"The Tooth Relic Temple being a very special building in Sinhala architecture, it has become a living museum of the arts. All the inner wall surfaces, ceilings, beams and columns were painted with murals depicting the life of the Buddha, his previous births, and floral and geometrical designs. The stone doorways and moonstones were exquisitely carved and decorated with traditional motifs. The timber doorways were richly inliad with ivory and metal carvings, and the door sashes with paintings. Terracotta was used to decorate the external walls and the roofs. This temple or the inner shrine was not a large building, but a very richly decorated one employing all the materials and media used in Sinhalese art." - quoted from The Cultural Triangle of Sri Lanka, UNESCO, 1993.

The Temple of the Tooth was crowded with pilgrims and worshippers while we were there. Where the actual tooth is encased within 7 caskets one kept inside the other with the outermost being adorned with gold ornaments received as offerings. We could not go into the room, but I was able to take a picture from across the room while the door was open, where you can see the brilliant gold of the casket beyond the open door.