Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic

Just north of the lake, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic houses Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist relic - a tooth of the Buddha. The temple sustained damage when a bomb was detonated - by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to the government - near the main entrance in early 1998, but the scars have been repaired.

The tooth is said to have been snatched from the flames of the Buddha's funeral pyre in 543 BC, and was smuggled into Sri Lanka during the 4th century AD, hidden in the hair of a princess. At first it was taken to Anuradhapura, but with the ups and downs of Sri Lankan history it moved from place to place before eventually ending up at Kandy. In 1283 it was carried back to India by an invading army but was soon brought back again by King Parakramabahu III.

Gradually, the tooth came to assume more and more importance as a symbol of sovereignty; it was believed that whoever had custody of the tooth relic had the right to rule the island. In the 16th century the Portuguese, in one of their worst spoilsport moods, seized what they claimed was the tooth, took it away and burnt it with Catholic fervour in Goa. 'Not so', is the Sinhalese rejoinder; the Portuguese had been fobbed off with a replica tooth and the real incisor remained safe. Even today there are rumours that the real tooth is hidden somewhere secure, as it has been so many times in its past, and that the tooth kept here is a replica.

The present Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic was constructed mainly under Kandyan kings from 1687 to 1707 and from 1747 to 1782, and, in fact, the entire temple complex was part of the Kandyan royal palace. It is an imposing pink-painted structure surrounded by a deep moat. The octagonal tower in the moat was built by Sri Wickrama Rajasinha and used to house an important collection of ola (talipot-palm leaf) manuscripts. However, this section of the temple was heavily damaged in the 1998 bomb blast.

The main tooth shrine - a two-storey rectangular building known as the Vahahitina Maligawa - occupies the centre of a paved courtyard. The eye-catching gilded roof over the relic chamber was added by President Ranasinghe Premadasa and paid for by Japanese donors. The bomb blast of 1998 has exposed part of the front wall to reveal at least three layers of 18th- to 20th-century paintings depicting the perahera and various Jataka (Buddha life stories).

It's nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of this temple to most Sri Lankan Buddhists, who believe they must complete at least one pilgrimage to the temple in their lifetime. Worshipping at the temple is thought to improve one's karmic lot immeasurably.

The tooth shrine itself receives a constant flow of worshippers and flocks of tourists, with fewer tourists in the morning than in the evening. Wear clothes that cover your legs and your shoulders and remove your shoes (which are kept by shoe minders near the entrance).

During pujas (offerings or prayers), the heavily guarded room housing the tooth is open to devotees and tourists. However, you don't actually see the tooth. It's kept in a gold casket shaped like a dagoba (stupa), which contains a series of six dagoba caskets of diminishing size and eventually the tooth itself.

Most visitors are only allowed to view the stupa casket from the doorway, which is around 3m from the actual altar. Guards keep the queue moving so that no-one gets more than 10 or 15 seconds to see the inside of the shrine room. Occasionally you'll see VIPs being invited to enter the inner sanctum for a closer look. Thai and Japanese nationals - because of their country's generous temple donations - may be allowed into the tooth room upon advance request to the temple guardians.

Behind the shrine stands the three-storey Alut Maligawa, a newer and larger shrine hall displaying dozens of bronze sitting Buddhas donated by Thai devotees. In fact, the design of this floor is intended to resemble a Thai Buddhist shrine hall as a tribute to the fact that Thai monks re-established Sri Lanka's ordination lineage during the reign of King Kirti Sri Rajasinha. The upper two floors of the Alut Maligawa contain the Sri Dalada Museum with a stunning array of gilded and bejewelled reliquaries and gifts to the temple. There is also a sobering display of photographs of the damage caused by the truck bomb in 1988.

To the north inside the compound, and accessible only via the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, is the 19th-century Audience Hall, an open-air pavilion with stone columns carved to look like wooden pillars in the classic Kandyan style. Adjacent to this, in the Rajah Tusker Hall, you can view the stuffed remains of Rajah, the Maligawa tusker who died in 1988.