The Buddha’s Tooth

"And there was that swoon in the air which one associates with the tropics, and that smother of heat, heavy of odors of unknown flowers, and that sudden invasion of purple gloom, fissured with lightenings- and the tumult of crashing thunder and the downpour and presently all sunny and smiling again; all these things were there; the conditions were complete, nothing was lacking." - Mark Twain, 'Following the Equator', 1897

We finally got a train with Air Con. Only problem was, you can’t open the windows and the windows are a bit dirty. So much of the time, Amy and I hung out the door, feeling the cool wind on our faces and it was here that you could get much better pictures. The entire way to Kandy was sunny and beautiful and there were many hawkers selling “Short eats”, the tasty fried balls of corn dough, some topped with little shrimps, others with a spicy filling. 

After checking into our hotel, the Hanthana House, the owner, Pathi, put us in his tuk tuk and had the driver take us to three Buddhist temples. The first one, Gadaladeniya Vihara, was mostly built in the 13th and 14th Centuries. It has a huge statue of the Buddha, surrounded by standing Buddhas. The doors to the temple have beautiful old paintings. The temple sits on a hill of granite, part of the original rock that makes up Sri Lanka, estimated to be up to 2 billion years old. 

The second temple, Lankatilaka Vihara, was also built around 800 years ago. This one is a combo Buddhist and Hindu temple. While we couldn’t go into the Hindu part, the Buddhist temple had, you guessed it, giant statues of the Buddha. There were several locals who came in when we were there, including a group of five policemen. They were checking out the three temples, too. 

The third temple, Embekka Devalaya, was our favorite. While the temple itself is no great shakes, the open air hallway leading up to it is unique. Made up of 28 ironwood pillars, these are carved with amazing reliefs. Carvings of elephants, warriors, lions, flowers, birds and all sorts of other things. All of this has been out in the elements for 700 years and still look great. 

"These days, the Buddhist world's greatest relic wears half a dozen caskets and a coat of steal. Once, a few hundred years ago, travelers were able to actually see the relic through several layers of protective glass. Dr. John Davy, a British civil servant, described it as a "dog's canine". The great historian, Tennant, thought it was more "crocodile than man".  When the British took over Ceylon in 1802, the first thing they did was wrap it up in several layers of iron. " - John Gimlette, 'Elephant Complex', 2015

The Buddha’s tooth, the most sacred relic in all of Sri Lanka, is housed in the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. Its story goes something like this...

When the Buddha was cremated, in 483 BC, some enterprising devote grabbed his incisor from the ashes. No one knows what happened to it until the 4th Century AD, when it was smuggled into Sri Lanka in the hair of a princess. For hundreds of years, it traveled from place to place, wherever the center of power on the island happened to be. Finally, in 1592, it arrived in Kandy and a special temple was built to house it. Legend said that whoever had The Tooth would reign over the island. Well, the Portuguese couldn’t have that, so they stole The Tooth, took it to Goa, India, crushed it, burned it, then threw it in the ocean. Some Buddhists believe the Portuguese stole a replica, others believe The Tooth magically resurrected itself and flew back, on its own, to Kandy.

Whatever the truth, and whatever is actually in the temple, Buddhists come here from all over the world on a pilgrimage to venerate The Tooth. 

The Tooth here in Kandy is a big deal. A really big deal. The temple complex is huge and not only contains the building where The Tooth is, but many other buildings, some of which house museums, including one with a huge stuffed elephant. We arrived in time to see one of the three daily pujas, prayer times where musicians come out beating drums and playing wind instruments for an hour while people file by the casket where The Tooth is housed. People offer baskets of flowers to The Tooth. Many are dressed all in white, which I assume is some kind of pilgrimage outfit. We saw a line of about 100 people, all dressed in white and connected to each other by a long rope heading to see The Tooth. Why the rope I have no idea. 

After an hour visiting the temple, it was time to go to the market. The market here is great; downstairs is the local market, where people buy vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, etc. Upstairs is the tourist market, where they sell clothes, jewelry, wood carvings, batik, etc. The clothes here are nice, because many famous brands, such as Colombia and North Face are made here. But you can get a pair of $100 pants for about $30. Whether or not they are authentic, who knows? But they seem well made. 

Then it was time for lunch. We found a great local eatery called Balagi Dosa, where you can get authentic South Indian pure veg food. I had the rice and curry for $1 and Amy had the masala and cheese dosa for $2. Big spender!

In the evening we went to a local dance show. Kandy style dancing has some wild costumes and the way the women move looks a little like the Apsara dancers in Cambodia. The men have some great dances, too, one even had some fire twirlers like they have in the South Pacific.  

Our second day in Kandy we had a special experience. It was the Hindu festival of Maha Shivaratri. So at Kataragama Temple, in Kandy, both Hindus and Buddhists are celebrating. We met the head monk of the Temple of the Tooth, who was spending time with his Hindu brothers and sisters. A picture of the Dalai Lama with him was on the wall (you can see him on the upper left of the monk’s head). So he's a big deal here in Sri Lanka.  The monk proceeded to bless us by waving his fan around and chanting. Then he tied a red and white chord around our wrists, representing the two religions. We were then handed a book to put our names and country in. You know what's coming, right?  I saw that everyone else gave 1000 rupees apiece, minimum. So I put down 1000 rupees for each of us. "Do you have children?" the monk said, "please put their names down."  Well, in a country like this you don't say you don't have children, so our fallback is to say that we have 2 boys, Zeke and Henry, who were Amy's cats when we met. Well, there goes another 2000 rupees. So I just made it 5000 to make it a round number, about $38. Well, it went to a good cause, we have a cool picture and it was a great experience.