Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and the Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre.
Sigiriya or Sinhagiri is an ancient
rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla
in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. It is a site of historical and
archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of rock
around 180 metres (590 ft) high.
According to the ancient Sri Lankan
chronicle the Culavamsa, this area was a large forest, then after storms and
landslides it became a hill and was selected by King Kashyapa (477 – 495 AD)
for his new capital. He built his palace on top of this rock and decorated its
sides with colourful frescoes. On a small plateau about halfway up the side of
this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. The name of this
place is derived from this structure — Sīnhāgiri, the Lion Rock (an etymology
similar to Sinhapura, the Sanskrit name of Singapore, the Lion City).
The capital and the royal palace were
abandoned after the king's death. It was used as a Buddhist monastery until the
14th century. Sigiriya today is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site. It is one
of the best preserved examples of ancient urban planning.
In 1831 Major Jonathan Forbes of the
78th Highlanders of the British Army, while returning on horseback from a trip
to Pollonnuruwa, encountered the "bush covered summit of Sigiriya". Sigiriya
came to the attention of antiquarians and, later, archaeologists.
Archaeological work at Sigiriya began on a small scale in the 1890s. H.C.P.
Bell was the first archaeologist to conduct extensive research on Sigiriya. The
Cultural Triangle Project, launched by the Government of Sri Lanka, focused its
attention on Sigiriya in 1982. Archaeological work began on the entire city for
the first time under this project. There was a sculpted lion's head above the
legs and paws flanking the entrance, but the head collapsed years ago.
Sigiriya consists of an ancient
citadel built by King Kashyapa during the 5th century. The Sigiriya site
contains the ruins of an upper palace located on the flat top of the rock, a
mid-level terrace that includes the Lion Gate and the mirror wall with its
frescoes, the lower palaces clings to the slopes below the rocks. The moats,
walls and gardens of the palace extended for a few hundred metres from the base
of the rock. The site was both a palace and a fortress. The upper palace on the
top of the rock includes cisterns cut into the rock.
The gardens of Sigiriya are one of
the most important aspects of the site, as they are among the oldest landscaped
gardens in the world. The gardens are divided into three distinct but linked
forms: water gardens, cave and boulder gardens, and terraced gardens.
The water gardens can be seen in the
central section of the western precinct. Three principal gardens are found
here. The first garden consists of a plot surrounded by water. It is connected
to the main precinct using four causeways, with gateways placed at the head of
each causeway. This garden is built according to an ancient garden form known
as char bagh, and is one of the oldest surviving models of this form.
The water gardens are built
symmetrically on an east-west axis. They are connected with the outer moat on
the west and the large artificial lake to the south of the Sigiriya rock. All
the pools are also interlinked using an underground conduit network fed by the
lake, and connected to the moats. A miniature water garden is located to the
west of the first water garden, consisting of several small pools and
watercourses. This recently discovered smaller garden appears to have been
built after the Kashyapan period, possibly between the 10th and 13th centuries.
The boulder gardens consist of
several large boulders linked by winding pathways. The gardens extend from the
northern slopes to the southern slopes of the hills at the foot of Sigiris
rock. Most of these boulders had a building or pavilion upon them; there are
cuttings that were used as footings for brick walls and beams. They were used
to be pushed off from the top to attack enemies when they approached.
The terraced gardens are formed from
the natural hill at the base of the Sigiriya rock. A series of terraces rises
from the pathways of the boulder garden to the staircases on the rock. These
have been created by the construction of brick walls, and are located in a
roughly concentric plan around the rock. The path through the terraced gardens
is formed by a limestone staircase. From this staircase, there is a covered
path on the side of the rock, leading to the uppermost terrace where the lion
staircase is situated.
Sources :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211205-sigiriya-sri-lankas-ancient-water-gardens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya
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