Kandy

We stopped in Kandy to stretch our legs and it gave me the opportunity to wander around a bit. Kandy is a spiritual place to the Sinhalese. It is the home of Buddha’s sacred tooth, a tooth that was purportedly taken from his funeral pyre in 543 BC. It was smuggled into Lanka (specifically Anuradhapura) hidden in the hair of a princess. But because of Lanka’s history of turmoil it was eventually moved to the safer Kandy. At one point the tooth was kidnapped by Indians and taken away to the continent, but brought back to the Sinhalese by an Indian king. The Portuguese tried to assert their dominance and burnt the tooth in a typical Catholic fervour. But this wasn’t the real tooth that they burnt, just a replica; the real tooth was safe in Kandy.

The temple which houses the tooth was built between 1687-1782. Kandy has a Perahera in June. Perahera is a festival / parade where the tooth is paraded around in the streets. Colombo has a Perahera in February, which I will be able to see before I leave. The two cities compete to see who can have the best Perahera.

There is an elephant orphanage outside Kandy. This is government run and here you can watch the baby elephants be fed and bathed everyday. Most of these elephants become working elephants when they grow up.