National Museum of Kandy

The National Museum of Kandy is in the centre of Kandy, Sri Lanka, next to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and within the old Royal Palace complex. It is run by the Department of National Museums.

The main exhibits are housed in the Palle Vahala, also called the Meda Vahala, a single-storey building put up during the reign of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the last king of Kandy, as the quarters of the royal queens. It is built in the Kandyan style with thick walls, a tiled roof and a covered verandah around an inner courtyard. A secondary display is held in the main palace building.

After the British took the kingdom in 1815, the building had several uses. From 1882 the Kandy Art Association used it to store and show traditional crafts, and it was opened to the public as a museum in 1942.

The museum holds over 5,000 objects from the Kandyan period of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and from the British era. Displays include weapons, jewellery, ivory and metalwork, lacquerware, ritual objects, household tools and royal regalia. A copy of the 1815 Kandyan Convention, the agreement that handed the Kandyan provinces to the British, is also shown. In the grounds stands a statue of Sir Henry Ward, Governor of Ceylon from 1855 to 1860.

A visit takes about an hour and pairs well with the Temple of the Tooth and the palace buildings. Photography inside may be restricted.

The building has a past beyond the royal court. Before the museum opened, the Kandy Art Association, founded in 1882, used the hall to store and show work by craftsmen from Kandy and Matale. That link to living crafts still shows in the cases of lacquer, brass and silverwork, many made by the same artisan families who supplied the temple and the court.

The statue of Sir Henry Ward in the grounds did not start here. It first stood in front of the Queen's Hotel in the town centre and was moved to the museum later, so visitors who pass the hotel on the way to the lake are walking past its original site.

The museum was also the scene of a break-in in 1961, still remembered in Sri Lanka as the Kandy museum robbery.

The Royal Palace complex is compact, and a combined walk takes in the museum, the Temple of the Tooth and the old palace buildings in about half a day. Go in the morning, before the temple's busy evening puja.