Lion’s Rock Sigiriya

After a four-course breakfast(!) we set off to Sigiriya, arguably the most iconic natural monument in Sri Lanka. The Lion's Rock, as it is known, is a 180-metre pillar of granite topped with the ruins of an ancient fortress built by KIng Kashyapa in the 5th Century AD. The fortress was surrounded by a series of water gardens, the Southern half of which have now been excavated while the Northern half have been deliberately left in the state in which they were discovered in the 1890s.

The fortress was built following King Kashyapa's usurpation of the throne of Anuradhapura in 477 AD. He was the eldest son of the previous king but born of a concubine, thus rendering him an illegitimate heir to the throne. He killed his father, King Dhatusena, by walling him up alive and then tried to take revenge upon his younger brother, the true heir Moggallana, who escaped to India. With his coup complete, Kashyapa moved his capital from Anuradhapura to this imposing, highly defensible pillar of rock while his brother raised an army to take back his rightful throne. The King capped the rock with an elaborate complex of temples, throne rooms, buildings and swimming pools and carved a statue of a lion through which the temple was entered. Eventually, in 495 AD, Moggallana returned to the island of Sri Lanka and fought a fierce battle against his half-brother. Kashyapa's armies, misinterpreting the movement of their leader's war elephant, abandoned him during the battle and so, in order to prevent the humiliation of surrendering to his kin, he fell on his own sword. Following this battle, King Moggallana moved the capital back to Anuradhapura and converted Sigiriya into a Buddhist monastery.

The ascent to the summit of the Lion's Rock was long and slow, though this was primarily due to the mass of other people also climbing to the top of the pillar, rather than any great difficulty in climbing the 1,200 steps snaking their way up Sigiriya. Along the stairway were remnants of frescoes that used to adorn the ascent, almost exclusively of women with enormous breasts. The view from the top of the pillar was incredible, with fantastic vistas in all directions.Read more