From: vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (vicumpriya perera)
Subject: Sigiriya
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 16:56:23 GMT


King Kasyapa's gardens: Sri Lankan dig.
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THE ECONOMIST, 06/06/92
COPYRIGHT Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. 1992
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Achaeologists excavating the 5th-century royal palace at Sigiriya 
in Sri Lanka are uncovering the oldest, best preserved and most 
intricate formal gardens in Asia. The palace complex itself, built 
largely during the 18-year-long reign of King Kasyapa 1, has often 
been a site of archaeological activity since it was "discovered" in 
the jungle over a century ago. But the full glory of the landscaped 
gardens at Sigiriya is only now coming to light. 
  Diggers led by Senake Bandaranayake of Kelaniya University have 
exposed an Asian Versailles of fountains, gardens and terraces laid 
out in a geometrical pattern beneath Sigiriya rock, a 600-foot (195-
metre) high rock that dominates the site. Taken together, the palace 
buildings and the pleasure gardens point to a society of unexpected 
wealth, and with a fastidious aesthetic sense, on an island 
previously relegated by historians to the fringes of South Asia's 
Buddhist civilisation. 
  So far three distinct gardens have been found. The first is a 
symmetrical spread of large pools and fountains which still bubble 
up during monsoon rains. A Persian influence is apparent in the 
design of this garden. The second, the  boulder garden", is a series 
of terraces and pavilions created out of the natural jumble of 
boulders at the base of Sigiriya rock. The third, a fresh discovery, 
is a water garden about 300 feet long, made up of asymmetrically 
designed pavilions surrounded by flowing water. 
  The design of the whole lay-out, with its cisterns and underground 
channels, is an exuberant showcase for the hydraulic technology 
which once turned north-east Sri Lanka into a rich agricultural 
region. From the 3rd century BC, 800 years before the royal palace 
at Sigiriya was built, engineers had created a system of irrigation 
tanks and canals to boost rice production. The sophistication and 
complexity of it all deepens the mystery of why the area was a 
thinly-populated, malaria-infested wilderness when Europeans arrived 
in Sri Lanka in the 16th century. 
  According to Mr Bandaranayake, Sigiriya's preservation is a 
freakish accident of history. King Kasyapa 1, who had seized the 
throne and walled up his father, decided to move the capital of his 
kingdom from Polonnanuwa to Sigiriya. After his death the new 
capital was abandoned and reverted to its original role as a 
monastic centre. So, unlike similar palace gardens from that epoch 
in Asia, the original design at Sigiriya was never destroyed or 
modified by successors or conquerors. 
  Sigiriya is today most famous for the wall frescoes painted on the 
rock face below the summit where the largest palace buildings stood. 
This open-air art gallery, with its over-endowed cloud maidens, has 
preserved the oldest secular paintings in South Asia. The site's 
popularity in antiquity is evident from the ancient graffiti and 
from the souvenir clay models of Sigiriya the archaeologists have 
found on the site. The palace complex has long been a source of 
pride for Sri Lankans and is now visited by about 500,000 people a 
year. 
  The restoration of Sigiriya is the largest of the World Heritage 
projects which are being supported by UNESCO, a United Nations' 
agency. Just as the Angkor Wat temple complex has become a focus of 
cultural pride for Cambodians, so Sigiriya is seen in Sri Lanka as a 
proud symbol of the country's Buddhist and Singhalese past - 
especially by those who consider the Hindu Tamil minority in the 
north to be descendants of foreign intruders. 

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Vicum

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