The grandest religious festival in Sri Lanka - The Kandy Esala Perahara

Do you want to know about the grandest and the most sacred religious festival in Sri Lanka? It’s the Kandy Esala Perahara.

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Sri Lanka is a multicultured country primarily based on Buddhism with a documented history of more than 2500 years. In this island Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Christian, and other people live peacefully. A bunch of cultures living mixing is always beautiful.

Kandy Esala perahara is celebrated by Buddhists which has got the attraction of tourists all around the world. It’s held in July and August annually to show our honor to the sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha, which is at the Dalada Maligawa(Temple of the tooth), Kandy. And addition to that 4 dewala(shrines) perahara’s followed the main one, honoring our guardian Gods Natha, Vishnu, Kataragama, and Goddess Pattini.

Temple of Tooth Relic

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Temple of the tooth is one of the most beloved places of Buddhists along with the Ruwanwali maha saya and the Jaya Sri maha bodhiya. The rituals are performed daily by Malwathu or Asgiri temples once a year, and the administration by Diyawadana Nilame. It’s being worshipped by thousands of people around the world daily. Source

The other purpose of this is to get the blessings to have rain on time for the cultivations and to guarantee the prosperity of the nation. It’s full of Sri Lankan traditional dancings, music, orchestras, drummers, fire dancers, whip crackers, flag bearers, and tuskers, and elephants who wear beautiful costumes. Age is not a problem here. From small children to elders take this as their prestigious chance.

                         Kandyan Wes Dancing 

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The long journey up to now

The history of this beautiful event goes back to King Kirthisiri Meghawanna's time (305-331 AD) with the arrival of Prince Dantha and Princess Hemamala with holy tooth relic from India. At that time, the house was in Anuradhapura, and once a year it was carried around the city. The possession and the protection of it was a must, to be the king. With the foreign invasions, this holy treasure was protected by our ancestors and the location was changed from time to time for security. Then King Vimaladharmasuriya the Second (1687 -1707 A.D.) built the temple of the tooth relic in Kandy, the current location.

The order of the perahara

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The beginning is announced with the first ritual known as ‘Kap Situweema”. According to the time given by astrologers, a sanctified young Jackfruit plant is planted in four devalas.

Then the next five days ‘kumbal perahara’ is continuing. Initially the Peraheras assemble in front of the Temple of the Tooth and the Devala peraharas take place within the premises of the four Devales. (shrines) After the 5 nights, Randoli perahera is started going around the city streets. This is the most spectacular season of the time.
The city of Kandy is filled with tourists and local spectators during this period.

Whip crackers front the pageant. Then followed by fire dancers, flag bearers, some officials named as nilames, and traditional drummers, flute players with traditional dancers. You should really see a Kandyan wes dancing. The costumes, their steps, and jumps will amaze you for sure. Apart from that, there are various kinds of dancings which show the pride of Sri Lanka. They are one thing that gives by our ancestors to be unique in the world.

                       Traditional Dancings

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And another most iconic thing is the elephants and tuskers who wear beautiful costumes and perform in the perahara, more than fifty Elephants and Tuskers can be seen here. The Maligawa Tusker walks majestically in supreme grace with the golden casket, karanduwa in Sinhala which contains the Sacred Tooth Relic of Buddha.

                   Tusker with the  golden casket

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                   A video taken by me in 2019 perahera

In the above video you can see the tusker named 'wasana' carrying the cluster in pride. He was the one who carried the cluster in Katargama perahara (another well-known one in Sri Lanka) in 2019. The tusker who was in charge of performing the ritual ''Raja" was not well at that time. And you can hear the spectacular traditional Sri Lankan music.

Then the event is finalized with the diya kapeeme tradition in Getambe Mahaveli River near Peradeniya. It means one person of shrines mark a circle in the river with a golden sword and water is collected from there to a ‘golden ewer’ (ran kendiya).

So, That's it about my post about one of sri Lankan most sacred and spectacular cultural festivals. Even though I have seen this several times high qualitY photos are not available with me. So, I used photos from the internet. Thanks, owners for those beautiful pictures.

Hope you all will enjoy the post and learn many things about Sri Lanka, my country.

Best Regards!