YOU MUST VISIT THIS MAGIC STONE BEFORE YOU DIE.

Sigiriya

REALLY  sigiriya IS A MAGIC  STONE

History  Of Sigiriya

The Sigiriya Rock Fortress of Sri Lanka is situated in Matale district near to Dambulla. It can be reached along Colombo- Habarana highway and turning towards East from Inamaluwa. Then proceeding about ten kilometers  from Inamaluwa and passing Kimbissa township one arrives at Sigiriya.

Before Sigiriya became a Kingdom, the Sigiriya Rock base and the places such as Pidurangala which were endowed with many Caves and a temple had been dwelled by Buddhist monks from around 3^rd  Century BC. It is also found that these areas had been inhabitant by people prior to King Kassapa's rein. Many Caves also have Brahmi Inscriptions dating back from third Century BC to first century AD.

After King Mahanama who ruled Anuradhapura from 410- 432 AD, a Prince named Dhatusena became the King of Anuradhapura in 459 AD, defeating the Indian invader 'Pandu'. The King Dhatusena was the ruler who constructed Kala Wewa or the Kala Wewa Tank, by building a dam across Kala Oya , which is a small river type. The man made 54 mile long Yoda Ela, which takes water from Kala Wewa to Tissa wewa is considered as an Irrigation engineering wonder even at the present day. It has a gradient of just 6 inches per mile along the first 17 miles , which means the level different is just over 8 feet even after the 17 th mile along the canal. During his rein the famous full relief Aukana Buddha statue also was constructed out of a rock which stands 42 feet high.

He had two sons from two queens. Mugalan [ also called as Moggallana ] from the head queen and Kassapa's [ also called as Kashyapa ] from a companion queen. Prince Kashyapa, with the help of the general of the army of King Dhatusena, named Migara, got his father killed and became the King. Prince Mugalan, fearing for his life, escaped to India. The Buddhist Bhikkus and the people were against his conduct and favoured Price Mugalan for the rulership. Fearing that Mugalan will come with an army from India to avenge him at a later day, King Kassapa decided to make Sigiriya as his kingdom. During his rule of eighteen years from 477 AD to 495 AD Sigiriya Kingdom was created. It is believed that he sought the refuge of Sigiriya rock for his safety fearing for his life.

After 18 years, Prince Mugalan came with an army from India to fight with King Kassapa. During the battle Kassapa killed himself thus Mugalan became the King. He went back to Anuradhapura and ruled the country from there and handed over Sigiriya back to the Buddhist priests. Sigiriya as a Kingdom was abandoned in around 1150 AD and was almost forgotten for the next seven centuries Though King Kashyapa is not regarded in high esteem in Sri Lankan history due to his dubious conduct, he is credited as a ruler with unsurpassed imagination put into reality to create a Sri Lankan style marvel of high calibre art and engineering skills that could even challange the outer world structures at that time, which definitely is amazing even in the 21st century with whatever is remaining as ruins of Sigiriya.

THE BOULDER GARDNS AND TERRACE GARDEN

 Beyond the Water Gardens the main path begins to climb up through the very different Boulder Gardens, constructed out of the huge boulders which lie tumbled around the foot of the rock, and offering a naturalistic wildness very different from the neat symmetries of the water gardens. Many of the boulders are notched with lines of holes - they look rather like rock-cut steps, but In fact they were used as footings to support the brick walls or timber frames of the numerous buildings a which were built against or on top of the boulders – difficult to imagine now, although it must originally have made an extremely picturesque sight.

The gardens were also the centre of Sigiriya’s monastic activity before and after Kassapa: there are around twenty rock shelters hereabouts which were used by monks, some containing inscriptions dating form between the third century BC and the first century AD. The caves would originally have been plastered and painted, and traces of this decoration can still be seen in a few places; you’ll also notice the dripstone ledges which were carved around the entrances to many of the caves of to prevent water from running into them. The Deraniyagala cave, just to the left of the path shortly after it begins to climb up through the gardens (there’s no sing), has a well-preserved dripstone ledge and traces of old paintings including the faded remains of various apsara figures very similar to the famous Sigiriya Damsels further up the rock. On the opposite side of the main path up the rock, a side path leads to the Cobra Hood Cave, named for its uncanny decoration and a very faint inscription on the ledge in archaic Brahmi script dating from the second century BC.

 Follow the path up the hill behind the Cobra Hood Cave and up through “Boulder Arch no.2” (as it’s signed), then turn left to reach the so-called

Audience Hall the wooden walls and roof have long since disappeared, but the impressively smooth floor, created by chiseling the top off a single enormous boulder, remains, along with a five-metre-wide “throne” also Cut out of hall, though it’s more likely to have served a purely religious function, with the empty throne representing the Buddha. The small cave on the path just below the Audience Hall retains colorful splashes of various paintings on its ceiling (though now almost obliterated by cretinous contemporary graffiti) and is home to another throne, while a couple more thrones can be found carved into nearby rocks.This is a real magic stone.

ARTS OF THE SIGIRIYA

Arts on the magic stone

The theories and views on the subject of the paintings may be divided into two broad categories: firstly they portray human beings, i.e., queens, princesses and maids of the court of Kassapa I (AC 479-497) in a secular or religious milieu (Bell 1897, 14; Wijesekera ND 1943, Raghavan MD 1948; Chutiwongs, Prematilleke, Roland Silva 1990). Secondly, they depict celestial beings – either semi-divine nymphs known as apsaras, or a class of divine beings, i.e. goddesses (Coomaraswamy 1927; Hocart 1929; Paranavitana 1947; Deraniyagala PEP 1948, Ratnasuriya MD 1950; Mirando AH 1955; de Silva Raja 1990, 2002; Bandaranayake S. 1999)., The majority of interpretations of the second category too are based on the attribution of the paintings to Kassapa.

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