Sri Lanka Holidays

Sri Lanka Culture Holidays: the concept Part 1 - Reservoir

Triple Pillars of Sri Lanka: ancient Rainwater reservoirs, Buddhist stupas & Buddhist Temples
Kala Wewa

So where do we begin? From the beginning.
We begin to Explore Sri Lanka with rainwater reservoirs, dagobas and temples, the triple pillars of civilization of Sri Lanka. Will that do? Till we run to the highlands, wildlife sanctuaries, rainwater forests, eco sites & then to the beaches?

To the Rainwater reservoir. We will take you around the bund of Kala Wewa rainwater reservoir, the 3rd largest man-made Rainwater reservoir of the island. The dam is 3 1/2 miles long, & 36 to 58 feet high with as spill of hammered granite, one of the canals, Jaya Ganga (also called Yoda Ela) feed out of the reservoir maintain a subtle gradient of 6 inches to the mile for first 17 miles of 90 km. Said King Datusena (461-478 A.D.) "My son, this is all my treasure: water" to his rebellious son Prince Kahshyapa who, was tragically on a Royal treasure hunt. A murderous Prince Kashyapa in his patricidal fury cemented his father onto the very banks of Kala Wewa. One of the four eternal sins in Buddhism was committed.
 

The Lion Rock citadel (Sigiriya), Sri Lanka

The Royal Citadel of King Kasyapa (479-496 AD) (A world heritage Site)

The God king
Prince Kashyapa wasn't done yet. Not until for another 17 years of reign on the summit of the spectacular citadel of Sigirya (Lion Rock), a huge rock of hardened magma plug from an extinct & long-eroded volcano, a gneiss abruptly rising 200 meters out of the flat, irrigated plains of dry zone landscape. The imagination, planning & construction of a vast city in an abode of deified Yakka King, Rawana (one of the two main protagonists of Indian epic Ramayana in which Lanka was the battlefield) of the era prior to the recorded history, must have driven flamboyant Prince Kashyapa to leave the traditional Sinhalese capital, the nerve center of the isle, Anuradhapura.

It is also believed flamboyant Kasyapa aspired to be The god king with the Sigiriya palace as the very personification of his divinity, to rule his kingdom up high, like the god king Kuvera up on the Mount Kailash of Hindu mythology.

Rock
It stands high above the surrounding plain, visible for miles in all directions. The rock rests on as steep mound that rises abruptly from the flat plain surrounding it. The rock itself rises 200m & is sheer on all sides, in many places overhanging the base. It is elliptical in plan & has a flat top that slopes gradually along the long axis of the ellipse. The site is both a palace & fortress. Sufficient intact monuments remain to provide the visitor with a stunning insight into the ingenuity & creativity of its builders.

"The rock, then, was the sign of a sacred mountain: it was Meru itself, the Cosmic Mountain at the center of the world, where the symbolic planes of heaven & earth intersect, & Appearance for the single endless moments disappears into Reality. Progress through the complex constituted a true initiatory passage extending from western end of the pleasure gardens up to the palace on the summit" John Lindsay Opie, Island Ceylon (1970)

Asia's oldest surviving landscape garden
We park the vehicles half a kilometer away from the Asia's oldest surviving landscape garden of a city fortress & walk in an arrow like straight wide path towards a monolithic crag along the ramparts of the lower citadel. The site compares with, albeit smaller in scale, no less in grandeur, to other Asian wonders, Angkor Wat of 12th century AD (the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture) (1 million visitors a year today) in Cambodia, ruins of the Gandharan city of Takshila (also Takkasila or Taxila, Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist centre of learning (6th century BC - 5th century AD) in Pakistan & the forbidden city of Beijing (15th century AD). Sigiriya is one of the best-preserved sites where the layout of the building & gardens is still clearly evident. The city was walled & moated. Outer moat, inner moat, water garden, fountain garden, boulder gardens, terrace gardens & then to the foot of the slope. Stone stairways climb the steep slope at the base of the rock, winding through the remains of the lower parts of the palace, reaching a terrace that traverses along the lower edge of the vertical face of the rock.

Complex rampart system
Sigiriya has a very complex rampart system. The city was walled & moated. Besides the inner & outer cities within the ramparts, there is evidence of suburban dwellings immediately outside the walled area. The complex is three kilometers from East to West & one kilometer from North to South. The gardens of Sigiriya is a combination of natural flora & imaginative landscaping.

Grand urban planning
With brilliant combination of geometric square module & natural topography, it speaks of grand urban planning. The architects & engineers at the time took care to incorporate nature & never to deny it. Existing lakes, rocks & hills were cleverly woven into the general plan: a combination of human mind & natural world.

On the terrace
On the terrace are Audience hall, Cobra Hood cave, caves & hollows, where early Buddhist monks lived & worshipped. And the Lion gate. We stroll into the mouth & through its throat to the iron stairways, the main climb. Only the lion's massive paws remain today, but they indicate how gigantic the rest of the carving, the head with open mouth, which served as the entrance to the royal palace, must have been. The massive structure gave the rock its name, Sigiriya, meaning Lion Rock. So we continue climbing an iron staircase, a modern replacement for the original brick stairway that vanished along with the head of the lion.

Lissome women of matchless grace: celestial nymphs
More than 100 meters above the ground level in a natural pocket of the rock, which has been protected for 14 centuries from rain by an overhang, we enjoy the sight of bare breasted apsaras (celestial nymphs), or if you opt be rather irreverent, you may even call them topless babes, that sexcite the mind but alas, only 22 exist today since hundreds had been raped by ravages of time, weather & tragically by vandalism too. The Sigiriya frescoes are the only tapestry of secular art to have survived from the early Sinhalese kingdoms. Nobody knows who painted these amazing frescoes. But the artistic value & the beauty testify to a civilization of a nation of great sophistication & refinement. The Sigiriya frescoes are said be of same artistic tradition as of Ajanta frescoes at Ajanta caves in Aurangabad district, state of Maharashtra in India.

Oldest known graffiti in the planet
A rock wall, once had such a sheen to call it mirror wall close by on the opposite side of the frescoes preserves hundreds of oldest known graffiti in the planet, inspired by the great beauty of the celestial nymphs, dating as early as 6th century & till 14th century providing linguists with vital insight into the evolution of the written & oral Sinhalese language. 700 poems therein are deciphered by illustrious Dr. Senarath Paranavitarana. The poems, which express the thoughts & emotions of ancient visitors to Sigiriya, provide not only revealing comments on the paintings themselves but also an insight into the in-born & cultivated sensibilities of the time & its appreciation of art & beauty.

To the summit
We climb around, across & up the cliff face, along the narrow steel staircase, which is simply bolted onto the sheer rock & supported by railings to the open. Oh! yes, ascent of the rock is a stiff climb with wind cutting in & making you bit vulnerable to a slip up of feet at the climb. Hold the rail tight; foothold is fine, easy now. My pre-teen & teenage nieces too climbed supported by us right behind them.

Summit
The summit of Sigiriya rock is in the form of a stepped plateau with a total extent of more than 1.5 hectares. A rock-cut throne & a couple of swimming pool-like large stone tanks cut out of the rock, used for bathing still brim with clean water. Since you are now sweating all over, would you dare a dive & swim? How deep is water? Water had been pumped from the ground level to the top of the rock. How did they pump water up to such height? At a sharp bend, a stream of rushing water with its impact would find the way uphill around the corner... But to such a height? A sophisticated pumping system was commissioned. Recent excavations found the ruins of a steel plant (built circa 300 BC) in the east of Sigirya at Aligala caves (evidence of one of the earliest days of iron production in the world, carbon dating has determined it as 9th century) manned solely by wind power. It is believed that water was channeled to the summit of Sigiriya by means of an ingenious hydraulic system powered by windmills. Oh! Wind, yes when I was six years old my father, who was carrying me up in his alms, since I was running fever, had a tough climb with the wind threatening to blow us off. That was during one of my maternal grand father's yearly pilgrimages. My flamboyant maternal grandfather, a philanthropist & an Ayurvedic physician Prangige Silmon Peter Peiris Gunaratne of Lakshapatiya, Moratuwa seemed to have a soft corner for the king who was flamboyant to the death. King Kashyapa descended from his impregnable stronghold to the level field to face his half brother in battle. When his army retreated in a bizarre confusion, the king drew his dagger, (No, No, brother cried Prince Mugalan) slashed his own throat, raised the blade high in the air & sheathed it again before falling down dead off the elephant. Sigirya's halcyon days ended with King Kasyapa's death. But the grandeur of the astonishing citadel enlivens us with knowledge of ancient city development, technology, art, irrigation & hydrology. Helicopters fly far away but the sound of rotor blades & engines seems so close. The effects of the height.

At this vantage point & height, you can see the beautiful milky white huge rising dome of Mihintale Chaitya, the Buddhist shrine built by King Devanam Piyatissa (contemporary of Emperor Asoka of India). That is at the summit of rock mountain, Mihintale, the sanctuary.