Temple of the Tooth, Kandy: Tickets, Puja Times and Dress Code

The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy is Sri Lanka’s most important Buddhist shrine, and entry for most foreign visitors costs LKR 3,000, the temple opens daily from 5.30am to 8pm, and the three daily services are at 5.30am, 9.30am and 6.30pm. Time your visit to one of those three and you see the temple as a place of worship rather than as a building.

You cannot see the relic itself. It is kept inside the smallest of seven nested golden caskets shaped like stupas, one inside the next, in an inner chamber. What you see is the chamber’s outer doors opened during a service, the queue of people offering flowers, and a great deal of drumming.

I visited the temple on a trip through Sri Lanka and stopped filming partway through, for reasons set out further down this page. This guide covers what it costs, when to go, what to wear and what actually happens inside.

Temple of the Tooth tickets and opening hours

The ticket for foreign visitors costs LKR 3,000, which was about $9, €8 or £7 in September 2026, and Sri Lankan nationals enter free. The temple publishes the price list itself, and it is worth knowing exactly what it says, because most travel guides still quote LKR 2,000 or LKR 1,500.

That one ticket covers more than the shrine. It admits you to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic itself, the Dalada Museum, the World Buddhist Museum, the Tusker Museum and the Royal Elephant Stable, which together justify rather more than an hour.

Buy the ticket from the machines inside the temple and nowhere else. The temple states plainly that tickets are issued automatically by machines installed on site, and that tickets or fees issued by any other individual or institution are not valid. Anyone offering to sell you one outside the gate is selling you nothing.

The temple is open every day from 5.30am to 8.00pm, Sri Lankan time, which is UTC+5.30.

Puja times: when to visit

The daily services are called thevava, and there are three of them. Going at any other hour means seeing the building without the ritual, which is a very different visit.

The evening service is the one most visitors choose, and it is the most atmospheric: the light goes, the building lights up, the hewisi drummers start and the chamber doors open. The early-morning service is the quietest and the most intimate, and it begins with drumming at about 5.15am before the doors are opened, the silver one first and then the golden one.

Each service has its own character. The morning thevava involves offerings of jasmine flowers and the removal of the previous night’s offerings, vessel by vessel, in a fixed order from silver to gold, handled by one monk who alone is permitted to touch them. The midday service is the Buddha Pooja, the offering of the day’s meal, and it runs from about 9.30am to 10.30am. The evening service, roughly 6.30pm to 7.15pm, replaces the withered flowers and offers gilanpasa, a drink made with sugar, kithul palm treacle, honey, ginger juice and ghee in gold and silver goblets.

Wednesday: the Nanumura Mangallaya

Wednesday is the day to come if you can choose. The Nanumura Mangallaya, a symbolic bathing of the relic, is held every Wednesday at 9.30am, alongside the midday service.

A small silver casket stands in for the relic, and its reflection is cast on a mirror which is bathed in a fragrant herbal preparation while the Kavikara Maduwa, the chamber of versifiers, recites poems in praise of the Buddha. Afterwards the herbal water is distributed among the waiting devotees, who hold that it has healing power. The custom is thought to have come from South Indian Hindu practice, where bathing images is ordinary.

The Temple of the Tooth dress code

The dress code is enforced at the entrance and it is simple: cover your shoulders, cover your legs to below the knee, and take your shoes off. The temple’s own guidance states that visitors wearing shorts, sleeveless tops or body-revealing clothing are not permitted, and that appropriate clothing can be obtained at the entrances if you arrive in the wrong thing.

Five rules cover a visit, and the first two are the ones people forget.

1. Shoes come off and go into the shoe booth, which works like a cloakroom and gives you a token. There are separate booths for local devotees and for foreign visitors.
2. Hand over bulky luggage and anything non-essential at the same reception booths.
3. Everyone is screened at the entrance. Bags, and any offerings you are carrying, go through scanning machines. This takes a few minutes at a busy service.
4. Leave polythene and plastic outside, including offerings brought in plastic bags or containers.
5. Pets are not allowed anywhere in the temple grounds.

Two conventions sit alongside the rules. Sri Lankan devotees wear white to temple, so pale clothing fits in and black stands out. And never turn your back on a Buddha image to pose for a photograph: this is treated as a serious offence in Sri Lanka, not as bad manners, and visitors have been detained and deported over it.

What the temple is and why it matters

The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Sri Dalada Maligawa, holds what is believed to be the left canine tooth of the Buddha, taken from his remains after cremation in India and brought to the island. It ended up in Kandy, where a temple was built inside the royal palace complex to keep it safe, and the relic is treated not as an object but as the living Buddha, which is why it is offered meals and drinks three times a day.

The politics follow from the belief. Whoever held the relic was held to have the right to rule, so it was moved, hidden and fought over through centuries of Sri Lankan history, and the kingdom that held it was the last to fall to the British, in 1815. The Sri Lankan heritage archive AmazingLanka traces that sequence of moves site by site. The temple and the rest of the sacred city of Kandy are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The temple was damaged in January 1998 when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, detonated a truck bomb at the entrance. It was restored quickly, and the security checkpoint you pass through dates from that attack.

The relic used to leave the temple once a year for the Esala Perahera, a ten-night procession of torches, dancers, drummers and elephants, carried by a royal tusker with two smaller elephants alongside. Because of the security situation the relic itself has stayed inside since 1990, and a casket now represents it on the parade. The perahera still runs, in July or August depending on the moon, and it is the largest Buddhist festival in the country.

The daily service and the two chapters

The services are conducted by monks of the Malwatta and Asgiriya chapters, the two great monasteries of Kandy, and responsibility alternates between them on an annual cycle. The handover happens at the start of the rainy retreat that follows the Esala full moon, and it involves reading aloud the inventories of the upper floor, the lower floor and the octagonal pavilion, showing each item, and handing over the keys.

Visiting: what it is actually like

You come in past the ticket machines and the security check onto the Maha Vahalkada, a lane that opens up the clearest view of the building’s facade. At the entrance you leave your shoes, and past that you can buy flowers to offer inside. I watched other non-Buddhist visitors buy them and chose not to: they wanted to take part out of respect, and I felt that taking part in something I did not understand would have been the opposite of respect.

From there you pass through the Ambarawa, a painted tunnel, onto the first floor. It was not busy there. Everyone was going up, and so I did.

Upstairs I walked into a room full of people offering flowers and praying, some queueing to lay a flower on the table in front of the shrine, the rest sitting on the floor around it. Some of them looked at me, and I felt like an intruder.

What was I doing here?

I have not often seen real devotion on my travels. In much of western Europe active religion has stepped back in favour of cultural, historical and touristic religion. That is not the case in Sri Lanka and it is not the case in Kandy. The Temple of the Tooth is a place foreigners want to see and can visit, and it does help you understand the culture. But standing in that room it felt wrong. I was disturbing people. I felt exposed as somebody who did not belong there.

So I stopped filming. I stopped taking photographs. I shuffled quietly along with the line of people placing flowers, round to the far side of the room and the exit, and I was relieved to reach the first floor again. I spent a while longer looking around while it sank in, and then it was time to go. Walking down to the exit I kept seeing the faces of the people praying.

On taking photographs inside

Photography is not banned in the temple and nobody will stop you at the shrine. That is precisely why it is worth thinking about. The people around you are not at an attraction; they are at the most sacred place in their religion, on an ordinary Wednesday, and a camera in their face during a service is an intrusion whether or not a sign forbids it.

The practical version: photograph the building, the courtyards and the museums freely. Inside the shrine room during a service, put the camera down. You will remember it better anyway, which is the one thing I did get right that day.

Where the temple sits, and what else is on the ticket

The temple stands on Sri Dalada Veediya in central Kandy, with Kandy Lake immediately to the south, the Udawattakele forest reserve behind it to the east, and the Natha and Pattini devalas to the west. It is walkable from anywhere in the town centre.

Four more sites are covered by the same ticket, and most visitors miss all four.

1. The Dalada Museum, in the old royal palace buildings, covering the history of the relic and the temple.
2. The World Buddhist Museum, with rooms devoted to Buddhism in each of the countries where it took root.
3. The Tusker Museum, dedicated to Raja, the tusker who carried the relic casket in the perahera for decades and who is preserved there.
4. The Royal Elephant Stable.

Allow two hours if you want to see the shrine during a service and the museums afterwards.

How to visit Kandy from Colombo

Kandy is about 115 km (71.5 mi) from Colombo and takes three to four hours by road, or around three hours on the train, which is the better journey. A guided day tour from Colombo handles the driving and the timing, which matters here because the point of the visit is arriving during a service.

Staying a night in Kandy is the better option if you can. It lets you take the 6.30pm service without watching the clock for the drive back, and it puts you in position for the train on to Ella the next morning, which is the journey most people remember from Sri Lanka.

Travel insurance for Sri Lanka

Travel insurance for Sri Lanka should cover the road above everything else, because the Colombo to Kandy highway and the hill-country roads are where things actually go wrong. Check that your policy covers travel by tuk-tuk, which some insurers class as a motorcycle and exclude.

SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance can be bought after a trip has already started, which most policies cannot, and that is the practical difference if you only think about cover once you are on the island.

Temple of the Tooth FAQ

How much does it cost to enter the Temple of the Tooth?

Entry costs LKR 3,000 for visitors from most countries and LKR 2,500 for visitors from SAARC countries, Thailand and Myanmar, with Sri Lankan nationals entering free. The ticket also admits you to the Dalada Museum, the World Buddhist Museum, the Tusker Museum and the Royal Elephant Stable.

What time is the puja at the Temple of the Tooth?

The three daily services run from 5.30am to 7.00am, from 9.30am to 11.00am and from 6.30pm to 8.00pm. The evening service is the most atmospheric and the early-morning one the quietest, and the inner chamber is opened during each of them.

Can you see the tooth relic?

You cannot see the tooth relic. It is kept inside the smallest of seven nested gold caskets in an inner chamber, and even during a service what is opened is the door of the chamber rather than the caskets. The relic is displayed publicly only on rare occasions decided by the temple.

What should you wear to the Temple of the Tooth?

Cover your shoulders and your legs to below the knee, and remove your shoes and hat before entering. Shorts, sleeveless tops and body-revealing clothing are refused at the entrance, where appropriate clothing can be obtained if you have arrived in the wrong thing. White or pale colours are what Sri Lankan devotees wear.

How long do you need at the Temple of the Tooth?

Allow one hour for the shrine during a service and two hours if you also want the four museums the ticket covers. Add time for the security screening, which can take a while before a busy evening service.

Is it disrespectful to visit as a non-Buddhist?

Visiting as a non-Buddhist is welcomed, and foreign visitors have their own ticket desk and shoe booth. The things that give offence are specific and avoidable: revealing clothing, turning your back on a Buddha image for a photograph, pointing the soles of your feet at the shrine, and filming people at prayer during a service.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from visiting the temple and from re-checking its own published guidance in September 2026, and three of them contradict what most guides still say.

1. The foreigner ticket is LKR 3,000, not LKR 2,000. The temple’s own price list gives LKR 3,000 for visitors from all countries other than SAARC members, Thailand and Myanmar, who pay LKR 2,500. Guides quoting LKR 1,500 or LKR 2,000 are out of date, so budget accordingly and do not argue with the machine.
2. Buy from the machines inside, never from a person. The temple states that tickets are issued automatically by its own machines and that tickets or fees issued by anyone else are not valid. That is an unusually direct warning for a temple to publish and it is there for a reason.
3. Come on a Wednesday at 9.30am if you can pick your day. The Nanumura Mangallaya, the symbolic bathing of the relic with a herbal preparation, is held weekly at that hour and the preparation is handed out to those waiting afterwards. It is the one service most visitors never hear about.
4. Use the ticket on the four museums. It covers the Dalada Museum, the World Buddhist Museum, the Tusker Museum and the Royal Elephant Stable, and almost nobody who queues for the shrine goes on to any of them.
5. Put the camera away in the shrine room. Nothing forbids it and nobody will stop you, which is exactly the problem. I filmed until I looked around at the faces of the people praying and could not carry on, and I have never regretted stopping.

More from this trip

Three more posts cover the rest of Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle from the same trip.

• Climbing Sigiriya Rock
• Spotting elephants at Kaudulla National Park
• Visiting the ancient city of Polonnaruwa

For the wider picture of the country we keep a list of interesting facts about Sri Lanka, the temple publishes its own guidance at Sri Dalada Maligawa, and there is a walk-through of the visit in the video we filmed on YouTube.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand account of the shrine room, the flowers and the decision to stop filming comes from her own visit to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy. That trip was made as a press visit with Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts, SriLankan Airlines and Mobitel; the opinions are her own. The team covers Sri Lanka for independent travellers, including the tours, hotels and travel insurance worth booking, and updates this page when ticket prices, service times and temple rules change.