History of Kandy perahera

Paying homage that Tooth Relic of lord Buddha which was also the symbol of sorority started in a very small and simple manner. King megawanna decreased that the Tooth Relic should be brought out from its enshrined place. So that homage could be rendered in a Perahera.In course of time this ceremony has become one of the most spectacularly. Pageants in Southeast Asia or perhaps the whole world. In the 18th century, The proper kandy perahera was began. It in the reign of King Kirthi Sri Rajasinha .During his reign, he invited a number of Buddhist monks from Siam to Sri Lanka to help restore the Islands monasteries and it’s Theravade orthodoxy.The visiting monks protested to the king that the predominant religious activity of Kandy’s Hindu devalas was unseemly in a Buddhist royal capital. The king accordingly ordered that a solemn annual procession of the Tooth Relic be forthwith instituted, and that a procession of Kandy’s four devalas be Incorporated in the open homage. The Perahera maintains this tradition today.

The devalas lead the procession’s vast cortege. First comes the Natha Devala; Natha, the tutelary deity of the city of Kandy, is identified with Maitreya, the Buddha-to-be. Next comes the procession from the temple of Vishnu, the deity to whom special care of the welfare of Buddhism is entrusted. Close behind are the columns from the devalas of Skanda, the Sinhalese war deity of Kataragama, and Pattini, the female deity of health and chastity. Each is followed by a train of colorfully caparisoned elephants.

Then comes the column from the Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Tooth). The magnificent tusked temple elephant (known as the “tusker”) is adorned with colorful cloth, lined with tiny electric bulbs. He carries on his back an illuminated howdah with the golden karanduwa — a replica of the dagoba—shaped casket in which the sacred tooth is enshrined. The genuine Tooth Relic was once carried in the Perahera, but this is now considered unsafe and inauspicious.Then follows another Preceding pages, a turn-of-the-century Esala Perahera; caprisoned elephants; night and day dancers. Left, Raja, the tusked elephant, bears the relic casket. Above, a senior mahout.train of dozens of elephants. Behind them, attired in the garish but traditional attire of office, walks the Diyawadana Nilame, the chief trustee of the temple and the holder of the highest lay office in the island. Walking in pace behind are the other officials of the temple.

The others that constitute the Perahera are the Kandyan dancers. devil dancers,whip crackers, stick dancers, lines of school children, costumed dancers, and an assortment of acrobats and flame dancers.