Sigiriya-The Lion Mountain/Pleasure Palace.

 Sigiriya,a UNESCO world heritage site.its beauty has enthralled millions for years and it did the same and much more for me.this post is long overdue now.

Atop 1214ft of solid rock,the palace was originally built by king kashyapa(reign 477ce -495ce)in the Mesolithic period which is some five thousand years ago.King Kashyapa son of King Dhatusena ,was born to a non-royal consort of Dhatusena.Kashyapa is believed to have killed his father for the throne and had him walled in, in order to secure his position for the throne in the place of his brother Moggallana who was the son of the true queen.Your typical game-of-thrones story back in the day.Moggallana fled to south india where he would later raise an army to come back to defeat Kashyapa.Meanwhile, Kashyapa afraid of the same,moves the capital from Anuradhapura to Sigiriya and builds himself a grand palace cum fort.

 Elaborating on the palace, as it is exquisite.it boggles the common mind that this was thought of thousands of years ago.he had water gardens,rock/boulder gardens,rooftop pools.the water hydraulic systems used back then were phenomenal and continue to function even to date at Sigiriya.engineering at its rarest.

this is the man made water body at the foremost entrance to the mountain.intact to date.

 view of the main garden at the base of the mountain from the top.

cobra hood cave,a part of the boulder gardens.

The rooftop pool as a part of the terraced garden is in the picture with a bunch of us girls.he even had a throne made of rock directly above this pool so his view would be this exact picture.apparently Kashyapa sure did know how to live it up.

Also noteworthy,are his 500 wives of multi-ethnicity who lived with him in the same "pleasure" palace.there are depictions of them on the wall of the inner palace with colour and brushstrokes unknown to mankind around that period.some of them remain while some of them were erased by the monks who occupied the palace after Kashyapas reign upto the 14th century.the monks definitely made a mess of some of it as they vandalized most of the palace in terms of art as they might have found Kashyapas 500 maidens and their semi naked bodies etched on their wall a tad too offensive?he even had a mirror wall which was made of lime plaster, highly polished,so that the king could see his reflection everytime he walked past it.i have no idea how they polished it,as you can see the wall glistening even to date,although much of it is damaged and you can see visitors messages,carved into the wall .its banned now of course.

As i mentioned earlier,the women were of various ethnicity as you see paintings of black women,javanese women etc etc.as always, opposed to the original theory,it is also of belief that all of these 500 maidens were a depiction of Tara, a lion goddess ,who is a sheer embodiement of truth,in sync with the whole concept of the lion mountain.it was originally called the lion moutain owing to the carving of a lion at the entrance.the head of the lion seems to have fallen,as the paws remain even today at the last lap of the climb to the top of Sigiriya.

so,Kashyapa ruled till the 495 CE when his step brother returned from India with the army he raised to claim his throne and revenge.it is believed at the time of the battle,the elephant which Kashyapa mounted changed course as a part of a strategic move,which was apparently a bad one as his army believed their king to be retreating,hence they followed.Abandoned by his army,a very proud Kashyapa,in the face of obvious defeat, slayed himself by slitting his throat with his dagger and did a war-cry and sheathed his dagger before falling to his death.another theory was that he was poisoned by one of his concubines.as scandalous as the second theory is,i d like to go with the first one as he could not have died in vain.for me,he is bad ass.he knew how to live life large.hence i refuse to believe he died any other way

Soon after which Moggallana, retook his position as the rightful heir and moved the capital back to Anuradhapura,when the monks took over Sigiriya as their monastery,and the rest is history.

Sigiriya is a depiction of how far ahead Kashyapa was of his times in terms of engineering or lifestyle.he had giant rooftop pools,500 wifes of different ethnicities,all of them were flimsily clad at all times apparently based on the artwork,he witnessed the view from atop Sigiriya for about 18 years.the ultimate bad boy.his end was poetic in its own sense.he walled-in his father,and drove away the rightful heir and died owing to poor interpretation of his move with the elephant on the battlefield by his army.whatever said and done,he had his epic 18years.

As for me,the experience was much more than fantastic.the view from the top was spectacular.nothing can compare to it.it has its own charm,history and innuendo to it.the place speaks to you in so many ways.i will return again for once is not enough.

Photo courtesy:Veena Nadarajan.