Maha Sona is a fearsome demon in Sinhalese folklore, most powerfull demon second to none, who is believed to haunt afterlife especially on graveyards surrounded by human corpses, large rocks and hills, and Junctions where three roads meet, are the most common haunting grounds of this demon. Demon kills its human prey by crushing their shoulders and also by afflicting illnesses. Usually kills people at night and dusk when confronted alone and leave his mark of a hand embossed on the flesh of the body after this, he also able to possess humans. In such cases, exorcism rituals are performed by Kattadiya (exorcist specialist) to repel the demon.
Origin story
Maha Sona is formally known as Ritigala Jayasena, a human warrior giant who served in King Dutugemunu's army among the 10 great Giants. There was a celebration after the victory from the war between invading king Elara and King Dutugemunu. 10 Great Giants also participated in this ceremony with their family.
Jayasena offended another fierce warrior in a drunken stupor by insulting his beautiful wife. Gotaimbara challenges him for a battle and schedules a date and the time to the fight on a graveyard. On the scheduled day, The fight was started with a grand ceremony. They fought with each other showing their strength.
They schedule the Date and the Time to the fight at an open Graveyard. On the scheduled day, The fight was started with a grand ceremony. They fought with each other showing their strength. Gotaimbara decapitates Jayasena by a single flying kick on to Jayasena's head.
Seen the embarrassing situation of Jayasen, a deity called "Wesamuni" took pity and tries to resurrect before cadaver goes cold, the deity couldn't find his head on time. Time is passed, there is no more time left before the body goes cold forever. In the chaos of finding Jayasena's head, the deity found a bear head in a hurry and fits the bear head backward to Jayasena's body and revives him with grotesque form, he also gave him some supernatural powers to the newly born demon.
People who encountered him terrified to the point of falling ill mostly because he was found on graveyards. This new persona is dubbed as 'Maha Sona' meaning in Sinhala "Great Demon of the Graveyard".