Sri Dalada Maligawa
Kandy was the capital of the Sinhalese Kings from 1592 to 1815. Fortified by a terrain of mountains and the difficult approach Kandy managed to operate in independence from Dutch, Portuguese and the English till 1815. The city is a world heritage site declared by UNESCO, in part due to this temple.
The Sri Dalada Maligawa or The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is a temple in the city of Kandy in Sri Lanka. It was built within the royal palace complex which houses the one of the two surviving relic of the tooth of Buddha, an object of veneration for Buddhists. The other tooth relic is believed to be enshrined in a stupa called Somawathi Chethiya.
The Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy, the temple which houses the Sacred Tooth Relic of The Buddha, is possibly the most sacred Buddhist shrine in the world. It is venerated not only by Buddhists in Sri Lanka but by Buddhists all over the world.King Wimaladharmasuriya I (1592 - 1603), the first to select Kandy as the ruling capital originally built a two storied Temple for the Relic and brought the tooth relic from Delgamuwa near Kuruwita in Sabaragamuwa which has been hidden for protection. Remains of this temple no longer exist. Wimaladharmasuriya II (1686 - 1706) built a three storied temple and his son king Viraparakrama Narendrasinha (1706 - 1738), the last Sinhalese king to rule the country, built a new two storied temple temple seeing that the old temple built by his father has decayed. The last king of Sri lanka, Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe (1797 - 1814) built the Pattirippuwa (the Octagon). Originally, the Pattirippuwa (octagon) was part of the royal palace. It was used by the king to address his follow countrymen. Today the Pattirippuwa has become a part of the temple and houses ancient textures written in ola leaves.The entrance to the temple complex is through the "Maha Vahalkada". There are two walls on the sides of the "Vahalkada". The outer wall is called "Walakulu Bamma" (wall of clouds). This same pattern is also used in the wall surrounding the Kandy lake. The inner wall is called "Diyareli Bamma" (wall of water ripples). Both these walls are built with holes to place oil lanterns during the night.
After passing the "Vahalkada" and the moat, you come to a "Makara Thorana". Next is the tunnel "ambarawa". Passing this you come to the ground floor of the temple complex. The lower floor of the building called "pallemaluwa". This inner chamber is fortified with a large wooden door and decorated with bronze and ivory. The area in front of the door is called the "Hevisi Mandapaya" (Drummers Courtyard) where the daily rituals are carried out.
The tooth relic is kept in the upper floor in the chamber called "Vadahitina Maligawa" The door ot this chamber is covered with gold silver and ivory. The tooth relic is encased in seven gold caskets studded with precious stones. The outer casket is studded by precious stones offered to the tooth relic by various rulers.On the right to the relic is the "Perahara Karanduwa" (relic chamber used in the annual Asala Mangalaya perahara procession) kept inside a bullet proof glass display. This has been donated by India. Over the relic chamber there is a golden lotus flower studded with precious stones hanging from the ceiling.
On to the left of the temple is the new building which houses the taxidermised remains of the Maligawa Tusker - Raja. This magnificent tusker was captured in the jungles of Eravur in the Batticaloa District 1925. He was purchased by Tikiri Banda Manampitiya Dissawe for Rs 3,300/- in 1937 and was donated to the temple by him. For over 50 years Raja carried the golden casket which carried the tooth relic and in 1984 he was declared as a national treasure by the government. This is only the second time a tusker has been declared a national treasure. Raja died In 1988 after a long illness and then it was decided that he to be taxidermised. This is first time a tusker has been taxidermised.
National Museum
Next to the Temple of the Tooth, the Kandy National Museum once housed the concubines of the Kings of Kandy and now contains a clutter of royal and noble relics including thrones, scepters and ceremonial swords, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, before the kingdom's final decline. It was here that the Kandyan chiefs finally surrendered to the British in 1815. After inviting them in to depose the unpopular king Sri Wickrama Rajasinha, the rebel chiefs attempted to dismiss the British with perfunctory thanks, only to find that their new rulers had no intention of leaving. The museum is open Saturday-Thursday 09:00-17:00.
History
According to legend, the tooth was taken from the Buddha as he lay on his funeral pyre. It was smuggled to Sri Lanka in 313 AD, hidden in the hair of Princess Hemamali who fled the Hindu armies besieging her father's kingdom in India.
It immediately became an object of great reverence and was enshrined in a series of nested jeweled reliquaries. The tooth was brought out for special occasions and paraded on the backs of elephants, which are sacred to the Buddha. where it survived numerous attempts to capture and destroy it.
When the capital was moved to Kandy, the tooth was taken to the new city and placed in temples built to honor it. The temple was originally built under Kandyan kings between 1687 and 1707, but later severely damaged during the 18th-century colonial wars against the Portugese and Dutch. After the wars, the original wooden structures were restored in stone.
What to See
On the outside, the temple buildings are not magnificent or elaborately decorated. White with red roofs, they cluster around Kandy Lake (the island in the middle once housed the king's harem).
In striking contrast to the plain exterior, the interiors of the temple buildings are richly carved and decorated with inlaid woods, ivory, and lacquer.
Around the entire complex is a low white stone wall, delicately and simply carved with openings that give a filigree effect. During celebrations, candles are placed in the openings, lighting up the entire front.
The relic of the tooth is kept in a two-story inner shrine fronted by two large elephant tusks. The relic rests on a solid gold lotus flower, encased in jeweled caskets that sit on a throne.
The temple is joined to the Pattiripuwa (Octagon) tower, built in 1803, that was originally a prison but now houses a collection of palm-leaf manuscripts. The king's palace is also in the temple compound.
Festivals & Events
The tooth relic is removed from its shrine only once a year, during the Esala Perahera, a 10-day torchlight parade of dancers and drummers, dignitaries, and ornately decorated elephants. It is now one of the better-known festivals in Asia, and it may be the largest Buddhist celebration in the world.
This ritual procession and festival began in the 18th century. During the full moon in late July or early August, a royal male elephant carries the reliquary of the sacred tooth and leads the procession, flanked by two perfectly matched, smaller elephants.
In the meantime, the casket is honored as its representative.
As many as 100 elephants, dressed in elaborate finery, make their way into town while torches and fire dancers fend off curses. Whip-cracking porters clear the way through the throngs of pilgrims, followed by musicians, jugglers, torch bearers, boy dancers and acrobats, and members of noble families in Ceylonese garb.
On the last night, the procession moves from the city to the temple, led by elders in the costumes of the ancient kings of Kandy and lit by handheld candles. The procession flows into the temple compound to encircle the shrine, following the route of the sun in its course across the skies.
Attendance at the Esala Perahera numbers at about a million people. The festival brings today all ranks of Sri Lankan society in a vast throng of devotees and interested onlookers.
Because of the national character of the shrine, many Tamil Hindus and mixed-blood Christians take part as an expression of their common cultural heritage.
At the festival, the president and leaders of Sri Lanka continue the nationalist Buddhist tradition by taking part in a ceremony in which they dedicate their service to the people in the presence of the sacred relic.
Kandy Esala Perahera
The Kandy Esala Perahera is the most magnificent spectacle to be witnessed in Sri Lanka. Perahera means procession, but this is no ordinary procession. The beginnings of the Perahera go back to the third century AD, when King Megavanna decreed that once a year the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha should be brought out of its enshrinement in the Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Tooth) so that homage could be made. Today’s Perahera did not commence until the 18th century, when Siamese Buddhist monks invited to help restore the island’s Theravada orthodoxy complained to the king that the predominance of Kandy’s four major Hindu dewales (temples) was improper in a Buddhist royal capital. The king therefore ordered that a new perahera be instituted in which processions representing the four dewales should be incorporated.
The Perahera adheres to this tradition, with the columns representing the dewales leading the way, each followed by a number of caparisoned elephants. In the vanguard is the column from the Natha Dewale - Natha being the tutelary deity of Kandy, who is identified with Maitreya, the Buddha-to-be. Next comes the Vishnu Dewale – Vishnu, besides being one of the major gods of the Hindu pantheon, is also the deity to whom the welfare of Buddhism in the island is entrusted. Then there is the Skanda Dewale – Skanda being the war deity of Kataragama - and finally the Pattini Dewale – Pattini being the goddess of health and chastity.
Behind the four dewales comes the column from the Dalada Maligawa with a magnificent tusker on whose back is a howdah containing the karanduwa, which is a replica of the dagoba-shaped casket that preserves the tooth relic. More elephants follow, and then, dressed in his extraordinary attire of office, walks the Diyawardana Nilame, the chief trustee of the Dalada Maligawa.
The people of Kandy are represented in the Perahera by school children and performers such as Kandyan dancers, stick-dancers, whip-crackers, acrobats, stilt-walkers, and flame-throwers.The Perahera consists of ten nightly processions followed by a day procession on the eleventh day. For the first six nights the procession is known as Kumbal Perahara. This is a prelude to the more impressive Randoli Perahera, which begins on the seventh night, when the splendid randolis - ‘golden palanquins’ – that bear the consorts of the four deities join the columns. The length of the Perahera gradually increases until, after five nights it reaches its climax, with over 100 elephants participating.
On the morning of the eleventh day, a ritual known as the water-cutting ceremony is performed. This is a symbolic purification of the sword of Skanda, the war god of Kataragama. At dawn a procession leaves for the river at Getambe, a suburb of Kandy. The waters are cut with a circular sweep of the sacred sword and then four clay pots – one from each of the dewales – are filled from the circle of water marked out by the sword. Finally, at noon on the eleventh day, the perahera that concludes the festival begins.
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