The
Rock Fortress Sigiriya
Sigiriya,
the Lion Rock or the Lion Mountain 360 meters above sea level and 200 meters
above the surrounding plain. Is about 80km south of Anuradhapura City, where stands at
very centre of Sri Lanka, encircled by mountains, forests and manmade lakes. It
is essentially a fortified Royal Capital of one of the King in 5th
century. The patricide King Kassapa (475-497 AD) is unique character and
creative genius. He founded his Palace on the top this huge bolder rock and
built his City surrounding the rock. The remaining of the Royal palace and
other courtly buildings are covering an area of three & half hectares.
The
grandeur of Sigiriya lies in its distinctive features such as the Royal palace
on the summit of the rock, the skilfully planned and engineered ascent to the
palace through a brick built massive lion figure, beautiful paintings of
celestial nymphs drawn on the plastered walls. The remaining paintings are in
an un-accessible cave half way up the rock, which the visitor can reach only by
the modern spiral stairway., the highly polished mirror wall of the Gallery on
which the thoughts and emotions of the visitors to the rock who came to see the
paintings during 8th to 13th centuries were recorded, the
bolder gardens at the foot of the rock with caves distributed unevenly on the
western side, the symmetrically or geometrically planed water gardens,
mathematically planed fortification and layout consisting of 2 moats and the
rampart system surrounded the entire City with elaborate gateways from 3 sides
in which two are large enough for elephants and vehicular traffic.
In
its totality, therefore, today Sigiriya provide us with classic example of a
unique concentration of 5th century town planning, landscaping,
gardening, engineering and hydrologic, technology, architecture, art and
literature, thereby forming a cultural museum of the 5th century Sri
Lanka.
Apart
from the existing and fascinating rock at Sigirya, a visitor who enters by the
Western entrance through a drawbridge can notice that there are four types of
garden elements.
I.
Water gardens
II.
Boulder Gardens
III.
Terrace Gardens
IV.
Palace Gardens
Water
Gardens
Water
gardens can be divides itself into three parts demarcating its boundaries by
stepped terraces. The first part of the water garden that lies close to the
Western entrance is divided into two equal parts by an axial pathway leading
towards the rock. On the either side of the pathway are built four symmetrically
planned ponds.
The
most exciting part of the water garden is its second portion which can be
called the ‘’Fountain Garden.’’ The western half of which has two long and deep
pools with stepped cross-sections. Shallow serpentine streams paved with marble
slabs drain into these pools. These serpentines are punctuated by fountains made
of circular limestone plates with symmetrical perforations. The underground
water conduits feed these fountains and operate purely on the principle of
gravity and pressure. Even today these fountains operate during the rainy
season.
The
third portion of the water garden is an extensive area on a higher level,
access to which is provided with a flight of steps. Place almost at the centre
of the terrace. To the north is a large spectacular octagonal pond at the base
of a towering boulder on the western side of which is a horizontally cut drip
ledge indicating that it once had some sort of structure of the remains of a ‘’bathing
pavilion.’’
The
water garden ends up with a massive brick and stone wall pierced by wide
entrance with flight of steps leading to the boulder garden. To the North and
South of the ‘’fountain gardens’’ lie two moated islands on which there seems
have been a well planned structures perhaps summer palaces of the water gardens. The excavation of the
southern moated island has revealed a central structure surrounded by a single
row of pedestals that once held columns, forming a colonnade around the building.
The entrance to this structure is marked by a moonstone still in situ.
The
Boulder Garden
The
Boulder garden is situated on a higher level than the water gardens. The natural
beauty of Sigiriya lies in this boulder garden which is entirely organic and asymmetrical,
comprising several winding pathways, some leading to the main rock. It seems
that human hand has never attempted to alter or remove the existing positions
of these boulders but utilise them for human needs by constructing buildings or
pavilions set upon them. Today what we see as steps and drains or honey combs
of holes on the side or tops of these boulders are in fact that foundations or
footings of ancient brick walls and timber columns and beams. But unfortunately
none of these structures on the boulders survive today.
Many
of these boulders have rock shelters beneath them originally fashioned by the
early lay devotees and offered to early Buddhist monks. Some of these rock
shelters still bear trace of paintings. Noteworthy feature in this area is the use
of some boulders to form an Audience Hall which has flattered summit, on which a
large 5 meter long throne is carved out of the living rock showing the degree
of rich technological skills of the stone masons of the day. The boulder
adjoining the ‘’Audience Hall’’ provides another example how the ancients have
utilised boulder tops to build cisterns. Another interesting example of a
boulder being used for the meeting of human needs is the ‘’Preaching Rock’’ the
summit of which exhibits a honey comb of port holes indicating a structure over the boulder.
Third
garden - The Terrace Gardens
The
terrace gardens have been fashioned out of the natural hill at the base of the
Sigiriya rock. These terraces are formed by means of rubble retaining walls. On
the west terrace garden lie the brick built staircases leading the way upto the
summit of the rock through the gallery and the precipitous side of the main
rock. This staircase first lead onto the ‘’Lion Staircase Plateau’’ where we
can see the remains of a great brick built lion figure which gave Sigiriya its
name.
The
fourth garden – Palace Garden
Palace
garden elements at Sigiriya is located on the summit in the form of terrace and
rock cut water pools designed as the domestic garden of the palace of the King.
The
history of Sigiriya extends from about the 3rd century BC to the 19th
century AD. In its earliest phase it was monastic settlement. In the 5th
century AD, it became the Capital of Sri Lanka for brief period, under King
Kassapa I (475-497 AD). This was the major constructional phase of Sigiriya
during which the present name came into being. Subsequently, after Kassapa’s
death, it was turned back in to a monastic settlement. This post Kassapan
period seems to have lasted till 13th century. Sigiriya Graffiti
prove beyond doubt that it was the paintings which become the main attraction
of Sigiriya during the period. The visitors from all over Sri Lanka had come
here as pleasure seekers and their thought and emotions were recorded in the
Graffiti. Paranavithana deciphered nearly
700 of them. They are amongst the earliest literacy compositions in the Sinhala
language preserving the form of day to day poetry rather than official inscriptions
or religious literature. After the 13th century Sigiriya disappears
for a time from the history of Sri Lanka until, in the 16th or 17th
century it appears as a distant outpost (16th-19th centuries).
The last phase at Sigiriya begins with the modern recovery in the 1830’s by
antiquarians and archaeologists, the first modern reference to Sigiriya being
that of Forbes in the 1830s. The first excavations were carried out by HCP
Bell. The first Archaeological commissioner of Sri Lanka in the 1890s and the
work continued off and on ever since.
The
Sigiriya Cultural Triangle Project, one of the six projects of the UNESCO- Sri
Lanka Cultural Triangle Program was inaugurated in January 1982. This project
is administrated by two agencies.
The
University of Kelaniya Archaeological team (archaeological direction, excavation,
documentation and research) and Messrs. Selvarathnam & Perera Architectural
Consultants (conservation and layout and peripheral area development) and
presided over by the Director General of the cetral cultural fund. The principle
objectives of this project are the excavations, conservation and landscaping of
the Sigiriya complex. This project when completed will give us a better
understanding of the history and character of this unique site and make its various
aspects more comprehensible to the thousands of visitors who come to see Sigiriya,
the lion mountain.
By Eranga Jayasinghe
* Ref - Taken by the lecture notes of CTB/NTGL course 1998 - writer - HT Basnayake
*Pictures copied from the Google images
*Pictures copied from the Google images
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