Kadadora Vihara, Buddhist temple in Kotmale, Sri Lanka

Kadadora Vihara is a Buddhist temple near Kotmale whose ruins have been submerged since 1979. The sunken remains contain sculpted Buddha statues and deity figures that occasionally become visible when water levels drop.

Kadadora Vihara stood at the foot of Kadadora hill until the Kotmale Reservoir, built under the Mahaweli Development Programme begun on 28 February 1970, was opened in 1985. Work on the reservoir started in 1979, submerging the temple along with 57 villages and 54 religious sites. On 20 March 1983 Gamini Dissanayake initiated the Mahaweli Maha Seya to commemorate the lost shrines.

The central shrine, the Garbhagriha, held the main Buddha statue, and its walls carried paintings and frescoes of events from the Buddha's life and Jataka stories. Smaller rooms and open spaces around it served community gatherings and religious ceremonies. The temple is also called Kadadora Sri Priyabimbaramaya Vihara.

The ruins lie on the bed of the Kotmale Reservoir and are exposed only in years when the water drops unusually low, so sightings are rare rather than seasonal. The reservoir was opened in 1985 after construction began in 1979. When the water is high, nothing of the temple can be seen.

When the reservoir is low, the ruins reveal the Buddha statue, the flower altar, several deity figures and fragments of the makara torana at the entrance to the Buddha house. The Kadadora hill and Thispane hill villages were flooded, and the Mahaweli Maha Seya was begun on 20 March 1983 by Gamini Dissanayake to remember the submerged shrines.