Sri Lanka is an ideal holiday destination, not only because of the natural wonders spread across the island, but also the mix of cultures and religions. Home to the world's four major religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), Sri Lanka is an island with 25 public holidays each year. Celebrated with great fervor and enthusiasm, experiencing a festival in Sri Lanka offers the perfect chance to witness and be a part of this beautiful country's culture and traditions. Here’s a list of the top 10 fascinating festivals you that you can’t miss in Sri Lanka.
Kandy Esala Perahera
Esala Perahera is the most spectacular and prominent festival in Sri Lanka and is the climax of 10 days and nights of celebrations during the month of Esala. Perahera means procession in Sinhalese, this great procession honors the sacred tooth relic in Kandy and starts in late June. Throughout the festival, having fire jugglers, gigantic cultural parades, dancers and musicians perform during various celebrations and processions who are all lavishly dressed wearing elaborate traditional costumes. Even elephants take part in the parade and are adorned with flamboyant garments and gems. With spectacular goings-on every day during the festival, the experience is unmissable if you are in Sri Lanka during this time.
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Sinhala and Tamil New Year
Being a significant festival to the people of the Island, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year’s celebration is specially celebrated to mark the end of the harvest season and spring. This important national festival is not celebrated in any other nation. It is unique to the people of Sri Lanka. In the run-up to the New Year celebrations, Sri Lankans will prepare by cleaning and decorating their houses, making traditional sweets and desserts and spending time with loved ones. During the actual day, locals will adorn their best outfits and take part in numerous activities such as blessing their children with herbal oils, sharing the first home-cooked feast of the year with family, setting off fireworks and playing games in the street. It is also a tradition that the first financial transaction of the year is when elders give gifts of money to the unmarried young, as a sign of good luck.
Vesak Poya
Vesak is considered as both a religious and cultural festival in Sri Lanka. It is celebrated on the full moon of the lunar month of Vesak, which is May on the Gregorian calendar. This week-long celebration, known as the Festival of Light, commemorates the Buddha’s birth, attainment of enlightenment and his passing into nirvana. During Vesak Poya, the whole island and especially Colombo becomes a kaleidoscope of colored lights and lanterns. Apart from the glittering light displays, whilst devotees hand out food, sweets, and drinks to passers-by and spend the days in their local temple practicing religious activities such as praying and fasting. You may also hear singing groups as they go about town singing Buddhist religious songs called bhakti gee. Should you be in Sri Lanka during Vesak, you will find it a colorful and festive time of year. It is the perfect time to learn about Sri Lankan culture and history and to learn of land very different from your own.
Poson Poya
Poson Poya is a very religious festival and temples on the island are filled with devotees and pilgrims to mark this great event. It is commemorating the arrival of Buddhism to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BC. Although Poson Poya Festival is celebrated across Sri Lanka, the main event is a mass pilgrimage to Anuradhapura where the famous temples come alive with traditions festivities. During the holiday, thousands of white-clothed pilgrims climb to the summit of Mihintale to the spot where Mahinda gave his first sermon. Other activities during Poson Poya include lighting lanterns, cooking feasts and sharing with others and Buddhist teachings like reading holy books or listen to monks tell stories about Buddha's life. During the Poson Festival, shops and businesses will usually close and the sale of alcohol and meat is forbidden.
Vel Festival
The Vel Festival is one of the most important festivals of Sri Lanka's Tamil community, the main celebrations take part in Colombo which attracts thousands of pilgrims from all over the island. It celebrates the Hindu war god Skanda, also known as Lord Muruga, and worships his trident, the vel. The highlight of the festival is the perahera—a procession where a statue is carried in a silver-plated chariot drawn by a pair of white bulls. It ends at the Bambalapitiya temple. Devotees in bright clothes take to the streets to hold chariot parades, traditional singing, tinkling bells, and Kavadi—a ceremonial offering dance. During the festival, they often perform rituals by piercing their cheeks and other body parts.
Deepavali
Deepavali (or Diwali) is a Hindu festival of lights, which spiritually signifies the victory of good forces over the evil ones when Lord Rama defeated Demon King, Ravana. This holiday has particular significance in Sri Lanka, as the famous epic of Ramayana, which is behind the legend, partially takes place in Lankapura (Sri Lanka). Deepavali is a public holiday in Sri Lanka, but it's mostly celebrated by the Sri Lankan Tamils. Traditional rituals include lighting off small lamps to banish evil spirits. The lamps symbolize hope for a bright future. Tradition families come together wearing new clothes whilst sharing a meal and exchanging gifts and other celebrations include spectacular firework displays, making homemade sweets and visiting local shrines and temples.
Maha Shivarathri
Maha Shivaratri is a famous Hindu festival celebrated each year in reverence of Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration. It is celebrated across India and it is also a public holiday in Sri Lanka. During the festival, images and statues of Lord Shiva are paraded through the streets on decorated chariots in every Hindu community. Devotees take a filtration bath at dawn and also fast all the time. Shiva statuaries are also bathed in milk as well as honey as well as covered in red vermillion to represent the purification of the soul. Meditation rituals are also an important part of the festival and some temples such as the Sri Kailshwarar in Colombo celebrate with music and dance performances, creating a vibrant and mesmerizing commemoration.
Thai Pongal
Thai Pongal is the Harvest Festival of Tamils and has been celebrated for over 1,000. It starts on the first day of Thai on the traditional Tamil calendar, which usually falls in mid-January, and marks the start of the sun’s six-month journey northbound. Normally the celebration is lasting two days, people decorate their homes with banana leaves and colorful kolam patterns made with rice flour and boil rice in milk along with spices, nuts and raisins to share with locals. The cattle that help farmers are also honored by being bathed, painted with colored dyes and given beautiful garlands that hang around their neck and horns. For travelers, there will be many interesting things to do in this festival. Such as tour the streets to see the beautifully decorated homes of celebrants. Attend ‘official festivities’ in various parts of Sri Lanka, like fireworks displays and traditional song and dance, eat local delicious foods. These celebrations often continue long into the night.
Nallur Festival
The Nallur Festival is held annually in Jaffna at the Nallur Kandaswamy Temple. The grand celebration is lasting for 25 days worship Lord Murugan. It’s also the longest festival in Sri Lanka. During the festival period, over thousands of Hindu devotees participate in this grand celebration, parades through the inner premises of the temple by day and its outskirts by dusk, and on well into the night. Images of the Lord Murugan are respectfully transported throughout the entirety of the festival in revered vehicles in the form of animals: peacocks—silver and green; cobra and swan; all considered sacred to the holy spectrum. The celebrations conclude with a chariot festival, in which the scared image of the god Murugan is placed in a chariot, amidst the constant drumming and chanting.
National Day
While Sri Lanka’s National Day is similar to Independence Day celebrations in countries like the United States and Greece, it also has some unique qualities. National Day in Sri Lanka is a holiday of patriotism and cultural appreciation. Sri Lankan National Day is celebrated with official ceremonies, military parades, canon fire shows, firework displays and also cultural performances taking place across the country. The main celebrations take place in the largest city, Colombo, where the President hoists the national flag and delivers a speech which is nationally televised.
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