Keerimalai Sacred Water Spring and Naguleswaram temple

Keerimalei (Mangoose hill)is a popular natural water spring lies on the northern coast close to the Keerimalai beach that situated 25km North from the Jaffna town in Sri Lanka. Dambakolapatuna Viharaya is also lie passing this Keeramale Pond, You can explore this little-known wonders of nature if you plan a trip to the north of SriLanka.

Keerimalai Water Spring

It has a scenic and attractive location adjoining the sea. Only the stone wall separates the spring water and sea. Although the tank is so close to the sea, it manages to get fresh water from an underground freshwater source. It would be a very different experience for a traveller getting soothing and calming water close from the sea without any salty sense.

It says that the spring has an underground connection with the bottomless well at Nilavarai which located 11km away from the pond. When it flows through the fissures of the carbonate rocks, it contains high mineral content and chemical value that gives therapeutic benefits to the human body.

As the Hindu belief, there is a direct connection to the Holy rivers which in India, through the cave system under limestones and believe it has a miraculous healing property to cure various skin problems and induce childless women to achieve pregnancy. Because of the civil war in Srilanka, water spring was shadowed from the travellers, and now roads have been opened for a better experience at Keeramalei.

Legends and Myths

There was an Indian Priest called Nagula Muni who had a Mongoose face as a result of a curse by God Shiva. He came to Sri Lanka hoping to cure his deformed face using Keeramalai Pond's holy water, after one good bath from Keeramalai Pond, his mongoose head turned in to a human again, as gratitude, Nagula Muni constructed a shrine for God Shiva and devoted his life by doing daily service in the Shivalingam temple which he built.

There is a similar story in the 7th century, a Chola Princess named "Maruthapuraveega Valli" daughter of King Tisai Yukkira Colam, who had a horse face able to break the curse by bathing in Keeramalai spring, as an honour, she built the Maviddapuram Shrine of Kandaswamy meaning "city of the face-horse disappearance".