Temple of the Tooth Relic
Sri Dalada Maligawa houses the Buddha's tooth relic, in Sri Lanka since the 4th century AD and kept in Kandy since the city became the royal capital in 1592.
Duration
1.5-2 hours
Entry Fee
$10 USD
Difficulty
easy
Budget
moderate
About Temple of the Tooth Relic
The Temple of the Tooth Relic (Sri Dalada Maligawa) is the custodian of the left canine tooth of the Buddha, brought to Sri Lanka from India in the 4th century AD. The relic is housed in a golden casket within a series of nested caskets in the inner shrine, and is displayed to the public three times daily during puja ceremonies at 5:30am, 9:30am, and 6:30pm. The temple complex includes the octagonal Paththirippuwa tower, the Alut Maligawa, and a museum with royal regalia and historic gifts to the temple. Entry requires covering shoulders and knees and removing shoes at the entrance. The Esala Perahera festival held over 10 days in July or August features the relic casket carried by a procession elephant through Kandy's streets, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
Highlights
- Tooth relic of the Buddha (4th century AD)
- Three daily puja ceremonies open to visitors
- UNESCO World Heritage Site (part of Kandy's Sacred City)
- Annual Esala Perahera festival — one of Asia's largest processions
Practical Tips
Attend the 6:30pm puja for the most atmospheric experience — drumming, incense, and candlelight.
Arrive 20 minutes early for puja to get a viewing position in the upper gallery.
Dress modestly: cover shoulders and knees; sarongs are available to rent at the entrance for LKR 50-100.
Entry is LKR 3,000 for foreign visitors (LKR 2,500 for SAARC, Thai and Myanmar passport holders), as of Sep 2026 per the temple's own site sridaladamaligawa.lk. Ticket machines at the entrance; the ticket also covers the temple museums and the Royal Elephant Stable. Not part of CCF's national ticketing system.
Explore by Interest
Best Time to Visit
Best time of day: Year-round; Esala Perahera in July/August is spectacular but very crowded
Location
Planning Info
- Crowd level
- Very busy
- Physical difficulty
- easy
- Setting
- mixed
- Child friendly
- Yes
- Senior friendly
- Yes
- Budget level
- moderate
- Photography
- ★★★★☆
Plan Your Visit
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ALSO IN THE AREA
Nearby Destinations
Udawattakele Forest Reserve
A 104-hectare protected cloud forest reserve directly above central Kandy, with 68 recorded bird species and multiple walking trails through bamboo groves and tropical trees.
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Kandy Lake
Artificial lake built by King Sri Wickrama Rajasinha in 1807 at the centre of Kandy, encircled by a 3km walkway and flanked by the Temple of the Tooth.
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Royal Botanical Gardens Peradeniya
Sri Lanka's largest botanical garden covering 147 acres on a meander of the Mahaweli River, established in 1821 with over 4,000 plant species including a 350-year-old Java fig tree.
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Bahirawakanda Vihara Buddha Statue
A 26.8-metre white seated Buddha statue on Bahirawakanda Hill overlooking central Kandy, visible from most of the city and accessible by a 30-minute walk or tuk-tuk.
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Tour Packages
from $450Classic Ceylon Discovery
Six days is not long, so this route spends none of it doubling back. You go inland to Kandy, up over the Ramboda Pass into the tea country, along the hill-country railway to Ella, down off the escarpment to Yala for a safari, and finish on the south coast at Mirissa. Every leg moves you forward, and the longest day in the car is the first one. What it gives up is the Cultural Triangle. Sigiriya, Dambulla, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa all sit north of this loop and need at least one more overnight to reach honestly; Essence of Sri Lanka covers them in eight days. What it keeps is the four things most first-time visitors actually name when asked: a working temple, the train, a leopard park, and a beach. Nuwara Eliya is a pass-through rather than an overnight. You still get the tea estate and factory visit and the Ramboda Falls stop on the way to the station, without paying a night and a hotel change for them. Bring a light layer anyway, because the air at 1,868 m is cold even on a day visit.
6 days / 5 nights
from $0Kandy Esala Perahera Festival Tour
The Kandy Esala Perahera is a ten-night Buddhist and Hindu procession honouring the Sacred Tooth Relic, held each July or August in Sri Lanka's hill capital. Five Kumbal Perahera nights build in scale before the Randoli Perahera, when palanquins representing the four devale queens join over 100 elephants, whip-crackers, fire dancers and Kandyan drummers on the temple's torch-lit route through the city. This trip puts you in Kandy for four nights, with reserved gallery seats on two of the grandest Randoli nights. The festival sets the schedule, not us, which is why the days around it are deliberately light: a morning at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic before the road closures start, the palm avenues at Peradeniya, and a slow day among the 14th-century temples in the valley west of the city. Procession nights run late and the crowds are dense, so the recovery time is part of the plan. The route enters through Sigiriya rather than driving straight to Kandy. That costs nothing in extra days and turns what used to be a five-hour round trip from Kandy into a proper overnight, with the rock climbed at opening time and Dambulla's cave temple visited on the way south. Kandy's hotels sell out months ahead of the festival, so confirm your dates and book as early as you can.
6 days / 5 nights
from $0Ramayana Trail
Sri Lanka's Ramayana Trail links the places where, according to tradition, Rama, Sita, Hanuman and Ravana crossed paths after Sita's abduction: from the Shiva lingam Rama is said to have installed at Manavari, to the cave above Ravana Falls where legend holds Sita was kept, to the hill above Unawatuna that tradition calls a fragment of the herb-mountain Hanuman carried from the Himalayas. This 7-day circuit runs the length of the island in one direction. It starts on the west coast at Chilaw, climbs through Kandy into the tea hills at Nuwara Eliya, drops through Ella to the dry southern plains at Kataragama, and finishes on the south coast at Unawatuna. Each site gets its own part of the day rather than being stacked three to an afternoon, and no road is driven twice. Every site's Ramayana association is presented here as devotional tradition, not verified history, and your guide will frame it the same way. Vegetarian meals are confirmed at every hotel on request, and pure-vegetarian or Jain requirements are worth telling us at the time of booking rather than on arrival, because not every kitchen stocks for them by default.
7 days / 6 nights
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