Temple of the Tooth of Kandy

The temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), was begun during the seventeenth century as a shrine for the sacred relic of Buddha's tooth. Additions to the temple have been made almost up to the present day, though most date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In general, the temple is admired more for the decorative detail of its interior than for its architecture. But its white facade and red roofs are strikingly set off by the green of the surrounding trees and the blue of the blue of the artificial lake at Kandy.

Above left, the north side of the temple complex.

Left, a Hindu temple to the god Natha (said to be a bodhissattva, or Buddha-to-be), which stands across the street from the Temple of the Tooth. Above, the temple complex with its lacy outer wall. The holes in the wall hold lamps on festival days.

Right, a detail of the octagonal corner pavilion which, like the temple as a whole, mingles ancient Buddhist architecture with decorative elements of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Ceylon. The pavilion now houses a library of palm-leaf manuscripts.

The temple of the Tooth suffered serious damage during the colonial wars of the late eighteenth century, and as result, many parts of the temple complex are recent stone reconstructions of the original wooden buildings. Above, an intricately carved wooden column, part of a colonnade adjoining the main temple buildings.

Right, one of the oldest surviving parts of the temple complex. Dating from the seventeenth century, it was built as lodgings for the monks.

Far right, top, the back of the two-story shrine, enclosed within the temple complex, that houses the relic said to be Buddha's tooth. Center, the from to the inner shrine framed by long elephant tusks; the elephant is sacred to Buddha. Bottom, a colonnaded passageway in the front of the temple complex facing the entrance.

Extremely intricate ornamental carving is found throughout the temple complex. Both the capitals and the beams of a long colonnade leading from the main group of temple buildings (left, top and bottom) are covered with sinuous,carved animal forms and rich foliage designs. The pillars and architraves at the rear of the reliquary shrine itself (center) are still more ornate. Although the chief decorative motif is the lotus blossom-Buddhist symbol of the universe human figures are also depicted on the capitals.

The two-story octagonal pavilion was built by Portuguese captured by the Kandyans during the eighteenth-century colonial wars. The second story of the pavilion is now the library of a Buddhist monastery located on the temple grounds. In midsummer, the pavilion stairs and porch serve as a convenient viewing stand (right) for both resident monks and tourists during the annual festivities of the Esala Perahera pageant in honor of the sacred tooth. At night, deserted and now spectacularly lit by floodlights, the pavilion is reflected in the still water of the canal in front of the temple complex.

A view rom the temple across the manmade lake toward the hilly countryside for which Kandy is known. This terrain is what recommended Kandy as a site for the Sinhalese capital during the seventeenth century, when the lower-lying areas of Ceylon, less easy to defend, were falling to the Portuguese. The lake was created during the nineteenth century by damming and flooding a rice paddy. The rectangular island in the middle was once used to accommodate a king's harem.