Dambulla
The Cave Temple of Dambulla was where the 1st century King named Valagamba took refuge when he fled from Anuradhapura his kingdom, due to a South Indian invasion. The King decided that the caves situated on a 160 meter high rock was a safe place to live and to gather an army for recapturing the lost kingdom.
When the King regained his throne after 14 years of living in the caves, he returned to Anuradhapura and decided to convert the caves into a temple which he gifted it to the monks.
The Kings from the Polonnaruwa and Kandy periods too added more features to the caves in forms of murals and images. King Nissankamalla of the Polonnaruwa period gilded most of the images and as a result the rock earned the name of Rangiri Dambulu Gala, which means Golden Rock of Dambulla.
The cave temple comprising of five caves off one great rock is Sri Lanka’s best preserved cave temple and has 160 statues of which 153 are of the Buddha and 2100 Sq, meters of paintings depicting events of the life of the Buddha.
