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Dowa Cave Temple is another place of attraction in Sri Lanka when you are going for pilgrimage tours to Sri Lanka. It is said that the Dowa Cave Temple was a cave temple built by King Walagamba in a hurry. Not only the surrounding areas offers breathtaking beauty courtesy the mountains and the lush green forest but the temple is also another attraction with hordes of historic secrets and is a must visit sightseeing spot of Sri Lanka.

According to a legend while he built this temple King Walagamba was actually hiding and before the temple could be fully finished he fled from the place. Supporting this myth is a stone statue of Buddha which is unfinished and the villagers say that the king left the temple using a secret tunnel before this statue was finished.

This secret tunnel which is guarded by a statue of cobra is nowadays cemented. You will be disappointed but that was done to prevent the treasure hunters from secretly entering the temple and also to save the tourists from facing any accident since there are often landslides here. However, the temple has been ransacked for few times especially the shrine room by treasure hunters who wanted to find gold and gems. In the shrine room you would find metal and bronze statues of Buddha from various times and all these depict excellent craftsmanship. The best relic that you can see here is however, the half-finished statue of Avukana Buddha which is about 36 feet in height that is linked to King Walagamba. Alongside the statue you would find a giant sapu tree on a granite slab base which is slowly getting weakened by the roots of the tree.

The Dowa Cave Temple’s architecture mostly relates to the Kandyan period. The entrance of the shrine room has two statues of Watuka and Kuvera who are two Rakshasa leaders and they are the guards of the entrance to the shrine room. The shrine room itself decorated with Kandyan paintings which are two-dimensional. These paintings depict the Jataka stories. In the rock canopy you would find paintings of lotus and various other flowers and among these flowers you would find a rare painting hidden. This painting which is known as 'Ath-Gon Satana' is an illustration of a fight between a tusker and a bull. Another creature that is present in the paintings as well as the jug used for serving water to Buddha is that of cobra. This creature is depicted in the entrance gate and in the various paintings within the temple meaning intruders are prohibited.

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