Kandy, Sri Lanka

The Dental Root of Sinhalese Buddhism


On the same route
The Royal Palace
walk of faith
Candia and its Lake
The Tooth Chamber
Business in Black & White
Buddha in the Heights
aroma of buddhism
lake colleagues
Unlikely Trio
monks on the way
Lankathilakaya Buddha
DeSilva x 2
faith and fire
The hand
The Lankathilakaya Temple
Window Conversation
checkered buddhism
Waiting
Berries against Bad Influence
Located in the mountainous heart of Sri Lanka, at the end of the XNUMXth century, Kandy became the capital of the last kingdom of old Ceylon and resisted successive colonial conquest attempts. The city also preserved and exhibited a sacred tooth of the Buddha and, thus, became Ceylon's Buddhist center.

Just after nine in the morning.

The Temple of the Tooth surrenders again to the ceremony Pooja, in its version of daily ritual, called Theva, in either case, a frenzy of faith that has long animated him.

Believers flow in, dressed in their clothes, but barefoot. The women in bright, shiny skirts and shirts and saris. The men, almost all in pants and shirts of the whiteness of purity.

Solemn, the ceremony takes place in a frame of corridors and chambers defined, from floor to ceiling, by carved and varnished wooden grilles.

Family Prayers, Flowers, Fruit and Faith

In a kind of antechamber, families gather, sit on the floor, in a communal prayer in which even the children remain engaged.

In front, along a table spread from one end of a corridor to the other, the faithful deposit the offerings with which they praise Lord Buddha.

Two employees help us organize them into a decent patchwork quilt. Freshly picked water lilies and distinct flowers of the same type and colors, together, and in sections where they match each other.

There is also rice and some fruits, of which exuberant pomegranate berries stand out, arranged and highlighted on paper platters as one of the three fruits that Buddhists consider sacred.

Bylaws are not for everyone present. Or, if it is, the almost daily routine of ritual has faded.

A temple official at a corner of the table looks around.

When he thinks he is safe from the eyes of others, he steals and delights in a handful of pomegranate, with an ethereal texture and flavor that Buddhists believe appeasers of evil and sins.

A Buddhist legend tells that a demon named Hariti got used to devouring children. And that Buddha cured her of this habit by giving her a pomegranate to eat.

Around the table, even if their noses barely pass it, children marvel at the changing exuberance of the board.

Young Buddhists still admire the understanding and elegance with which their parents, with their hands together in front of their faces, once again exalt the Enlightened One.

In a nearby courtyard, between large clay pots equipped with jambés, a trio of monks with shaved heads, in mustard-colored habits, carry out their own prayer, austere as the flagstone floor that supports them.

Arrived through a tunnel lined with intricate motifs – white, yellow, gold – more and more believers prolong the theva of the day. The supreme presence of the Buddha attracts them.

Candia and the Temple of the Tooth that Houses a Buddha Fang

In Cândia, there, in that same temple, the unusual manifestation of one of his teeth, a left canine, to be more rigorous.

Believers access the chamber that preserves it through a door to eternal wisdom, in itself, a kind of religious act fraught with symbolism.

Above the door, between two suns stamped on an undulating sky, is a dragon with a gaping mouth that seems to grant the passage.

On either side of the curtain that serves as a veil, two yellow guardians are accompanied by a doorman identified by a white sarong and vest. The interior reveals an altar, crowned by a gleaming gold Buddha and flanked by two targets.

The sacred canine is kept inside a bell, also a prodigious piece of jewellery.

The lack of a real exposition of the relic, both the room and its surroundings, appear decorated with other teeth.

Large ivories exposed in a curve towards the statues, in a way that is not at all subtle, pointing out their sacredness.

Candia, Tooth of Buddha, Ceylon, Temple of the Tooth

Buddhist priests appear out of nowhere.

They are positioned on another face of that same central chamber, between another set of ivories and a red-gold curtain kept closed.

They inaugurate chants, followed by a shortened mantra.

At the end of the recital, the entourage that accompanies them prostrate themselves in reverence. Of the esteemed monks and the holiness of the Buddha to which monks and any Buddhist aspire.

Mere mortals that we are, faced with such solemnity, our curiosity assails us as to how Buddha's canine would have ended up there.

The Journey of the Tooth of Buddha from India to Candia

Back to the plane of legend, after Gautama Buddha entered the final state of Nirvana, the tooth would have been stored somewhere in the Kalinga region (northeast coast of India).

From there, on the instructions of a local king named Guhasiva, his daughter Princess Hemamali hid her tooth in her hair.

With the protection of her husband Prince Dantha, she managed to travel to the island of present-day Sri Lanka.

In that era of the year 300 AD, Sirimeghavanna ruled the island, king of Anuradhapura before Kashyapa I, the successor who conquered the throne after walling up his father.

And who later took refuge at the top of the famous rock fortress of Sigirya.

Sirimeghavanna assumed the superior responsibility of guarding the tooth. From then on, this custody became part of Sri Lanka's history.

By the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, Candia had become a spiritual center for the two largest sects in the world. Budismo, Mahayana and Theravada.

The Tooth Guard that Validates Ceylon Control

For a long time, the right and duty of custody of the dental relic corresponded to the legitimacy of governing the island.

Accordingly, successive kings built their own “temples of the tooth” next to their royal residences.

In the course of Ceylon's intricate history, the tooth ended up in the island's mountainous heartland, in Candia, since the late XNUMXth century, an expanding kingdom.

We left the Temple of the Tooth. We wander through the vastness that surrounds it and the large artificial lake to the south.

As you would expect in what is considered the Buddhist capital of Sri Lanka, we come across other temples and shrines.

We witnessed new offerings, among colorful flags, smoke and incense.

In this digression, we ended up diverging towards the secular sphere and towards an administrative plan for the city.

Cândia and its Dazzling Notarial and Advocacy Center

Fleeing the deafening roar of old buses and rickshaws, we find ourselves on a street bordered by two-story colonial buildings.

We see a sector of these facades covered in black plates with white letters.

When we examine them, we find that they bear Sinhalese words and, here and there, Western names.

Some sound familiar to us. We are in a domain of notaries and lawyers.

Among so many other Sinhalese, we find one such firm "DeSilva and DeSilva".

The colonial look, something decadent of the place seduces us. We get lost in their rooms, chatting with employees who, by hand, draw up building plans and other official documents.

“I bet they haven't seen a job like this in a long time!” one of them throws us at us, conscious of the classic preciousness of what she was doing.

In English, we still chat with others who make photocopies or dust off secular desks and drawing boards.

We realize that, apart from their workspace, they share the amazement that we saw interest there.

As is the case throughout Sri Lanka, most of the employees have Portuguese names.

Or at least family members who have them.

And yet we are in one of the few cities in Ceylon that have always resisted.

To the Portuguese, and to the other colonial powers with which the Portuguese disputed it.

The Early Arrival of the Portuguese in Ceylon

Portugal came across this island, which the Romans already knew as Taprobana, during Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India. On that expedition, the navigator learned that it was the only cinnamon producer in the World.

Now the spice was really appreciated and sought after in Europe.

Subsequently, D. Manuel I instructed the viceroy D. Francisco de Almeida that, if possible, Ceylon should be controlled.

In 1505, it is said that, dragged by a storm, the navigator son of the viceroy, Lourenço de Almeida, ended up there on the coast, forced to anchor next to the current port of Columbus.

In the one hundred and fifty years that followed (until 1658), stimulated by the importance of the island, the Portuguese established forts and trading posts.

The Gradual Mastery of the Ceylon Coast

Columbus herself, Galle, Jafanapatão, Negumbo, Baticalo and Tricomalee.

In addition to cinnamon, the island was filled with precious stones, pearls, and other riches that its kings and nobles displayed.

In such a way, that several influential personalities in the expansion of the Empire defended that its capital should be transferred from Goa to Ceylon.

Candia, the Tough Kingdom of the Mountains

Three great kingdoms disputed the island: Kotte, the predominant one; Jafanapatão, to the north and, owner and lord of the mountains at the heart of the island, Candia.

As they were used to doing around the world, the Portuguese explored the rivalries between these kingdoms, with missionaries of different orders trying to convert the local kings and nobles to Christianity and mold them to the Portuguese colonial sphere.

The Portuguese ensured the proper Christianization of more than one king of Candia. And, between 1589 and 1594, control of this kingdom. In those five years, the Crown found itself in trouble to designate a new Portuguese king.

This novel of the appointment of the king still existed when, enraged by the execution of a Sinhalese general, the allied forces of the island, disbanded.

And the Portuguese Debacle in Ceylon, at the hands of the Rebel de Cândia and the Dutch

Konnapu Bandara the Kandy Rebel, a feared Sinhalese rival Christianized as Dom João of Austria and who became King of Vimaladharmasuriya, took advantage of the vulnerability of the Portuguese, meanwhile surrounded.

In October 1594, served by a huge army, he cornered and slaughtered them.

He also kidnapped Cusumasana Devi, the native that the Portuguese named Dª Catarina and who, during the year 1591, managed to keep Queen of Cândia.

Soon, the Dutch arrived on the scene. They precipitated the colonial collapse of the Portuguese in Ceylon.

Candia continued to resist. She preserves her lofty place in Sri Lankan history.

It is the Buddha's canine that legitimizes him.

Yala NPElla-Candia, Sri Lanka

Journey Through Sri Lanka's Tea Core

We leave the seafront of PN Yala towards Ella. On the way to Nanu Oya, we wind on rails through the jungle, among plantations in the famous Ceylon. Three hours later, again by car, we enter Kandy, the Buddhist capital that the Portuguese never managed to dominate.
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Lhasa, Tibet

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Mount Koya, Japan

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Annapurna Circuit: 6th – Braga, Nepal

The Ancient Nepal of Braga

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Nara, Japan

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Madu River and Lagoon, Sri Lanka

Along the Course of the Sinhala Buddhism

For having hidden and protected a tooth of Buddha, a tiny island in the Madu lagoon received an evocative temple and is considered sacred. O Maduganga immense all around, in turn, it has become one of the most praised wetlands in Sri Lanka.
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Believers greet each other in the Bukhara region.
City
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Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beach
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safari
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Faithful in front of the gompa The gompa Kag Chode Thupten Samphel Ling.
Annapurna (circuit)
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Aventura
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Ceremonies and Festivities
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Dotonbori, Osaka, Japan
Cities
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Singapore Asian Capital Food, Basmati Bismi
Lunch time
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capillary helmet
Culture
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Sport
Philippines

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Dorrigo NP, Australia: Waterfall Way Suspension Bridge
Traveling
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Pueblos del Sur, Venezuela

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From the beginning of the XNUMXth century, with Hispanic settlers and, more recently, with Portuguese emigrants, customs and traditions well known in the Iberian Peninsula and, in particular, in northern Portugal, were consolidated in the Pueblos del Sur.
portfolio, Got2Globe, Travel photography, images, best photographs, travel photos, world, Earth
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Portfolio Got2globe

The Best in the World – Got2Globe Portfolio

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History
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Women at Mass. Bora Bora, Society Islands, Polynesia, French
Islands
Bora-Bora, Raiatea, Huahine, French Polynesia

An Intriguing Trio of Societies

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Hikers walk on snowshoes in the Urho Kekkonen National Park
Winter White
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Through the (not so) highlands of Finland

West of Mount Sokosti (718m) and the immense Urho Kekkonen National Park, Saariselkä has developed as a nature escape hub. Having arrived from Ivalo, it is there that we set up base for a series of new experiences and adventures. Some 250 freezing km north of the Arctic Circle.
On the Crime and Punishment trail, St. Petersburg, Russia, Vladimirskaya
Literature
Saint Petersburg, Russia

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In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
Lake Sorvatsvagn, Vágar, Faroe Islands
Nature
Vágar, Faroe Islands

The Lake that hovers over the North Atlantic

By geological whim, Sorvagsvatn is much more than the largest lake in the Faroe Islands. Cliffs with between thirty to one hundred and forty meters limit the southern end of its bed. From certain perspectives, it gives the idea of ​​being suspended over the ocean.
Girl plays with leaves on the shore of the Great Lake at Catherine Palace
Autumn
Saint Petersburg, Russia

Golden Days Before the Storm

Aside from the political and military events precipitated by Russia, from mid-September onwards, autumn takes over the country. In previous years, when visiting Saint Petersburg, we witnessed how the cultural and northern capital was covered in a resplendent yellow-orange. A dazzling light that hardly matches the political and military gloom that had spread in the meantime.
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Natural Parks
Grand Canyon, USA

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The Colorado River and tributaries began flowing into the plateau of the same name 17 million years ago and exposed half of Earth's geological past. They also carved one of its most stunning entrails.
Traditional houses, Bergen, Norway.
UNESCO World Heritage
Bergen, Norway

The Great Hanseatic Port of Norway

Already populated in the early 1830th century, Bergen became the capital, monopolized northern Norwegian commerce and, until XNUMX, remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia. Today, Oslo leads the nation. Bergen continues to stand out for its architectural, urban and historical exuberance.
Characters
Look-alikes, Actors and Extras

Make-believe stars

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Balo Beach Crete, Greece, Balos Island
Beaches
Balos a Seitan Limani, Crete, Greece

The Bathing Olympus of Chania

It's not just Chania, the centuries-old polis, steeped in Mediterranean history, in the far northeast of Crete that dazzles. Refreshing it and its residents and visitors, Balos, Stavros and Seitan have three of the most exuberant coastlines in Greece.

Engravings, Karnak Temple, Luxor, Egypt
Religion
luxor, Egypt

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Thebes was raised as the new supreme capital of the Egyptian Empire, the seat of Amon, the God of Gods. Modern Luxor inherited the Temple of Karnak and its sumptuousness. Between one and the other flow the sacred Nile and millennia of dazzling history.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
On Rails
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
Creel, Chihuahua, Carlos Venzor, collector, museum
Society
Chihuahua a Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico

On Creel's Way

With Chihuahua behind, we point to the southwest and to even higher lands in the north of Mexico. Next to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, we visited a Mennonite elder. Around Creel, we lived for the first time with the Rarámuri indigenous community of the Serra de Tarahumara.
Coin return
Daily life
Dawki, India

Dawki, Dawki, Bangladesh on sight

We descended from the high and mountainous lands of Meghalaya to the flats to the south and below. There, the translucent and green stream of the Dawki forms the border between India and Bangladesh. In a damp heat that we haven't felt for a long time, the river also attracts hundreds of Indians and Bangladeshis in a picturesque escape.
Men dredge sand from the bed of the Sangha River for platform pirogues.
Wildlife
Ducret Expedition 1st:  OuéssoPN Lobeke, Congo Rep.; Cameroon

The Inaugural Ascent of the Sangha River

For an hour, we flew over the immense tropical expanse that separates the capital Brazzaville from the small riverside town of Ouésso. From its banks, we ascended the Sangha River to the Cameroonian national park of Lobéké, in a landscape still very much of “Heart of Darkness".
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.