He was a son of king Datusena. The ancient chronicle Mahawansa state that King Datusena was murdered by Kashyapa and took his throne, though he was not the rightful hair to the throne. His elder brother Mugalan, who was the rightful hairier to the throne, fled away to South India to save his life from Kashypa

The death of King Datusena

The death of king Datusena was a very sad story. His death was a very painful one. Chronicles says that King Datusena was buried alive in a wall next to the tank Kala. The dispute between King and his son Kashypa was a result of an intrigue created by Migara, who was the commander of king’s army. Migara was not loyal to the king thus, one day he was found guilty of a treason and punished. He fled away from soldiers and sought solace from Kashyapa, who was his friend. The king was furious and ordered to slay his mother  if he had not returned and surrender. Days passed, Migara did not return thereby, an innocent woman was burned to death. The commander determined to get the revenge from the King. He used Kashypa in order to fulfill his revenge. Kashyapa, was a young prince who was very stubborn. Moreover, he is not the legitimate son of the king. Migara use this fact very craftily to convince Kashypa, that his father would never nominate him as the hairier to the throne. Not only that, he claimed that King posses a fortune of gold and diamond hidden in a safe place. Kashypa was furious with his father believing that Migara was saying truth. As the final part of the plan Migara help Kashypa to capture King Datusena. The king was caged and tortured continuously until he reveals the hide out of his gold. However, the king never possessed such a wealth, it was a mock up created by Migara to mislead Kashypa. Finally, Kashypa decided to kill his father in a brutal manner, as he is not revealing about the treasure.

In my next post let see how Sigiriya came to a rock fortress.

New Capital

Once, the king was murdered Kashypa took his thrown and start reigning the country as the King.In the meanwhile he planed to shift the capital of Sri lanka to a safer place than Anuradhapura. He was skeptic that his brother,Mugalan, would one day attack him and fulfill his revenge of killing their father. Therefore he sent his ministers to seek for a site to build his new castle away from Anuradhapura. He heard about a rock which was situated about 40 Km to the East of Anuradhapura. Moreover, the rock and its surrounding showed best landscaping characteristics for a rock fortress. He decided to build his castle, more like, fortress in this rock. The rock was named as SIGIRIYA or Lions rock. The name was suggested due to the appearance of the rock which resembles a sitting lion. The rock stands up to about 400 ft from its base. According to the chronicles it was surrounded by forest and water ways. Even todays it is visible that the surrounding area has many trees, whereas few houses are seen among trees.

Building Sigiriya Rock fortress

King Kashypa, spent a lot of his wealth to build his fortress in Sigiriya. One can imagine the wealth he possessed at that time to build such enormous wonder. It says that the overall planning was done by the king and even the frescos of girls were drowned by him. Despite, he is known to be a cruel king, who killed his father, he had a lush to arts. He seems to be a man with a great vision and enormous power to rule people. Otherwise, he would not be able to create such a wonderful gift to the mankind. Even today, it makes you stupendous to see such a colossal creation. When you look at it from your own eyes, the feeling you get cannot describe by words. I would say it’s a must that you visit this place and get the marvelous experience by your self.

Visitors to Sigiriya, should look for following;


1. The safety measures taken to protect the rock fortress
2. The water park
3. Kings assembly hall
4. The lion claws
5. Frescos
6. Mirror wall
7. The buildings at the summit of the rock
8. Water pond at the summit of the rock

Some tips for Tourists

1.The tickets can be bought at the entrance of Sigiriya.It would cost you US$25 for a adult and US$12.50 for a child.

2.The travel time from Colombo to Sigriya would take approximately 5 hrs. Therefore, it is always advisable to go there one day before and lodge in near by hotel. So, you can explore the wonders of Sigiriya on the next day with enough time.

3.It is always advisable to start early in the morning, so that first you can climb the rock and descend before noon to avoid any discomfort due to heat of sun. Then you can explore the rest of the wonders leisurely as sun light is not a disturbance to walk through its gardens and water park.

4.If you are in a hurry you can finish things in Sigiriya approximately in  5 hrs, but my advice is to spend the whole day there and look for other stuff which I have not described above, such as caves close the Sigiriya rock with many more frescos which can hardly be seen.

More information about tickets and other historical places in Sri Lanka

The safety measures taken to protect the rock fortress

The rock itself is about 700m away from the entrance to the Sigiriya premises. According to the historical records, there were three moats built to protect Sigiriya from invaders. It is also said that these three moats were occupied by crocodiles. These crocodiles were deliberately kept in as to avoid one swim through water. Unfortunately, only one moat can be seen to date. Once these water barriers are passed one needs to pass a huge parapet wall before entering to the water gardens. Apart from man made safety precautions it is still possible to see the forest spread around the rock which again is a natural protector of the rock fortress from any invader.

The Water park

The water park is in two parts. One can find these two gardens besides the road leads to the rock from the entrance.

The interesting factor about these two parts of the garden is that, they are identical in appearance. In other words, the right side of the park is the mirror image of the left side of the park. Unfortunately, only the right side of the park is fully excavated, whereas, the left side is not fully cleared.

Both these parks have many ponds. Ponds are adorned with water sprinkles.







One can see these water sprinkles are still working in rainy season.

Kings Assembly hall

This is where king met his people for discussions. Ministers and countrymen had to wait in the place until king meets them. This place is constructed on a rock about 30 ft height. And this rock is very close to the Sigiriya rock. This place can be reach from two ways. One is from the main entrance and the other way is from the Sigiriya rock. Obviously, the path from main entrance is for people who visit the king and the other path is for the King and ministers who stays in the fortress. The seating were also made by carving the rock. Since those are made by the rock, it can still be seen un-harm. There are few holes on this rock, which one can assume that those were there to hold the pillars of the roof for this assembly hall.

The lion claws

The meaning of the word Sigiriya, can be broken down as Sinha + gira or in English Lion + rock. The shape of the rock is truly a resemblance of a sitting Lion. Therefore, the name it self is a good match. The lion’s claws are one way to symbolize that this rock is a resemblance of a lion. This is the entrance to the steps direct to the summit of the rock. One has to pass half way of its journey to the rock to reach this place. According to the historical records, the entrance is through the mouth of lion built by bricks. However, today, one can only see the claws of the lion as the rest seems to have been destroyed.

Mirror wall

Mirror Wall

It extends to about 100m onto your left hand side. Basically, it is a safety wall built to avoid people falling out. One side polished and plated with a material which reflects light like a mirror. Chronicles says that it showed perfect mirror like effect. However, what you see today does not show such characteristics.

Ancient Graffiti written by People who visit Sigiriya

It has been deteriorated with time and does not show any mirror effect.Instead what you can see is the scribbling made by people who visited the rock in the ancient time. These scribbling have an archeological value as it describe how the ancient people felt about this wonderful creation of king Kashypa.

Frescos

The most photographed place in Sigiriya is the wall with frescos. One can find these drawings after passing the mirror wall. The drawings were done by using extracts of trees with different colors. The colors are still possible to distinguish even after 1500 years. The drawings are done on a clay layer paste to the rock. The frescos show women holding lotus flower and adorned with garlands, wristlets and bangles. There are many rumors about these frescos, in addition to the historical records. Among them the most famous story says that the frescos were drawn by the King Kashyapa himself. And the girls in these frescos were his maids who were returning to the rock after having a bath in a near by pond. And some say that these girls were visiting a temple near by called ‘Pidurangala’, which is the temple devoted for the Sigiriya and it is still exist. The most of the frescos were there are now destroyed with time. However, a few of them are available to date. One can find the clearer frescos only one place in the rock. However, similarly drawn ones can be found in most of the places in the rock which can be barely seen dury heavy deterioration. Careful observer would find that the girls in these pictures are not only origin of Srl lanka. One can find girls having faces resembling African nature, Mongolian origin and also Indian. The rumor says that the king was very rich and he spent a lot of money to bring down these maids from other countries through merchants. These are good evidence to conclude that we Sri Lankans were very rich among other countries during that time. The wealth posses by the kings were enormous.

The buildings at the summit of the rock

The remaining of the builds at the summit of the rock show how extraordinary it would have been at that time. The buildings are spread all over the plane at different levels.

The first level holds a considerably large foundation which would have been the palace. In the second plane there is a building which would resemble an open stage theater with a big chair carved on the rock. Isn’t this an amazing site to watch …..? A theater built over 1500 years ago…!!! .Apart from that there are many more ruins of buildings all over the rock.

Water pond at the summit of the rock

There is a large water pond built in the summit of the rock. According to the folks who lived around, the king use to bathe in this pond so often when he is in the palace .The ancient irrigation engineers who designed this had tried to get the advantage of its natural existence of this part of the rock.This is further supported by converting a cavity on the rock to a pond. It is still a mystery the way the water being pumped up to ponds as there are no fountains found on top of the rock. The rumor says that water is carried to the ponds from the summit of a mountain which is in a higher elevation than the Sigiriya rock. The elevation difference creates the required head to pump the water. However, still it’s a mystery.

How to reach Sigiriya from Anuradhapura