Kandy

Why Visit

The last capital of the Sinhalese kings, home to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and a lake laid out by its final ruler.

Set beside a still lake in the central highlands, Kandy carries centuries of Sri Lankan history, faith and craftsmanship in its quiet streets.

History

Founded in the 14th century, Kandy became the capital of the last independent Sinhalese kingdom and, for more than two centuries, successfully resisted Portuguese and Dutch attempts at conquest, protected by the surrounding hills and dense jungle. Tradition holds that the Buddha's tooth relic was smuggled into Sri Lanka in the 4th century CE, hidden in the hair of a princess fleeing unrest in India, and the relic eventually came to Kandy, where the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (Sri Dalada Maligawa) was built to house it. Possession of the relic carried deep political significance, since custodianship of it was traditionally tied to the right to rule the island. Kandy Lake, in front of the temple, was created in 1807 by the kingdom's last monarch, Sri Wickrama Rajasinha. The kingdom finally fell to the British in 1815 under the Kandyan Convention, ending over 2,000 years of indigenous monarchy on the island. In more recent history, the temple was badly damaged in a 1998 bomb attack during Sri Lanka's civil war; it was carefully restored, and the annual Esala Perahera festival — a procession with dancers, drummers and caparisoned elephants said to date back centuries — has continued largely unbroken. The old city was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Sacred City of Kandy).