Dambulla Cave Temple: What Is Inside the Five Caves and How to Visit

Dambulla is the largest and best-preserved cave temple complex in Sri Lanka, and it has been in continuous religious use for over two thousand years. King Valagamba sheltered here in the first century BC while exiled from Anuradhapura, and converted the caves into a temple when he regained the throne. Every century since has added to it.

What that means physically is five caves cut under a single vast granite overhang, 160 metres above the plain, painted from floor to ceiling and holding around 150 Buddha statues along with images of Hindu deities and Sinhalese kings. The murals cover about 2,100 square metres.

The scale is the thing photographs fail at. Cave 2, the largest, is 52 metres wide and its ceiling follows the natural curve of the rock, painted in an unbroken sheet of figures and patterns that meets the floor without a visible seam. Standing under it is the moment the visit justifies itself.

It is also cool and dark, which after Sigiriya matters more than it sounds. Most itineraries put Sigiriya in the morning and Dambulla after, and that order is correct for reasons of temperature as much as scheduling.

Cave 1, Devaraja Viharaya, holds a 14-metre reclining Buddha cut from the living rock, with a statue of Ananda at the feet. It is the oldest of the five and the most cramped.

Cave 2, Maharaja Viharaya, is the one people remember. Fifty-two metres wide, around sixty Buddha images, statues of Valagamba and Nissanka Malla, and a stupa in the middle. Water drips continuously from a crack in the ceiling into a vessel that never overflows — it drips upward against gravity along the rock, and the monks treat it as sacred. The ceiling painting here is the best in the country.

Cave 3, Maha Alut Viharaya, is eighteenth century, from the Kandyan period, and the difference in painting style from the older caves is obvious once you have seen both.

Caves 4 and 5 are smaller and later. Cave 5 was a storehouse before it became a shrine, and its images are brick and plaster rather than carved rock.

Together they take an hour to walk properly. Rushing them is the usual mistake — most day tours allow forty minutes and most visitors leave feeling they saw the outside of something.

Nobody warns people about the approach. The caves are 160 metres above the road and the path up is a steep, exposed staircase of about fifteen minutes in full sun. It is not long, but after a morning on Sigiriya it lands harder than expected, and there is no shade until the top.

Shoes come off at the entrance to the terrace, not at the bottom, so you can wear proper shoes for the climb. Take socks: the terrace stone is in full sun and gets painfully hot by midday.

The macaques on the stairs are numerous and practised. They will take food, water bottles and anything shiny out of an open bag or hand. Keep everything zipped and do not feed them, however much the group in front is doing it.

There are two ticket points and they catch people out: the ticket office is at the bottom near the Golden Temple, and the check is at the top. Buying on the way up saves walking back down for it.

At the base of the hill is the Golden Temple, a modern building with an enormous gilded seated Buddha on its roof and a museum inside. It is not part of the cave complex, it was built in the 2000s largely with Japanese funding, and opinions on it are divided — it is brash next to two thousand years of restraint above it.

It is worth two minutes for the photograph and it has clean toilets, which on this route is not nothing.

Entry to the caves is around USD 10 for foreign visitors, paid in cash, and Sri Lankan nationals enter free. The ticket does not cover a guide; licensed ones wait near the entrance and are worth it if you want the murals explained, since almost nothing is signed inside.

Dress rules are enforced at the gate: shoulders and knees covered for men and women. Sarongs can be rented. Photography inside the caves is permitted but flash is not, and posing with your back to a Buddha image is a serious offence in Sri Lanka.

Dambulla is open roughly 7am to 7pm. Early morning and late afternoon are both good; midday is when the terrace stone is hottest underfoot and the coach groups arrive.

The standard and correct pairing is Sigiriya in the morning and Dambulla afterwards, fifteen minutes apart. Reversing them means climbing Sigiriya in the heat, which is a mistake people only make once.

If you are based in Sigiriya, Dambulla or Habarana, this is a half-day at most and leaves the afternoon free for a Minneriya safari or Polonnaruwa. If you are coming from Kandy it is part of a long day; from Colombo it is part of a very long one.

Dambulla is also the sensible stop on a transfer day. Kandy to Sigiriya, Sigiriya to Kandy, and Sigiriya to Nuwara Eliya all pass within minutes of it, and building it into the drive costs an hour rather than a day.