Temple of the Sacred Tooth, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Sri Dal­ada Mali­gawa

Tem­ple of the Sacred Tooth is the holi­est Bud­dhist site in Sri Lanka. The tem­ple is located within the old Palace com­plex. When we vis­ited, we needed to go through a rig­or­ous secu­rity check­point due to the bomb­ing by the Tamil Tigers on Jan­u­ary 25, 1998. Once again we were also treated to a guide who took us through the com­plex, explain­ing the rooms, his­tory, cus­toms and best place to stand to get a pic­ture of the tooth cas­ket as the door was opened briefly to allow devo­tees to see the casket.

The belief since ancient times that the pro­tec­tor of the tooth also holds the right to gov­ern the coun­try has made for some col­or­ful his­tory involv­ing kings, wars, and a excit­ing tale of how the last king of India, Guha­siva, employed his daugh­ter, Hema­mala, to secretly trans­port the tooth to Sri Lanka in her hair. She was accom­pa­nied by her hus­band, Danta, both dressed as pil­grims on a long adven­tur­ous voy­age filled with mirac­u­lous events attrib­uted to the tooth, bring­ing them safely to Sri Lankan cap­i­tal Anu­rad­ha­pura. The tooth even­tu­ally made it to its present loca­tion in the mid 16th cen­tury after being trans­ported between kings and pro­tected by monks. If you are inter­ested in read­ing the story in more detail, visit this link on Wikipedia.

When we arrived, our dri­ver intro­duced us to our guide at the far end of the side­walk lead­ing to the palace com­plex. We passed sev­eral stat­ues, one of them being a large statue of Hema­mala and Danta as we walked to the build­ing. After being searched, and leav­ing our shoes and shop­ping bags, we entered the com­plex. Our guide took us through the main hall where drum­mers were play­ing under over­hang­ing tusks, then upstairs into the sanc­tu­ary where the tooth is kept.

When we got there we wanted only to expe­ri­ence being there with no talk­ing. We stood in line with dozens of Sri Lankans wait­ing to walk past the door when the monk opened it reveal­ing the out­er­most gem encrusted gold cas­ket con­tain­ing the tooth. We waited about a half hour, all the while watch­ing peo­ple make offer­ings of fra­grant flow­ers, includ­ing tuberose and frangi­pani along a long table directly oppo­site the door and gated area.

Women with babies were let into the gated area, about 8 foot square, enclosed by ele­gantly carved tim­ber rail­ings. It’s impor­tant for moth­ers to bring their babies to the tem­ple of the tooth before they are a year and a half old to be pre­sented to the Buddha.

After this we toured the library hous­ing a very old Bud­dhist man­u­script, and finally a large main wor­ship hall which was recently con­structed. The walls were lined with num­bered paint­ings telling the story of the move­ment of the tooth lead­ing up to its cur­rent home.

All in all a very mem­o­rable visit.

Watch my slideshow for more pictures!

Tagged as: Buddhism, Buddhist, kandy, sri dalada maligawa, Sri Lanka, temple of the sacred tooth, temple of the tooth