Buddhist · One place

The Temple of the Tooth

Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist place, where a relic that once conferred the right to rule is kept beside a lake in Kandy.

Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic
Photo: Yercaud-elango, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsShows the temple building from the public forecourt.

The journey in one line

One place in Sri Lanka. Arriving is the journey.

The tooth relic reached Sri Lanka in the fourth century, carried, the story goes, hidden in a princess's hair. From then on whoever held it held the right to rule the island, so it travelled with the court and ended up at Kandy when Kandy was the last independent kingdom. The present Maligawa is Kandyan work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, beside the artificial lake in the middle of the town. The relic itself is not shown. What visitors see is the outer casket chamber, opened during the three daily offerings.

This is a shrine and a political object at once, and it has been for sixteen hundred years. The Esala Perahera in July or August takes a replica casket through Kandy on an elephant over ten nights and is the largest Buddhist procession in the country. The temple was bombed in 1998 during the civil war and repaired.

Kandy is three hours from Colombo by road or four by train, and the train is the better journey. The three daily pujas are early morning, mid morning and evening. The casket chamber is open during them and the queue is long. January to April is driest. The Perahera dates move with the moon and accommodation books out a year ahead.

Where it goes

Preparing the map. The order below is the same information.

  1. 1Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Kandy, Sri Lanka

1 stops, in order.

The stops, in order

What a visit means here. A visit means being in the public shrine rooms and courtyards of the Sri Dalada Maligawa during visiting hours.

  1. 1

    Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic

    ශ්‍රී දළදා මාළිගාව

    Kandy, Sri Lanka

    Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic
    Photo: Yercaud-elango, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsShows the temple building from the public forecourt.

    The Sri Dalada Maligawa holds the relic of the Buddha's tooth, which Sri Lankan kings carried with them as a sign of the right to rule. The present palace and shrine were built in the Kandyan period beside the lake. The relic is not shown; what visitors see is the casket chamber during the daily offerings.

    What counts as a visit

    The public shrine rooms and courtyards of the Maligawa during visiting hours.

    Access

    White or modest dress is expected, shoulders and knees covered, footwear left at the entrance. Security screening applies. Checked 2026-09-17.

    Check access · last checked September 17, 2026

Respect and access

White or modest clothing, shoulders and knees covered, footwear left at the entrance. Hats come off. There is security screening at the entrance and bags are searched. Do not pose for photographs with your back to the shrine, which is treated as an insult in Sri Lanka and has led to prosecutions.

Opening times, prices, permits and eligibility change. Nothing on this page is a statement about today. Follow the Check access link on a place before you plan around it.

Sources

TravelDay selected and grouped these places. Naming a custodian, a government agency or UNESCO as a source is not a claim that any of them endorsed this journey.

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