Dambulla

The rock temple of Dambulla holds the largest single expanse of temple painting in the country, and it carries a lesson at its heart: the caves are ancient, the paintings on them are not. The five caves were cut and dedicated as a monastery in the first century before Christ, in the reign of Valagamba, yet the murals that cover their ceilings and walls today are overwhelmingly the work of the Kandyan revival, repainted in the eighteenth century under Kirti Sri Rajasinha with Devaragampola Silvattenne Unnanse and the Nilagama painters at the work.

Across some two thousand square metres they carry the life of the Buddha, the great episodes of Sinhala history and ranks of seated Buddhas, laid in the earth reds, yellows and blacks of the hill-country palette. To read Dambulla as classical, on the strength of its ancient caves, is the common mistake. Its painted surface belongs with the Kandyan masters, and it is among them that it is placed here.