Kandy, Sri Lanka

Kandy is a city in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, at an elevation of 500 metres. It lies on the shore of an artificial lake constructed in 1807 by the last Kandyan king, Sri Wickrama Rajasinha. Kanda, the word from which Kandy is derived, is a Sinhalese word meaning "hill"; from the city's initial construction, about AD 1480, it was known as Kanda Uda Pas Rata ("Palace on Five Hills"). In 1592 it became the capital of the Sinhalese kings, who preserved their independence during the period of European colonial rule—except for temporary occupations by the Portuguese and the Dutch—until 1815, when the British ousted Sri Wickrama Rajasinha—incidentally, a Tamil-speaking Telugu Buddhist born in the Indian city of Madurai.

From the 13th or 14th century, Kandy became a centre for both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. The most important of its many Buddhist temples is Dalada Maligava ("Temple of the Tooth"), where a sacred relic, supposed to be the left upper canine of the Buddha, has been preserved since 1590. The temple, constructed under Kandyan kings in the 17-18th centuries, was joined to a tower that was originally a prison but now houses an important collection of palm-leaf manuscripts. The city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. The Esala Perahera, the annual 10-day torchlight parade of dancers and drummers, dignitaries, and ornately decorated elephants, commemorates the sacred tooth; it is now one of the better-known festivals in Asia, and it may be the largest Buddhist celebration in the world. [—Text adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008]