It’s very interesting. Why are all these people scared of accepting that Sri Lanka historically had Mahayana Buddhism and the temples dedicated to it? We had the statues of goddess Tara, Bodhisattva statues found as well. It’s quite a need to discuss about the historical context and archaeological findings leading to Mahayana and Vajrayana too in Sri Lanka, if Professor agrees to do it. 😊
I find its quite inaccurate to say Uththarapatha was Odisha. Uththarapatha was a part of silk route that connected South asia to the rest of the world. Uttarapata ran all the way from todays Jalalabadh in Durrand line(pakistan afghan border) to Chittagong harbour in eastern Bangladesh. Its recorded that emporors like Asoka of Mauryan era , Samudragupta of Gupta era , and even Muslim generals like Sher Shah Suri renovated this and this was again renovated in British period and they renamed it as Grand Trunk road. And there was another road called Dhakkinapatha that connected mainly Kalinga and southern India to rest of India this started from Saranath and came all the way down to Kalinga and then followed further down in to Chola and Pandya kingdoms. So the Saranath was the junction that Uttarapatha and Dakkhinapatha met in. So Saranath used to be a lucrative trade hub and there were a lot of traders in Saranath and sorrounding areas doing their businesses. Thapassu and Bhallika were 2 of them.
