The procession includes fire-juggling acrobats, 100 sumptuously decorated elephants, traditional dancers, oboe-tooting musicians, banners, palanquins, whip crackers, torch bearers and thousands of barefoot pilgrims and swordsmen. To top it off, all this has happened every year since about 300 AD.

The old cannon booms after dusk and the Perahera (paraders) take to the streets every night, with the parades growing ever longer each night until the final night of pageantry, when the parade is at its finest.

The festival is a synthesis of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs and is dedicated not just to Skanda but also to Buddha. It is held to invoke the blessings of the gods for rain, fertility, successful crops and good health. Elephants feature heavily as they are symbols of abundance and fertility - the "clouds who walk the Earth", instrumental in attracting the vital rains for harvest time.

On the back of the largest elephant is the most treasured item in the procession, a copy of a golden reliquary said to hold a tooth of the Buddha. Legend has it that the Buddha's tooth was brought to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century AD, hidden in the tresses of a princess. Pilgrims flock to visit the golden temple, Sri Dalada Maligawa, situated beside a tree-lined lake, everyday of the year to catch a glimpse of the golden casket which holds the venerated molar.