After reviewed Ellora, Ajanta and Elephanta Caves, I felt oblige to write a review on Dambulla, another World Heritage listed cave temple in South Asia, which maybe the most unique in the whole group in many senses. The first thing I saw at Dambulla was the new multi-stories temple of Dambulla and the gigantic but ugly big golden Buddha on the top of the building. I did not understand as Sri Lanka had many beautiful Buddha images, but at Dambulla which should be one of the most important places to Sri Lankan art did such a disappointing thing. And I not surprised as nobody seemed to care the new temple and directly walked to the hill behind where the real Dambulla located.

As in the morning I visited Sigiriya and was very tired from climbing, when I saw that I had to climb the hill again I felt very discouraged at first but decided to keep going. Along the way I saw many monkeys and the views were quite stunning, I even saw Sigiriya from here. To my relief the temple was not on the top of the hill but located in the lower shelf. I felt that Dambulla landscape has many similarities with Ajanta, but much smaller and greener. When I reached the caves, I saw a nice row of white porticos and verandas built in European Style as gates to the caves with lovely lilies ponds. I saw all five caves of Dambulla, the most outstanding feature of the caves were the vivid color of statues and mural paintings. The paintings were really stunning almost like ancient wallpaper. The numerous Buddha statues were equally impressive with many rock-hewn and wooden images. The colorful of Dambulla made me able to imagine how Ajanta should be when in its zenith as well as other caves in Ellora.

Although the caves were great, I did not feel Dambulla to be the best site in Sri Lanka, the mural paintings at Sigiriya were much more interesting to me with more artistic and freer from holy theme. But it was a great place to study Buddhist iconography in Sri Lanka better than Anuradhapura and in the same league with Gal Vihara of Polonnaruwa. Also, in my opinion Dambulla was a prototype of many cave temples in Southeast Asia especially in Thailand and Laos which Sri Lankan Buddhist monastic school still hold strong influence, so visiting Dambulla was not just a local art study but also Southeast Asia art history study.