Sri Dalada Maligawa

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 a relic of Buddha, a tooth, which is venerated by Buddhists. The relic has played an important role in the local politics since ancient times; it's believed that whoever holds the relic holds the governance of the country, which caused the ancient kings to protect it with great effort. Kandy was the last capital of the Sinhalese kings.

Kings from 1592 to 1815 fortified the terrain of the mountains and made it difficult to approach Kandy. The city is declared by UNESCO to be a world heritage site, in part due to the temple. Udawatta Kele Sanctuary is bordered the Temple of the Tooth.

Monks of the two chapters of Malwatte and Asgiriya conduct daily ritual worship in the inner chamber of the temple, in annual rotation. They conduct these services three times a day: at dawn, at noon and in the evening.

On Wednesdays there is a symbolic bathing of the Sacred Relic with an herbal preparation made from scented water and flagrant flowers, called Nanumura Mangallaya. This holy water is believed to contain healing powers and is distributed among those present.

The Temple has sustained damage from multiple bombings in the past. The first deadly attack was carried out by JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), a Sinhalese nationalist, Marxist-Leninist organization which has now entered into parliamentary politics, split into JVP and NFF, in the late 1980s. On January 25, 1998, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a banned terrorist outfit, carried out a deadly suicide attack inside the temple, killing 8 civilians and leaving 25 others injured, as well as causing significant damage to the temple structure. Fortunately, the
temple has been fully restored each time.

historical photos of Sri Dalada Maligawa.




2011.8.14 DIYA KAPANA PERAHARA




Aceremony often misunderstood or misinterpreted, is the "water-cutting". The conception is erroneous that it is symbolic of the parting of the waters of the Palk Strait with the magic weapon of King Gaja Bahu (174–196 A.D.) when he crossed over on his South Indian expedition. The water-cutting ceremony is indeed the most essential of the ceremonials of the Perahera. At the ceremony, the water collected and stored in the kendiya at the previous year's ceremony is poured out. Plunging the vessel in the stream, fresh water is taken and preserved until the next season. The Kapurala, the ritual priest, cleaves the water with a golden sword, pours out the water, and replenishes the vessel with fresh water. The splashing of waters, and the pouring out and refilling, are all part of the symbolisms of the rain making ceremonies of the East, particularly of India.

"Water-cutting" ceremony conceived in its proper perspective as symbolic of rain making, is an illustration of sympathetic magical rites. In all lands where agriculture is the mainstay of the peoples, altogether dependent on an adequate supply of water, society and state have been at pains to seek divine aid for sufficient rainfall.