It is a peaceful place on an island in the large Bolgoda Lake, which is about 4.0 km (2.5 mi) across and brackish as it connects with the sea.

Being situated an island in a lagoon, the climate is quite hot and humid, but a fully grown canopy layer of the forest provides a comfortable environment for the meditators.

Since that time, though interrupted by two world wars, Western as well as Sinhalese monks and laymen have lived, studied, practiced, and spread the Dhamma from the Island Hermitage.

Nyanatiloka was finally able to return to Sri Lanka in 1926, he found his beloved Island Hermitage in utter ruin and had to rebuild it anew.

It now included the adjacent small island of Metiduwa which had already been used for some time but was now officially donated by Lady Evadne de Silva, a long-time supporter of Ven.

A detailed account of the history of the Island Hermitage and the monks who lived on it can be found in The Life of Nyanatiloka Thera: The Biography of a Western Buddhist Pioneer, Bhikkhu Nyanatusita & Hellmuth Hecker, Kandy 2008.

The chapter house which is built on lake is the place where the community of monks, particularly gather to listen Pāṭimokkha recitation on a fortnightly basis as well as to perform other monastic procedures as the need arises.

The iguanas (big lizards / small Dinosaurs) keep discreetly to themselves, but are capable of whipping you with their tails if you chance to step over one lying on the path.

One of the most notable aspects of the library is that it has amassed a collection of the Pāli Canon in six different scripts i.e. Sinhalese, Thai, Burmese, Devanagari, Roman and German.

Therefore, Island Hermitage library can be seen as a place where a beginner to Buddhism can read about the basics and a scholar can carry out his research.

As of 2018, the library has been rehoused in an air-conditioned room and opened for both local and foreign monks and laity-acolytes to carry out their researches.

Moreover, this project aims at developing an electronic catalogue database of the library's contents in order to retrieve the data efficiently for research work and to keep the collection intact.