In Sinhala folk tradition, ‘vas kavi’ are curse verses, chanted in the belief that they bring misfortune on their target, while ‘seth kavi’ are blessing verses that invoke protection and good fortune. In October 2026, both came back into fashion online: a set of ‘vas kavi’ aimed at the government spread widely, and verses blessing the President followed.
Right in the middle of this, a monk chanted ‘seth kavi’ for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake at a Kandy protest held by a group called “Citizens of the Mandate” in support of the government’s anti-corruption and anti-drug drive. Soon after, a photo comparison went viral claiming the “monk” was really an ordinary man who stands beside the President, wrapped in a robe for the occasion. Here are the posts that spread it.
Social Media Posts:
Facebook | Archived Link Facebook | Archived Link
The same photo comparison also went viral as short videos, like this one.
Claim examined: A man seen standing beside the President in a photo put on a monk’s robe and chanted ‘seth kavi’ for the President at the Kandy protest.
Fact-Check:
On October 22, 2026, the “Citizens of the Mandate” group held a protest in Kandy under slogans such as “No one is above the law, let the law apply fairly to all” and “Let us defeat the conspiracy against punishing thieves, the corrupt and drug dealers.”
During that protest, a monk who attended chanted ‘seth kavi’ for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Facebook | Archived Link
The posts above suggested this was no real monk, but a man from the President’s circle who had been put in a robe to chant the verses and fool the public.
The “Monk” in the Viral Photo Was Edited In
To find out who the man beside President Anura Kumara Dissanayake really was, we ran the photo through a reverse image search.
The results were clear. The man shown as the monk in the viral photo is a different person from the man standing beside the President in the same photo as published by mainstream media.
Here is a comparison of the viral photo and the original.
We then checked the viral image with an AI detection tool to see whether the original had been altered with artificial intelligence to make the man look like the monk. The tool returned a high probability that the image had been altered and generated using AI.
The Original Photo Is From the President’s October 2024 Visit to Katuwapitiya
The original photo, also carried by mainstream media, was taken on October 6, 2024, when President Anura Kumara Dissanayake visited St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya, Negombo, and met families of the Easter Sunday attack victims. The original photo appears in media reports on the visit here and here.
The Man in the Original Photo Is a Presidential Security Officer
The face that was swapped out did not belong to the monk at all. It belongs to one of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s closest security officers, who is regularly seen travelling with the President in media reports and videos.
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5
The Presidential Media Division also confirmed to us that the man in the photo is a presidential security officer.
Many people have also mistaken this officer for S. F. Ratnayake. He is not S. F. Ratnayake. Information on the real S. F. Ratnayake is here.
This officer, who is usually seen at the President’s side, has drawn plenty of social media chatter ever since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power. Our fact-check on one such episode, from a year ago, is here.
The Monk Who Chanted Was Ven. Udugoda Nandaratana Thero
A news report published on October 22, 2026 named the monk who chanted ‘seth kavi’ in favour of the government and the President that day as “Ven. Udugoda Nandaratana Thero.” The video is here. The umbrellas, the microphones, and the people in the background of that video match the left-hand frame of the viral photo.
A keyword search using the monk’s name led us to the University of Kelaniya’s Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies. Its list of postgraduate researchers’ names “Ven. Udugoda Nandaratana” under 2024, as a monk reading for an MPhil in the Sinhala medium. His research is on the Buddhist tradition in modern Sri Lanka, and Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne and Dr. Ratnasiri Ratnayake are named as his supervisors. The list is here.
To confirm further, we spoke by phone to Ven. Udugoda Nandaratana Thero of Udugoda Sudarmaramaya in Wattegama. The Thero told us he has been ordained for 53 years. He said he had lodged a police complaint on October 29 over the false posts that presented him as a layman, and that he would also complain to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
The Posts Spread Amid the ‘Vas Kavi’ and ‘Seth Kavi’ Row
As the ‘vas kavi’ targeting the present administration spread, verses wishing the President well also began appearing on social media. The posts targeting the monk who chanted ‘seth kavi’ spread against that backdrop.
Dematagoda Police had also rejected a social media report claiming that a young man had been questioned over the ‘vas kavi’. Our English fact-check on another false claim linked to the ‘vas kavi’, about the police spokesperson, is here.
Whether a monk should publicly chant verses for or against a government is a matter of open debate in Sri Lanka, and anyone is free to criticize it. Using an edited photo to pass off the Thero as a layman, however, is simply untrue.
Join us to learn more about our fact-check investigations.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Google News | TikTok | YouTube
Conclusion:
The monk who chanted ‘seth kavi’ for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Kandy was not a layman from the President’s circle in disguise. He is Ven. Udugoda Nandaratana Thero of Udugoda Sudarmaramaya, Wattegama, who told us he has been a monk for 53 years and is listed as an MPhil researcher at the University of Kelaniya.
The photo used to claim otherwise was created by altering, with AI, the face of a presidential security officer in an original photo that has been online since October 6, 2024, nearly two years ago. The Presidential Media Division confirmed the man in that photo is a security officer, and there is no credible evidence that the Thero is a layman.
