The Dalada Maligawa (The Temple of Tooth Relic)

Dalada Maligawa the Temple of Tooth Relic is the most religious place of Sri Lankan Buddhists. They worshiping there for the Tooth Relic of Lord Buddha. This is called the "Dalada" and in Sri Lanka the Dalada hold the greatest place. In the past Sri Lankans assume the King that who owns the Dalada.
In the past history the Dalada was placed several number of places (kingdoms) in Sri Lanka but now is in Kandy. The temple that hold the Dalada is called Dalada Maligawa (Temple of Tooth Relic). The present Dalada Maligawa is the palace of the last Sri Lankan King Sri Wikrama Rajasinghe who was in the Kindom of Kandy.
Dalada is saftely covered and locked, therefore ordinary people can't watch it. But in some years there is a "Dalada Dekma" the showing of the Dalada to the public.

Kandy Perahera (The Parade of Temple of Sacred Tooth Relic - Biggest Festival of Buddhist)

Nearly 100 caparisoned elephants, dancers and torchbearers walked down the streets of this central city decorated with colourful lights and flags as the annual Buddhist festival of Kandy Perahera (pageant) is celebrating with great enthusiasm in June of every year.
The colourful parade begins Saturday night from the sacred Buddhist shrine of Dalada Maligawa, showcasing the temple custodians known as Nilames, who were dressed up like ancient kings. The festivities also included traditional Kandyan dancers, fire-juggling acrobats, palanquins, musicians and torchbearers, who followed the elephants through the streets. Kandy Perahera is celebrated annually ever since the sacred tooth relic of Buddha was brought to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Kirthi Sri Meghavanna during 300 A.D. The grand finale of the 10-day celebrations in Kandy, known as Randoli Perahera, began at an auspicious time at 8 p.m. Saturday. Thousands of Sri Lankans and hundreds of foreigners, including the Colombo-based diplomatic corps, attended the night of pageantry.
The highlight of Saturday’s parade was the brightly festooned Maligawa Tusker called Raja, the biggest or Experienced and Fully Trained elephant in the procession, proudly carrying the Perahera Karanduwa, the replica of the casket in which the sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha is kept. But the actual relic is kept inside seven caskets in the inner sanctum of the Dalada Maligawa. On the directions of the mahouts, Raja and other elephants walked in measured steps and seemed as though they were moving to the beats of the traditional drummers.



In Sri Lanka, the lives of elephants are interwoven with those of humans. They are a part of the history, culture, religion and tradition of the island nation, which has 20 million people and nearly 4,000 elephants.
The procession was flanked by torch-bearers, who steadfastly carried long, flaming wooden poles lighted by "Koppara" the dried coconut.

Characters of the Main Actor

The top most and most invaluable event of the Dalada Perahera (The Dalada Parade) is taking in procession of the "Karanduwa" (The Prototype of great tooth relic of Lord Buddha). Taking in procession the "Karanduwa" along the parade is the most attractive placement. This great job is commonly and traditionaly the main objective of the whole parade.
The creature who take the karanduwa in procession is not a human. Wonderly he is a tusker. But he is not a common wild tusker. To bear this wonderful event they choose a tusker with special characteristics and this type of a tusker with selected characteristics they call "Mangala Hasthi Rajaya" in Sinhalese.
There are seven characteristics. Those charateristics are,

In the history of Sri Dalada Maligawa (The temple of great tooth relic) the most invaluable and fortunate tusker is "Raja". He took the Karanduwa in Procession for more than half a century. He passed away in 16th of July 1988 filling the eyes of people with tears.
In present there are only 120 trained elephant in Sri Lanka. Among those there are only 20 tuskers and only 8 of them are suitable to take the karanduwa in procession. Those eight tuskers are,
Loku Raja of Millangoda
Podi Raja
Raja of Nadungamuwa
Indi Raja
Wasana of Kataragama Dewala
Raja of Wewaldeniya
Gamini of Botale Walawwa
Podi Raja of Hunupitiya Ganagarama Temple