Sri Lanka – The Golden Temple of Dambulla

Sri Lanka – The Golden Temple of Dambulla

The Golden Temple of Dambulla is Sri Lanka’s most popular historic site. The Cave monastery, home to Buddhist monks is covered with exquisite 2,000 year-old murals depicting the life and times of the Lord Buddha. The shrines also house a collection of 157 statues of Buddha in various sizes and poses, including a 15 metre long reclining Buddha and vividly colored frescoes on the walls and ceiling, making this the largest antique painted surface in the world.

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The paintings at Dambulla are representative of many different epochs of Sinhalese Buddhist art, although the classical school of Sinhalese painting (which ceased at the end of the 12th century) is not represented. It is not possible to date the Dambulla paintings precisely, since they have been painted upon throughout the centuries. Some, however, were originally done by Kandyan artists during the 17th century.

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Beyond the endless repetitions of seated Buddhas, and red, yellow and black geometric motifs, there are bands of sinuous tendrils and flowers; stories of the life of Lord Buddha including the Jataka tales relating his previous lives in the Temple of the Great King. There are also murals depicting battles, and others showing important events in the history of Sri Lanka.

With this we finished our Day 1.We reached Kandy after a long drive of two and half hours in slushy rains.

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It took some time, and lots of patience. Mr. H managed to finalize a hotel for us to stay the night which was neat, clean and economical after a hunt for few hotels/home stays. Hearing that the food was not great from the moment, we landed in Sri Lanka, we decided to go to a tamil food restaurant which we came across in our hotel search.

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The food was yummy! Without further chitchatting after dinner we crashed for the day!

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