The wanderings of the tooth, though almost as surprising as those of the bowl, rest on better historical evidence, but there is probably more continuity in the story than in the holy object of which it is related, for the piece of bone which is credited with being the left canine tooth of the Blessed One may have been changed on more than one occasion.  The Sinhalese chronicles,[65] as mentioned, say that it was brought to Ceylon in the ninth year of Sirimeghavanna.[66] This date may be approximately correct for about 413 or later Fa-Hsien described the annual festival of the tooth, during which it was exposed for veneration at the Abhayagiri monastery, without indicating that the usage was recent.

The tooth did not, according to Sinhalese tradition, form part of the relics distributed after the cremation of the Buddha.  Seven bones, including four teeth,[67] were excepted from that distribution and the Sage Khema taking the left canine tooth direct from the funeral pyre gave it to the king of Kalinga, who enshrined it in a gorgeous temple at Dantapura[68] where it is supposed to have remained 800 years.  At the end of that period a pious king named Guhasiva became involved in disastrous wars on account of the relic, and, as the best means of preserving it, bade his daughter fly with her husband[69] and take it to Ceylon.  This, after some miraculous adventures, they were able to do.  The tooth was received with great ceremony and lodged in an edifice called the Dhammacakka from which it was taken every year for a temporary sojourn[70] in the Abhayagiri monastery.

The cultus of the tooth flourished exceedingly in the next few centuries and it came to be regarded as the talisman of the king and nation.  Hence when the court moved from Anuradhapura to Pollunaruwa it was installed in the new capital.  In the troubled times which followed it changed its residence some fifteen times.  Early in the fourteenth century it was carried off by the Tamils to southern India but was recovered by Parakrama Bahu III and during the commotion created by the invasions of the Tamils, Chinese and Portuguese it was hidden in various cities.  In 1560 Dom Constantino de Braganca, Portuguese Viceroy of Goa, led a crusade against Jaffna to avenge the alleged persecution of Christians, and when the town was sacked a relic, described as the tooth of an ape mounted in gold, was found in a temple and carried off to Goa.  On this Bayin Naung, King of Pegu, offered an enormous ransom to redeem it, which the secular government wished to accept, but the clergy and inquisition put such pressure on the Viceroy that he rejected the proposal.  The archbishop of Goa pounded the tooth in a mortar before the viceregal court, burned the fragments and scattered the ashes over the sea.[71]