R. Doug Wicker — Author

On Monday I showed you several Hindu artifacts contained within the walls of the Colombo National Museum, but there are also Buddhist icons here as well. The image above is quite a famous one. The Statue of Tara shown above is a replica of the original looted by the British. The original was “gifted” to England in the 1830s by the Governor of Ceylon at the time, General Sir Robert Brownrigg, and that original is currently on display in the British Museum. The depicts the Buddhist Goddess Tara. It’s an impressive 4 ft. 8 in./143cm tall. Unfortunately, this replica is merely gold painted bronze rather than made using the original’s gilt-bronze craftsmanship.

I also mentioned on Monday that the museum contains regalia from the Kandyan monarchs who ruled the Kingdom of Kandy (present day Sri Lanka) from 1590 until the British overthrew the monarchy in 1815. The Kandyan Royal Throne shown above was gifted by the Dutch to the Kandyan King Vimaladharmasuriya II sometime around 1692-1693. At the invitation of the Kandyan Monarchy, in order to combat Portuguese rule, the Dutch East India Company controlled the coastal areas of Ceylon from 1640 until 1796, at which time they were displaced by the British. Another artifact from the days of joint Kandyan rule is the exquisitely ornate (bronze cast barrel with gold, silver, and rubies) ceremonial Lewke’s Canon, which the Dutch took in 1765 and only got around to returning to Sri Lanka in 2023:

Another pair of Kandyan artifacts that piqued my interest also date back to 1765. These are a pair of massive Maha Thuwakku, or wall guns.

Ursula loves old chests, so I photographed this next item at her request. It once belonged to Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the last Kandyan monarch.

I’ll finish up today with this small photo gallery/slide show collection:

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Celebrity Millennium departed Habantota, Sri Lanka on 19 November 2025, and the next day we found ourselves in one of Sri Lanka’s two(!) capitals — Colombo. That’s right. Sri Lanka has two capitals. Colombo is home to the executive (President’s House) and judicial (Court of Appeals and Supreme Court) branches of government, but the legislative branch (Parliament of Sri Lanka) is in neighboring Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. But we wouldn’t be seeing those sights this day. Ursula had us on tour for other destinations, with the first being the Colombo National Museum, also known as the Sri Lanka National Museum. Parking is beyond the northeast corner of the museum and the entrance is from the south, so we walked around the corner of the museum to be greeted by the large grounds in front of it:

The Colombo National Museum is housed inside an impressive building built in the Italian Renaissance style. The museum was built in 1876, designed by Irish architect James Smither, and opened its doors to the public on 1 January 1877. Within its walls are a huge number of exhibits ranging from regalia associated with the Kandyan monarchs to over 100,000 artifacts dating all the way back to prehistory up through Sri Lankas more recent colonial past.

As one might suspect, there are a lot of ancient Hindu artifacts in the museum:

On Wednesday we’ll continue on a visual tour of the inside of the museum, and next Monday I’ll treat you to views of the magnificent grounds. As for today, I’ll leave you with the images below. Just click on any one of them to enlarge and bring up the slide show:

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