Alut Maligawa

Kandy


The three-storey Alut Maligawa is a large shrine hall displaying dozens of sitting Buddhas donated by devotees from Thailand. Its design resembles a Thai Buddhist temple, reflecting the fact that Thai monks reestablished Sri Lanka’s ordination lineage during the reign of King Kirti Sri Rajasinha.

Set on the upper two floors, the Sri Dalada Museum displays a stunning array of gifts donated by several presidents and Buddhist leaders from across the world to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. Letters and diary entries from the British era reveal the colonisers’ surprisingly respectful attitude to the tooth relic. More recent photographs reveal the significant damage caused to the temple complex by a truck bomb detonated by the LTTE in 1998.

The Alut Maligawa is located within the compound of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and accessed on the same ticket.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Kandy attractions

1. Sri Dalada Museum

This museum occupies the upper two floors of the Alut Maligawa building and contains a stunning array of gifts donated by several presidents and Buddhist…

3. Audience Hall

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To the north of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, but still within the compound, is the 19th-century Audience Hall, an open-air pavilion with stone…

4. World Buddhism Museum

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Housed inside the former High Court buildings, the World Buddhism Museum contains lots of photographs, models and displays illustrating Buddhism around…

5. Rajah Tusker Hall

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Adjacent to the Audience Hall, the Rajah Tusker Hall displays the stuffed remains of Rajah, the famous Maligawa elephant who died in 1988. Rajah was the…

6. National Museum

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This museum once housed Kandyan royal concubines and now features royal regalia and reminders of pre-European Sinhalese life. One of the most impressive…

7. Natha Devale

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The 14th-century Natha Devale is the oldest of Kandy's devales. It perches on a stone terrace with a fine vahalkada (solid panel of sculpture) gateway…

8. Kandy Garrison Cemetery

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This well-maintained cemetery contains 163 graves from colonial times. Perhaps the most striking aspect of a visit here is learning just how young most…

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