Sri Lanka - Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
Kandy is home to the Tooth Relic Temple, which houses the tooth relic of Buddha. It is a popular pilgrimage site for Buddhists all over the world.
We explored the temple grounds shoe-less, as it is considered sacred grounds. This elephant belongs to the temple and is used during ceremonies - the most important of which occurs once a year when the tooth relic is placed on the elephants back and taken around the city of Kandy.
Enshrined in this stuppa is a plate that the Buddah used to eat food.
A painting depicting the tooth relic being carried around the city. Evidently it is a very big ceremony and people come from all over the world to witness it.
Buddha's tooth is kept behind the curtain inside this shrine. It is not exposed to the public, as it is eternally displayed inside 7 golden caskets ( in each one getting smaller and smaller ), with the shape of a stupa. It is taken out once a year and carried around the city on the back of an elephant.
We explored the temple grounds shoe-less, as it is considered sacred grounds. This elephant belongs to the temple and is used during ceremonies - the most important of which occurs once a year when the tooth relic is placed on the elephants back and taken around the city of Kandy.
Buddha's tooth is kept behind the curtain inside this shrine. It is not exposed to the public, as it is eternally displayed inside 7 golden caskets ( in each one getting smaller and smaller ), with the shape of a stupa. It is taken out once a year and carried around the city on the back of an elephant.
The tooth is said to have been snatched from the flames of the Buddha’s funeral pyre in 543 BC, and was smuggled into Sri Lanka during the 4th century AD, hidden in the hair of a princess. At first it was taken to Anuradhapura, but with the ups and downs of Sri Lankan history it moved from place to place before eventually ending up at Kandy. In 1283 it was carried back to India by an invading army but was soon brought back again by King Parakramabahu III.
Gradually, the tooth came to assume more and more importance as a symbol of sovereignty; it was believed that whoever had custody of the tooth relic had the right to rule the island. In the 16th century the Portuguese, in one of their worst spoilsport moods, seized what they claimed was the tooth, took it away and burnt it with Catholic fervour in Goa. ‘Not so’, is the Sinhalese rejoinder; the Portuguese had been fobbed off with a replica tooth and the real incisor remained safe. Even today there are rumours that the real tooth is hidden somewhere secure, as it has been so many times in its past, and that the tooth kept here is a replica.
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