Sigiriya (Lion's rock) is an ancient rock fortress and castle/palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. It is a popular tourist destination, also known for its ancient paintings ( frescos). The Sigiraya was built during the reign of King Kasyapa I(AC 477 – 495), and it is one of the seven World heritage sites of Sri lanka.
In 477 A.D, prince Kasyapa seized the throne from King Dhatusena, following a coup assisted by Migara, the king’snephew and army commander. Kasyapa, the king’s son by a non-royal consort, usurped the rightful heir, Moggallana, who fled to South India. Fearing an attack from Moggallana, Kasyapa moved the capital and his residence from the traditional capital of Anuradhapura to the more secure Sigiriya. During King Kasyapa’s reign from 477 to 495 A.D, Sigiriya was developed into a complex city and fortress. Most of the elaborate constructions on the rock summit and around it, including defensive structures, palaces and gardens, date back to this period.
Kasyapa was defeated in 495 A.D by Moggallana, who moved the capital again to Anuradhapura. Sigiriya was then turned back into a Buddhist monastery, which lasted until the thirteenth or fourteenth century. After this period, no records are found on Sigirya until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it was used as an outpost of the Kingdom of Kandy. When the kingdom ended, it was abandoned again.
Originally this wall was so well polished that the king could see himself whilst he walked alongside it. Make of a kind of porcelain, the wall is now partially covered with verses scribbled by visitors to the rock. Well preserved, the mirror wall has verses dating from the 8th century. People of all types wrote on the wall, on varying subjects such as love, irony, and experiences of all sorts. Further writing on the mirror wall has now been banned.
Frescos
The paintings would have covered most of the western face of the rock, covering an area 140m long and 40m high. There are references in the graffiti to 500 ladies in these paintings. However, many more are lost forever, having been wiped out when the Palace once more became a Monastery so that they would not disturb meditation. Some more frescos different from the popular collection can be seen elsewhere on the rock surface, for example on the surface of the location called the "Cobra Hood Cave".
It is a tale of treachery and deceit, love and hate, triumph and disaster that has fascinated people down the ages. It is also a tale of craftsmanship and sensuous art, the legacy of which still holds people in awe, more than 15 centuries later.
Many are familiar with the Kasyapan period (477 - 495 AC), when King Kasyapa, after murdering his father King Dhatusena made his home at Sigiriya, creating a different image of this forbidding rock outcrop, starting with a passage leading through the lion's paws and encompassing the lion staircase, the mirror wall, the beautiful apsaras, the water gardens, moated palaces, boulder gardens, terrace gardens at all.
Sigiriya, in addition to being a World Heritage Site, is also one of the very few large secular sites with an unbroken history from 5,000 BC to contemporary periods. It depicts a "microcosm" of the cultural and technological phases of Sri Lanka.
It's history :
Period 1 : Prehistory - prehistoric humans are believed to have lived at Sigiriya between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Period 2 : Proto - history, between 1,000 and 300 BC, when village settlements began along with irrigation and the production and use of iron.
Period 3 : Early monastic, from about the 3rd to 1st century BC marking the establishment of early Buddhist monks' settlements around rock-shelter residences.
Period 4 : Pre-Kasyapa between the 1st and 5th centuries AC. Development of large - scale iron production and construction of fortified Mapalagala complex, with 'cyclopean' walls and terraces, south of Sigiriya rock.
Period 5 : Kasyapa I from 477 - 495 AC.
Period 6 & 7 : Later monastic A & B from 6th to 10th century, with the setting up of a new Buddhist monastery in the western sector and the Boulder Garden area in the early part.
Period 8 : Plonnaruwa Period - From 11th to 13th century, rise of Polonnaruwa and decline of monastery construction at Sigiriya.
Period 9 : Abandonment from the late 13th to the 17th century, with rural settlements surviving but no urban and monastic activity.
Period 10 : Sigiriya appears to have been an outer province of the Kandyan kingfom.
Period 11 : Antiquarian interest when in the 19th century Sigiriya seems to have "recovered".
Period 12 : Modern recovery when in 1894, archaeological investigation, restoration and conservation by the Archaeological Department begins.
