Controversy surrounds the origins of the temples at Trincomalee where today a modern Hindu Kovil, popularly called Koneswaram has been set up. Though a tradition is quoted in support of the antiquity of the modern Hindu temple dating to the time of a mythical ruler named Kulakoddayan, after the Portuguese Captain General Azavedo destroyed the old temple complex and his successor Constantine de Sa removed the material from the destroyed temples to build a fortalice overlooking the bay, nothing remained there except the Bodhi tree where occasionally offerings were made by different people to their respective deities.
This Bodhi tree like the Bodhi tree at Killiveddi in Trincomalee district (Sansoni Commission Report) and in the Jaffna peninsula (Guruge), was destroyed between 1956 and 1964. The observations by Alexander Alexander, the first British writer (1805) who was a gunner in the Trincomalee garrison in his two volume book, makes no mention of temples in his time but a small church and people performing some rites from time to time at a spot close to the sea and a young man being ordained which is obviously a reference to an ordination of a Buddhist monk (samanera). He also saw a temple nearby where the occupants looked very austere and on the walls of whose gloomy looking buildings were paintings of crocodiles (Makara designs?).
By Bandu de Silva
Sunday Island -December 12, 2006 published in Colombo, Sri Lanka
The ancient port of Trincomalee, referred to as Gokanna or Gona Thittha in the Mahavamsa occupied a very strategic and central position in maritime activity in the Bay of Bengal... It was the southernmost point from which ships sailing to South East Asia and further departed and returned after the voyages (Queyroz). The coastline north of Trincomalee harbour was dotted with small landing places. The 8th century Tiriyaya Sanskrit inscription which was evidently incised by a group of merchant-mariners from Northern Indian ports speaks of the amity that prevailed among mariners and between them and the populace. The same inscription refers to the earlier visit of two merchant-mariners by the names Tapasra and Vallaka (Pali: Tapassu and Bhalluka) which the tradition associates with the Buddha’s first two lay disciples who traded between the east Indian ports and lands beyond. Queyroz who gives a long description of the port, bay and sea environs says that the Trincomalee, Cottiyar and Batticaloa ports "commanded the whole Gulf of Bengal".
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