Full Moon Poya

Low and behold, when Daggat and I arrive in Kandy later the same day as I had visited the orphanage for elephants, he informed me that I was lucky enough to have been visiting the city during the Poya festival – a celebration held once a month on the day of the full moon. He was so excited by the prospect of telling me this that I could only assume that this was something to be thrilled by, even though I’m ashamed to say I had no idea what it was. He told me that the festivities would start late afternoon and that we should watch the procession first, before going to the Temple of the Tooth, as it would be much more atmospheric that way and also because the temple would be closed during the procession itself. And of course, as someone who knows about these things, I trusted his judgement and so we queued up alongside the gates of the temple and waited for the celebrations to begin.

Again, I can only stress how both amazing and surreal this experience was. Here I was, stood outside the gates of this magnificent temple, surrounded by both locals and tourist clamouring to get a good view of the procession, and all I can hear is the sound of drumming and chanting and I could see buddhist monks stood surveying the scene in their orange robes from the windows of the temple. The procession began with dancing and drumming rituals performed by local children and adults dressed in robes and local dress, then came some traditional Kandyan dancers (a performance of which I later went to watch in the local theatre) and lastly a procession of elephants and the sacred Buddha’s tooth replica itself, which was carried back into the temple encased in a golden shrine atop of one of the elephants. The noise from the procession seemed overwhelming, yet the onlookers and indeed the rest of the city, seemed to have stood still – everyone watching the festival with awe.