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Sigiriya: The Rock Fortress

Article · January 2009

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Rohan Wickramasinghe
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then we shall require another basis for recognising rights in works,

be they works of authorship or other productions. More impor-
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rethought and probably drastically reduced.

Jane Ginsburg Honorary Fellow

SIGIRIYA: THE ROCK FORTRESS

In this article, Rohan Wickramasinghe (1958) considers some of the
aspects of Sri Lanka and its history that are not regularly covered in
contemporary reporting on the island, and reflects on his own
encounter with one remarkable archaeological site.

The early history of Sri Lanka is not well known to the world at
large. Even residents of the country often admit ignorance of the
details of what is now known of certain areas of her past. This is in
part due to the rapid progress of archaeological research in recent
decades. Of late, it is becoming abundantly clear that there are far
more in the way of archaeological ruins buried in the jungles –
particularly in the lowlands – than was suspected earlier. A brief
account is given in this article of the ‘Sigiriya’ era of Sri Lankan
history, a period characterised by tragedy and by intrigue, but also
by cultural and technological achievement.
Some of the information presented here has been gathered
while working as an environmental consultant to the Central
Cultural Fund of the Government of Sri Lanka. I came across other
information while functioning as Honorary Secretary of the Ethics
Committee of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of
Science (SLAAS). This body has a variety of interests and offers
reasons for spending time delving into such unethical matters as
the illegal sale of ancient ola-leaf manuscripts and other archaeo-
logical artefacts, and the equally illegal searching for buried
treasure in the numerous archaeological sites in the country.

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Matters were also helped by the fact that in my childhood our

family had a delightful property on the banks of the tree-shaded,
limpid Malwattu Oya (‘Flower Gardens Stream’) in Anuradhapura,
not far from the rock of Sigiriya. There I learned to love the deli-
ciously scented Anuradhapura Orchid (Vanda tessellata) in its
various hues, and indigenous fauna, such as peafowl, the shy
Ceylon Jungle Fowl, the Spotted Dove and the (tree-climbing)
chevrotain or Mouse Deer (Moschiola meminna). A large cobra resi-
dent in a hollow tree did not disturb us and, as cobras had been
regarded in the past as deities, the local villagers addressed it as
‘Uncle Cobra’. Grandfather Krisnaratne, a lawyer, did not much
enjoy leaving his demesne in Anuradhapura and travelling to the
metropolis in connection with his duties for some years on the
Legislative Council of Ceylon. I fully appreciate his feelings.
Sri Lanka is an island of some 65,610 square kilometres, lying
30 kilometres off the coast of south India. Archaeologists have
found evidence that prehistoric man inhabited the land from at
least 125,000 years ago. Popular legend has it that ‘civilisation’
arrived in the island around the fifth or sixth century BC in the
person of a Prince Vijaya and 700 courtiers, who had been expelled
for misconduct from a kingdom in north-west India and reached
Sri Lanka on the day that Gautama Buddha passed away in India.
(Some of the early archaeological dates cited in this article are
matters of controversy.)
Whatever the truth behind this particular legend, various lines
of archaeological and cultural evidence help us to trace the progres-
sion of kings and kingdoms subsequent to the arrival of the
possibly apocryphal Prince Vijaya. The various kingdoms known to
have existed around the island at different times came into being,
in part, following conflicts between kings or princes. Others arose
following invasions from abroad and the conquest of parts of the
island by South Indian kings. (Interestingly, when the South Indian
kings were eventually driven back after occupations of several
years, some had a habit of breaching the bunds (embankments) of
irrigation reservoirs. The pools remaining after the bulk of the
water had escaped were ideal for the breeding of the species of

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mosquitoes that transmit malaria, which proceeded to ravage the

land in the wake of the retreating Indian armies: an early form of
biological warfare.)
While information transmission depended initially on the oral
tradition, engravings on stone monuments and inscriptions on ola-
leaf manuscripts (made from the fronds of the talipot palm, Corypha
umbraculifora) give more verifiable accounts. Pictures of ola-leaf
manuscript books and some other subjects mentioned in this essay
may be viewed in ‘Google Images’.
The engravings on stone often describe benevolent works of
kings, such as the construction of Buddhist stupas and monasteries,
and irrigation reservoirs, which aided in the cultivation of rice.
Records maintained on ola-leaf manuscripts were largely produc-
tions of the Buddhist clergy and, naturally, often related to pious
works undertaken by kings (in addition to court intrigues and
successions). The records also mention conservation-related activi-
ties of kings. For instance, the first sanctuary for animals was
declared by King Devanampiyatissa (247–07 BC) at Mihintale. The
first record of mass tree-planting is dated to the reign of King
Mutasiva (307–247 BC) and the first legislation to protect wildlife
island-wide was enacted by King Ananda Gamini Abhaya (79–89
AD).
The country is singularly fortunate that a written record of
much of its history exists due to the labours over the centuries of a
succession of Buddhist monks. These works were written in the
Pali language as ola-leaf manuscripts and include the Dipavamsa,
Mahavamsa and Culavamsa. They cover the history of the island
from very early times with extensions up to the late eighteenth
century. These compilations were undertaken subsequent to the
formal introduction of Buddhism to the country in 247 BC by the
monk Mahinda, who was sent with the message to King
Devanampiyatissa of Anuradhapura by his father, Emperor Asoka
the Great of India. Asoka’s affection for Tissa (‘Devanampiya’ was a
prefix meaning ‘beloved of the gods’) was also evident from the
lavish gifts he sent for the consecration of the latter as king.
Mahinda’s sister, Sanghamitta, came later bearing a gift of a sapling

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of the Bo tree, Ficus religiosa, under which the Buddha received

enlightenment in Buddha Gaya in India. Since the parent tree is no
more, this offshoot, which is still flourishing at Anuradhapura, may
be the oldest historical tree in the world.
Anuradhapura was the seat of a succession of kings for over a
thousand years. A memorable break of some 18 years occurred,
however, after the reign of King Dhatusena I (459–77 AD). In those
years, the royal capital was moved briefly some 65 kilometres
south-east to Sigiriya.
Sigiriya is one of Asia’s major archaeological sites, as well as
being listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. There are indi-
cations of prehistoric man occupying the area as far back as 10,000
to 20,000 years ago. Evidence of agriculture and iron production in
the Sigiriya area has been dated to between 1000 and 300 BC. A
Buddhist monastic settlement around the third century BC brings
the rock and surroundings into early historic times. The rock itself
was invaluable as a refuge for a parricide in the fifth century AD;
the parricide in question being King Kasyapa I.
Kasyapa was the younger son (by a non-royal consort) of King
Dhatusena I, while his elder half-brother Moggallana was the
crown prince; the latter’s mother was the royal consort. The king’s
nephew, Migara, was commander of the army and with Kasyapa
he conspired to seize the throne and the king’s riches. The histori-
cal record shows that this was a family of mighty passions and one
day a complex sequence of events provided cause for the king’s
arrest. However, on interrogation, he denied possessing any wealth
other than the waters of an irrigation reservoir he had constructed
for his people. The elderly Dhatusena was, therefore, executed by
being plastered alive into the bund of the reservoir facing its
waters. This method of execution, it is worth noting, was adopted
to meet the needs of the occasion. For the execution of common
criminals and so forth, other methods were employed, such as
dismembering by a trained elephant. The crown prince,
Moggallana, saved his life by escaping to India, where he spent the
next 18 years.
Kasyapa I moved his capital from Anuradhapura to Sigiriya.
The predominant feature of Sigiriya is the massive rock (or

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‘inselberg’ or ‘monadnock’) rising to around 200 metres above the

surrounding plain. The rock and its surroundings were developed
into a well-planned city based on a precise square model. The
whole has been described and brought to life in the publications of
Professor Senake Bandaranayake and, for reasons of space, will not
be dealt with here in the detail it deserves. However, it would be
remiss not to make mention of a few of the highlights of the city.
They will be available for viewing later this year on a website devel-
oped in connection with the opening this summer of the new
Sigiriya Museum and Information Centre.
Studio Times, Sri Lanka

View of Sigiriya from the north-east

The walled ‘citadel’ comprising the rock and immediate

surroundings covers around 15 hectares. There are inner and outer
moats and ramparts; the moats may have held crocodiles as an
additional line of protection. The outermost rampart encloses a
rectangular eastern residential or ‘outer city’ area with suburbs to
the north and a large man-made lake to the south.
The striking features of the Sigiriya complex include the
various ‘Gardens’: namely the Water Gardens, the Boulder and
Cave Gardens and the Stepped or Terrace Gardens, which encircle
the rock. The Water Gardens (a rectangle of around 900 by 800
metres) are located on the central section to the west of the rock.

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These Water Gardens (and also the moats and ramparts in the
western area) structurally observe an ‘echo’ concept, whereby
items on either side of the north-south and east-west axes are
duplicated. Garden 1 is on a quartered or char bhag plan, which is
an ancient garden form within a walled enclosure. Garden 2 (the
‘Fountain Garden’) includes shallow serpentine streams paved
with marble slabs. These have underground conduits and supply
(under gravity and pressure) water for ‘bubble fountains’, which
function to this day in rainy weather. Garden 3 includes an octago-
nal pool and the remains of a ‘bathing pavilion’. Two islands close
to the Fountain Gardens were the sites of ‘summer palaces’ (‘cool
palaces’) or water pavilions.
A more recent discovery to the west of Water Garden I is that
of the miniature Water Garden (about 90 by 30 metres). The pavil-
ions in this area would have been cooled by winding pebble- or
marble-floored watercourses. The slowly moving water also added
soothing visual and audible contributions to the surroundings.
The Boulder Gardens came between the Water Gardens and
the Terrace Gardens. (The latter, in their turn, came between the
Boulder Gardens and the rock proper.) The Boulder Gardens
comprise several clusters of large natural boulders. Atop almost
every rock or boulder was set a building or pavilion constructed of
brick and timber. These constructions gave rise to names such as
Preaching Rock, Audience Hall Rock and Cistern Rock to various
boulders.
The Terrace Gardens lead to the sides of the rock itself. Notable
features of the rock are the Lion staircase, the Mirror Wall, the fres-
coes and graffiti, and the palace complex on the summit. What
remains of the Lion Staircase today bears witness to a structure
which must have been an awe-evoking sight when viewed from
the plain below, even from a distance. The Lion Staircase House in
its day rose to a height of 14 metres.
The Mirror Wall was a brick masonry structure with a highly
polished plaster surface. On the section immediately below the
painting gallery have been inscribed graffiti by ordinary visitors
from various social strata, who made the pilgrimage from around
the sixth to the early fourteenth century to see the frescoes. These

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several hundred elegant and refined verses mostly bestow lavish

praise on the beauty of the maidens, while others address the colos-
sal lion figure or other aspects of Sigiriya. Many hundreds of them
have been successfully deciphered. They bear witness to the culti-
vated sensibilities of the composers and that in that era education
was not the preserve of a privileged class.
The Sigiriya frescoes were possibly not executed in the true
fresco style, but in the tempera technique. They were painted in the
fifth century on plaster on the western face of the rock in a band
nearly 140 metres long and (at one point) around 40 metres high. In
1907, John Still noted that ‘the whole face of the hill appears to have
been a gigantic picture gallery . . . the largest picture in the world
perhaps’. Sadly, exposure to the elements and vandalism has
reduced the number of images to very few.
Understandably, the frescoes have engaged the interest of
many workers, including H C P Bell, D A L Perera, Senerath
Paranavitana, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Roland Silva, Sudarshan
Seneviratne and Senake Bandaranayake. The figures depicted have
been described by various authorities as being ladies of the court
going in procession to a shrine bearing flowers (Bell), ‘Lightning
Princesses and Cloud Damsels’ (Paranavitana) and apsaras or celes-
tial beings (Coomaraswamy), among others. It has been remarked
that the figures on the main rock face as well as others in the rock
Rohan Wickramasinghe

A Sigiriya maiden fresco

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shelters in the Boulder Garden appear to be moving in a northerly

direction.
It is notable that the existing frescoes on the rock face had
some protection from the weather owing to their being located in a
depression over 100 metres above ground level. They were studied
in the nineteenth century by telescope from the plain below after
having been ‘lost’ for many years. It could be mentioned that one
protection they receive from vandals is the presence on the rock of
numerous huge colonies of highly aggressive and venomous rock
bees (Apis dorsata), which attack human beings when provoked. In
other similar locations, the Veddahs (jungle people) harvest the
massive combs, heavy with honey, by letting themselves down by
jungle vines at night bearing flaming torches.
Finally, the palace complex was located at the summit on an
area of over 1.5 hectares. It included palace gardens and a rock-cut
pool. The gardens both at the summit and the base of the rock
would have included indigenous fauna and flora. At the present
time, a delightful botanical garden has been established at Sigiriya
with indigenous species from that climatic zone. Mention should
be made here of the orange-coloured tree frogs, Polypedates macula-
tus, with several of whom I shared my bedroom and lavatory in the
archaeological bungalow, when working at Sigiriya.
Sigiriya was the capital only from 477 to 495 AD. Prince
Moggallana received information from followers of the Jain reli-
gion that the time was suitable for his return. He came back from
India and, having gathered an army, advanced to meet King
Kasyapa. The adversaries were mounted on elephants and accom-
panied by their armies with martial music (the customary beating
of drums and blowing of conch shells) and the waving of flags and
banners. Unfortunately, King Kasyapa’s elephant deviated from his
path in order to avoid a swampy patch of terrain and his men,
thinking he was fleeing, broke up in disarray. On seeing this,
Kasyapa, realising that all was lost, committed suicide with his own
sword, raising it high and replacing it in its scabbard before falling
dead.
Moggallana gave his brother an honourable funeral and
moved the capital back to Anuradhapura. He reigned as

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Moggallana I (496–513 AD) and was a favourite of all Buddhist

monks. General Migara survived King Kasyapa’s demise and was
on good terms with King Moggallana.
The Sigiriya site was taken over for a monastery and for some
time used for other purposes before being overrun by the jungle. It
remained undisturbed and the haunt of sloth bear, leopard and
wild boar, until its rediscovery in the nineteenth century.

Rohan H Wickramasinghe (1958)

Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Professor Senake Bandaranayake for encouraging
my interest in Sri Lanka’s past and to the staff of the fine libraries of the
Postgraduate Institute of Archaeological Research of Kelaniya University
and of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka for their cheerful and efficient
help.

EMMANUEL SPORTING LEGENDS

This is the second in a series of articles for the Magazine by John
Marsh, detailing the achievements of members of the College in a
variety of sporting arenas. Last year’s essay was on College athletes.

Rugby Football has been played at Cambridge for the best part of
150 years. Emmanuel has a proud rugby history, with 51 Blues, an
unrivalled 12 Cambridge captains and 27 internationals including
four British Lions players.
With such an abundance of legendary players, it has been diffi-
cult to make the selection for this article. The four players whose
careers I have profiled as rugby legends are John Daniell
(1897–1900), Arthur Blakiston (1909–12), Carl Aarvold (1925–28)
and Gerald Davies (1968–70).
Rugby is a team game and I have added two Emma teams who
warrant the title of legends. They are the Emma XV in 1951, who
won Cuppers for the first time against all the odds, and the Emma
VII who caused a sensation by reaching the final of the Middlesex

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