Sri Lanka Maldives Tour - Gayathri Peetha And Dambulla Cave Temple

Still in Nuwara, we had an option to visit their botanical garden or the Gayathri Peetha temple. All of us chose the temple in an instant. The story associated is highly spiritual and fascinating. At the temple (under construction) has 108 Shiv Lingas (in pure one-piece black stones) brought in from the Narmada River in India and they are being installed at the temple. The process is on.

The guide at the temple told fascinating stories of the main guru of the shrine and how he traveled all over the eastern Asian countries and bought extraordinary elements to the this place (includes a sahasra (thousand) mukhi rudraksh with a natural cobra hood and Shivlinga grown on it, the sanjeevani herb that Hanuman had brought into Sri Lanka to save Lakshman during the Ram-Ravana war and others).

Meditation at the place is highly advocated. I did. What a feeling!! The energy and vibration of the place was divine and peaceful. What an amazing 10 min of meditation. There was heaviness too. Just felt as if some energy within was trying to come out and some trying to get in. Felt wonderful...

Our journey then started toward Dambulla, one of the biggest cities in Sri Lanka. 

Along the way, we stopped at a local Spice Garden to look at spices and herbs. Having already visited Kerala its spice gardens, it wasn't a new experience for us really. Looked routine but to our pleasant surprise, nature decided to make it exciting. The heavens opened up and boy ... what a downpour! We were quickly escorted into a hutment conference room where we were served piping hot cinnamon, cardamom tea. The guide explained various spices and products being offered at the garden shop. Many of our members bought some of them.

After about an hour, the rain relented and we were on our way to Dambulla Cave Temple - one of the most fascinating Buddha shrines in Sri Lanka. As we neared the temple, we were awestruck by a 25 feet tall yellow statue of a meditating Buddha sitting atop a hill. Around the statue was a brilliantly developed and maintained temple campus.

Below the statue was a museum with artifacts and idols while the cave temples were located around and above the statue in the hills. The approach to the cave temples was a stepped climb (around 400 steps) leading to five cave temples above. Each cave had its own magnificent carvings, statues and paintings that were centuries old but still standing test of time. Incredible...

One of the caves housed a bowl of eternal water. Water dripped into the bowl from the top and leaked out at its bottom into the rocks below (the source and destination of water are unknown) such that the bowl is always full of water but never spills of the edges. Amazing!!

Another cave had paintings on the roof that were high and extremely intricate in colors and shapes. You were left wondering, how did the painters get up there and how did they draw/paint such amazing artwork and for how long? 

A truly humbling experience at the cave temple as we started our journey to complete our day to check into Hotel Sigiriya for our next day show ... the biggest highlight of the tour for us - the Sigiriya Rock Climb! So excited...

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