Gangaramaya Temple

Gangaramaya stands on Beira Lake in the middle of Colombo, and it is the temple most visitors to the city actually enter. It is a working monastery, a school, a library and — improbably — one of the strangest museums in Sri Lanka, all on one crowded compound.

Founding

The temple was completed in the late 19th century, founded by Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera and Devundera Sri Jinaratana Nayake Thera. The land was acquired and prepared by a shipping merchant, Don Bastian de Silva Jayasuriya Goonewardane. Sumangala Thera was one of the central figures of the Buddhist revival of that period, which is part of why the temple carries the weight it does in Colombo.

An eclectic architecture

The compound is an eclectic mix of Sri Lankan, Thai, Indian and Chinese architecture, and it does not pretend otherwise — the effect is accumulation rather than design. Out on the water, reached by a causeway, the Seema Malaka assembly hall is the opposite: a spare, open pavilion designed by Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's most celebrated architect, and built with donations from a Muslim sponsor. The two buildings belong to the same institution and could not look less alike; seeing both is the point of coming.

The collection, and the perahera

Over a century the temple has accepted donations from anyone who offered them, and it has kept nearly all of it: Buddha images in every regional style, vintage cars, jewellery, carved ivory, gifts from heads of state. Very little is labelled. It reads as a treasury rather than a museum.

The annual Nawam Perahera, held in February, is Colombo's largest procession — elephants, dancers, drummers and torch-bearers through the streets around Beira Lake.

Visiting

Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off at the shrine, and do not turn your back on a Buddha image to pose for a photograph.