This Jetavanarama dagoba, looming impressively from the plain, is said to be the highest brick-built dagoba of its kind in the world. Started by King Mahasena (AD 275-292), its massive scale was designed in a competitive spirit to rival the orthodox Maha Vihara. The paved platform on which it stands covers more than 3 hectres and it has a diameter of over 100 meters. In 1860 Emerson Tennent, in his book Ceylon, calculated that it had enough bricks to build a 3 meter high brick wall 25 sm thick from London to Edinburgh, equal to the distance from the Southern tip of Sri Lanka to Jaffna and back down the coast to Trincomalee. The dagoba is being renovated with helo from UNESCO.