Hospital

The Ancient Cities

The remains of a 9th-century hospital sit a stone's throw from the site museum. The hospital consisted of a number of cells. A bat oruwa (large stone trough) sits near the entrance. The interior of the trough is carved in the shape of a human form, and the patient would climb into this to be immersed in healing oils.

Inscriptions have revealed that the hospital had its specialists – there is reference to a mandova, a bone and muscle specialist, and to a puhunda vedek, a leech doctor. Surgical instruments were unearthed from the site.

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Nearby The Ancient Cities attractions

1. Mihintale Museum

0.1 MILES

This small museum on the road leading to the stairway base is worth a short visit for its modest collection of artefacts collected from Mihintale.

2. Quincunx

0.19 MILES

The remains of a quincunx of buildings, laid out like the five dots on a die, sits beside the path leading from the museum to the stairway.

3. Stairway

0.23 MILES

In a series of flights, 1843 ancient granite slab steps lead majestically up the hillside, passing the occasional rock inscription and side trail. The…

4. Indikatu Seya Complex

0.24 MILES

On the road leading to Old Rd, west of the site proper, are the remains of a monastery enclosed in the ruins of a stone wall. Visible here are two dagobas…

5. Kantaka Chetiya

0.25 MILES

At the first landing, a side flight of 100 steps branches right to this partly ruined dagoba, one of the oldest at Mihintale. It’s 12m high (originally…

6. Monks’ Refectory & Relic House

0.35 MILES

On the second landing is the monks’ refectory with huge stone troughs that the lay followers kept filled with rice for the monks.

7. Mihintale Ruins

0.35 MILES

The sleepy ruins of Mihintale are closely associated with the earliest introduction of Buddhism to Sri Lanka. A ceremonial staircase climbs past pools,…

8. Sinha Pokuna

0.36 MILES

Just below the monks’ refectory on the second landing, and near the entrance if you are coming via Old Rd, is a small pool surmounted by a 2m-high rampant…

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