A Royal Chapel That Outlasted the Kingdom

Sri Dalada Maligawa began as the royal chapel of the Kandyan kingdom, built specifically to keep the tooth relic beside the seat of royal power in the tradition, shared across much of Buddhist Southeast and South Asia, that possession of such a relic legitimises a ruler's authority. The present buildings date substantially from the eighteenth century, when Kandyan kings rebuilt and expanded the complex after earlier structures suffered damage in the kingdom's long wars, first against the Portuguese and Dutch and later the British, who finally annexed Kandy in 1815, ending the island's last independent kingdom.

The temple's administration reflects this royal origin even after the monarchy's end: a lay chief custodian, the Diyawadana Nilame, a position with roots in the royal court's own administrative offices, still oversees the temple's affairs today alongside the monks of the Malwatte and Asgiriya chapters, and the Sri Lankan state, rather than any surviving royal family, now provides the governmental oversight a kingdom's crown once did. The relic survived the kingdom's fall from a symbol of royal legitimacy into one of national and religious identity for the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.