The Kandy Esala Perahera is the most magnificent spectacle to be witnessed in Sri Lanka. Perahera means procession, but this is no ordinary procession. The beginnings of the Perahera go back to the third century AD, when King Megavanna decreed that once a year the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha should be brought out of its enshrinement in the Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Tooth) so that homage could be made. Today’s Perahera did not commence until the 18th century, when Siamese Buddhist monks invited to help restore the island’s Theravada orthodoxy complained to the king that the predominance of Kandy’s four major Hindu dewales (temples) was improper in a Buddhist royal capital. The king therefore ordered that a new perahera be instituted in which processions representing the four dewales should be incorporated.

 
The Perahera adheres to this tradition, with the columns representing the dewales leading the way, each followed by a number of caparisoned elephants. In the vanguard is the column from the Natha Dewale - Natha being the tutelary deity of Kandy, who is identified with Maitreya, the Buddha-to-be. Next comes the Vishnu Dewale – Vishnu, besides being one of the major gods of the Hindu pantheon, is also the deity to whom the welfare of Buddhism in the island is entrusted. Then there is the Skanda Dewale – Skanda being the war deity of Kataragama - and finally the Pattini Dewale – Pattini being the goddess of health and chastity. 
 
Behind the four dewales comes the column from the Dalada Maligawa with a magnificent tusker on whose back is a howdah containing the karanduwa, which is a replica of the dagoba-shaped casket that preserves the tooth relic. More elephants follow, and then, dressed in his extraordinary attire of office, walks the Diyawardana Nilame, the chief trustee of the Dalada Maligawa. The people of Kandy are represented in the Perahera by school children and performers such as Kandyan dancers, stick-dancers, whip-crackers, acrobats, stilt-walkers, and flame-throwers.
 
The Perahera consists of ten nightly processions followed by a day procession on the eleventh day. For the first six nights the procession is known as Kumbal Perahara. This is a prelude to the more impressive Randoli Perahera, which begins on the seventh night, when the splendid randolis - ‘golden palanquins’ – that bear the consorts of the four deities join the columns. The length of the Perahera gradually increases until, after five nights it reaches its climax, with over 100 elephants participating.
 
On the morning of the eleventh day, a ritual known as the water-cutting ceremony is performed. This is a symbolic purification of the sword of Skanda, the war god of Kataragama. At dawn a procession leaves for the river at Getambe, a suburb of Kandy. The waters are cut with a circular sweep of the sacred sword and then four clay pots – one from each of the dewales – are filled from the circle of water marked out by the sword. Finally, at noon on the eleventh day, the perahera that concludes the festival begins.
 
(Content Source : Travel Sri Lanka Magazine)