Adam’s Peak: Trekking Sri Lanka’s most sacred mountain

“‘Every second, new colours,” said the guide, Dharme, as the sky turned from crimson to gold. As the sun rose, the landscape below took shape – distant peaks soared above valleys which dipped beneath a canopy of mist. Waterfalls plunged, white stupas peeked out from the jungle, and coloured flags were illuminated in the early light.

It was 6am on the summit of Sri Lanka’s sacred mountain, the conical Adam’s Peak (or Sri Pada as it’s known locally), which has been venerated since antiquity for a footprint-shaped indentation, which Buddhists believe was left by Buddha and Muslims attribute to Adam, Hindus to Shiva, and some Christians to St Thomas.

According to Sinhala tradition, Buddha left his mark on Sri Pada (“sacred footprint”) on his third and final visit to Sri Lanka. Some say it is actually impressed upon a sapphire beneath the rock. A temple has been built to house the imprint, to which Sri Lankan devotees aspire to make a pilgrimage at least once in their life. Set off before dawn from Nallatanniya, deep in hill country, to reach the top in time to see the “shadow of the peak” – when the sun projects the shape of the mountain on to the mist below.

The mountain is home to all sorts of wildlife such as the slender loris and the purple-faced langur. Each year, scores of butterflies flock there to die in a mysterious migration pattern that has given the mountain the nickname Samanalakande, “butterfly mountain”. “And there are leopards,” Dharme said.

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