Mahiyangana Raja Maha Vihara, Buddhist temple in Mahiyanganaya, Sri Lanka.

Mahiyangana Raja Maha Vihara is a Buddhist temple in Mahiyangana, Badulla District, Uva Province. Its main stupa has a wide, low drum base fronted by a stepped white terrace with a small entrance structure and a low balustrade bearing circular medallions. Above the drum rises a plain white hemispherical dome, then a square harmika, and from that a tall conical spire of stacked rings tapering to a point. Trees flank the stupa on both sides.

The Mahavamsa records that the Buddha came to Mahiyangana in the ninth month after his enlightenment, his first visit to the island. The yakka chieftain Saman, having heard the discourse, received a handful of the Buddha's hair and enshrined it in a stupa 10 feet high, the first built in Sri Lanka. Devanampiyatissa's brother Moolabhaya later deposited a neck-bone relic and raised it to 30 cubits; Dutthagamani enlarged it to 120 feet. Renovation under D. S. Senanayake's society began in 1953 and ended in 1980 with a new pinnacle.

The temple's name derives from the Sinhala bimithenna, and the site was known in the past as Miyuguna. The stupa enshrines the kesha dhatu, the hair relic given by the Buddha to the yakka chieftain Saman, now honoured as the deity Sumana Saman. Devotees come to venerate this relic, and the temple is one of the Solosmasthana, the sixteen sacred sites of Sri Lanka.

The shrine sits on the outskirts of Mahiyanganaya town and connects via well-maintained roads to larger cities like Kandy, Ampara, and Monaragala. Visitors should wear comfortable footwear and dress respectfully when entering the sacred areas.

The first stupa on the island was a 10-foot structure built by the Yakka chieftain Saman to enshrine a handful of the Buddha's hair. King Devanampiyatissa later had a neck-bone relic deposited and the stupa enlarged to 30 cubits.