after their return to the island they established a
udakhupkhepa sima (a flotilla of boats moved together to form a platform on the water) at the
Maduganga River,
Balapitiya and, under the most senior Burmese bhikkhus who accompanied them, held an upasampada ceremony on the
Uposatha of
Vesak. The new fraternity came to be known as the Amarapura Nikaya after the capital city of King Bodawpaya. Several subsequent trips to Burma by
Karava and
Durava monks as well, created by 1810 a core group of ordained monks and provided the required quorum for higher ordination of Amarapura Nikaya monks in Sri Lanka. The higher ordination denied to them in 1764 by the Govigama conspirators had been regained and they were soon granted recognition by the colonial British government. However, the radical change of ordination rules by the Siam Nikaya in 1764 and its continuance despite it being contrary to the teachings of the
Gautama Buddha, plagues the Sri Lankan Buddhist Sangha, which remains divided on caste lines. On the contrary, the mostly post 13th Century
Dravidian origins of the Durava, Karava and Salagama have been used as a justification for favouring largely pre-13th Century Sinhalese by the
Siyam Nikaya. == Significance ==