Gangaramaya Temple
A Buddhist temple that hoards everything: relics, vintage cars, watches and ivory elephants.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 15 min
Best time
In the morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
The Gangaramaya is a working Buddhist temple and a cabinet of curiosities: for a century it has accumulated everything given to it. Relics and statues, but also vintage cars, hundreds of watches, elephant tusks and objects with no apparent connection.
The accumulation is deliberate: the temple accepts its followers' donations and displays them rather than selling them on. The result is disconcerting and unique. The temple also runs a monastic school and organises the Navam Perahera procession in February, with a hundred elephants.
Getting there
Sri Jinaratana Road, near Beira lake. Tuk-tuk from the fort, ten minutes; the floating Seema Malaka temple is next door, on the lake.
What the price covers
an entry donation is asked, the amount left to the visitor
What to bring
- Covering clothes
Rules on site
Shoes off at the door and shoulders and knees covered — it is enforced. Never turn your back on a Buddha statue to photograph yourself with it: it is an offence, and it is prosecuted in Sri Lanka.