Sri Lanka 2013

Episode 8: Dambulla Cave Temples

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January 22 2013 Dambulla, Sri Lanka

Our itinerary for the day was set. Three of us, Ray and I, and Parmala, a Malaysian-Southern Indian girl whom we met at St Bridget’s, our guesthouse in Kandy, were to take the bus to Sigiryia, with a stop at Dambulla to visit the cave temples. We got tuk-tuks to the bus station and found the Inter-city Express bus heading north. Just over 2 hours later we were right at the gates to the temple complex in Dambulla.
The massive Dambulla rock rises nearly 200 M above flat plains. Archaeologists say that the caves in the rock have been used as dwellings from pre-historic times. In the 2nd century BC, a Sinhalese King won a battle against Indian forces that restored his kingdom in Anuradhapura . To thank the gods, he constructed a Buddhist temple in the caves. Subsequent rulers renovated and added to the caves right up until the 18thcentury AD. In fact the most recent addition, a large temple topped by a golden Buddha, was completed in 2000 with Japanese donations. Statues of monks, each with a different expression, march in a long line over a rock shelf to the left of the new temple, each receiving lotus flowers to leave as offerings, just as devotees do when they visit.

We checked our luggage at the ticket office and started up a set of stairs to explore the five cave temples. Each had rich carvings of Buddhas and other deities in the rocks and walls and ceilings covered with colourful depictions of buddhas and other traditional designs. Each cave had huge reclining, seated or standing Buddhas, as well as Hindu deities and statues of kings responsible for renovating a temple. Cave 2, called Maharaja Viharaya, the Temple of the Great King, was the biggest at 52 m by 23 m by 7 m at highest point. We took lots of photos.

It was time to continue to our guesthouse outside Sigiriya, another huge rock we could plainly see from Dambulla rock. Sigiryia rock is another World Heritage site, as are the Dambulla Cave temples. We planned to climb Sigiryia to visit the Royal City built on top

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