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History
Located at ancient Gagasiripura, under the mountain of Ambuluwawa, surrounded by an enchanting environment, holding the name of "Lord Budda", Ginaraja Maha Vidyalaya reins producing world famous athletes, sports personalities, doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountant, artists contributing their strengths to the literary world and lot of other Jinaraja sons who are prodly serving mother Sri Lanka. Gampola Jinaraja Maha Vidyalaya, getting ready to celebrate its anniversary on 2015 is situated in Gampola Educational zone. Followings are the great mile stones of Jinaraja Maha Vidyalaya.
Around 1915, while the power of English government was spreading out through Sri Lanka the inhabitants if Sri Lanka the Buddhists were undergoing great many difficulties. Even the Sri Lankans who turned to Christianity and who were able to speak little bit of English were given jobs of lower rank. In such an era tea and coffee plantations were flourishing around Gampola and along with that lot of tea factories were started. As a result the productions of the tea factories needed to be transported to Colombo and the requirements of the factories had to be supplied through Gampola. Thus Gampola became the centre of these transactions. The transportation was not much developed and bullock carts were used to serve the purpose. Therefore the owners of these bullock carts became rich and powerfull too. Mr.M.B. Fonseka, owning more than 50 carts was one of the rich persons around that time.
Education was not given its proper place and Mr.M.B.Fonseka wanted to provide Buddhist children with English education. He rented a house at Keerapana near Gampola and started a school on 18th June in 1915. Then the school was handed over to M.Senanayake making him the head teacher on 9th Ocotber 1916. Mr.E.L De Silva became the principal on 15th June 1917. Then Mr.M.B.Nawarathne who had experience working in several other schools was appointed as the principal on 6th June 1922. He opened the school for Tamil and Muslim students which was only for Buddhist students.
On the death of Mr. Fonseka the founder (on 4th January 1924) the school had to face problems regarding the salaries of the teachers and the rental of the house. The president of Youth Buddhist Association of Gampola , Mr.M.W.R.De Silva (a lawyer) identified the helpless situation of the school and asked help from “Parama Vignaratha Buddhist Association”. As a result of that Jinaraja Maha Vidyalaya was taken under control of “Parama Vignaratha Buddhist Association”. Then Mr.M.W.R.De Silva contributed a great service in transferring the school to the new location Weegulawatta. The school was established in a temporary building on 7th October 1926. The land was bought for Rs.2000.00 and a building was to be built by Youth Buddhist Association of Gampola. Unfortunately the temporary building made out of wattles was broken down by a flood on 8th June 1928.
A new building was started to build on 9th October 1928 with Rs.5000 from the government and Rs.20000 from the well-wishers (both Buddhists and non-Buddhists) . Since the total amount of Rs.25000 was not sufficient for the building and since there was a delay on the government to pay the promised amount of money the architecture of the building Mr.Suwaris Perera sold one of his own lands and completed the school building. The building included six classrooms, a compound inside the building and a two-story building with a main hall. The governor Honorable Sir Herbert Stanly opened it on 3rd February 1930. Mr.Suwaris Perera was honored by presenting him a gold pound by Youth Buddhist Association of Gampola.
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