“Kataragama'', is a famous temple of Lord Muruga celebrated by Sri Lankans from around the country. Owing to its annual festival, thousands of pilgrims go walking to reach this temple. These favours are mostly bound by a promise to be repaid. These Pilgrims travel in groups every year packing along dry ration and a few sets of simple clothing essentials considering their long journey passing thick jungles, hard roads and water bodies. They start their journey in advance before the beginning of the annual festival at kataragama temple and reach the temple closer to the beginning. This hard journey takes like more than a month depending on their starting point. Following are some of the famous halting points of these pilgrims.
Verugal Murugan temple
This temple, with a long history, is one of the major halts of people who travel from Jaffna. Most of the pilgrims who start their journey from Selvachchanithy temple in Jaffna, walk through the A9 and reach this temple that is situated along the A5 roads and relax. This is one halt in the Eastern province, reached after several days of journey through jungles and forests. Pilgrims who stay overnight in this temple, cook their own simple food in groups and take a bath in the river nearby.
Mamangam temple
This is one of the famous temples in Batticaloa with a beautiful lotus pond. This is known for its significance from the ancient epic Ramayana. It is told that deity Hanuman of this ancient epic Ramayana, dipped his tail on to this pond to get rid of the fire lit on his tail to burn Lankapuri, during the reign of king Ravana.
Okanda
Also known as Uganthai murugan temple, is another famous halting point of this pilgrims. From this point, it takes around six days for these pilgrims to reach Katharagama temple through the jungles and streams. It is known to be the most challenging route where the pilgrims even cross some streams by walk.
