Aluvihare Rock Temple

The cave complex where, in the 1st century BCE, the Pali Canon was written down for the first time — five hundred monks committing an oral tradition to ola leaf during a famine, in case the lineage of reciters was broken. That single act is why Theravada Buddhism has a written scripture. The library was burned by British troops in 1848 and the palm-leaf transcription work continues today.