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In the realm of digital communication, where the exchange of ideas often occurs through typed words rather than spoken dialogue, the enhancement of conversations within online forums assumes a significance that cannot be overstated. It is within these virtual spaces that historians, archaeologists, students, and cultural tourists alike seek to deepen their understanding of subjects such as the ancient Sigiriya rock fortress, a site of immense historical and archaeological importance. The manner in which discussions unfold in these forums, therefore, warrants careful consideration, as it directly influences the quality of knowledge dissemination and the collective enrichment of participants. It is my intention, through this discourse, to explore various strategies and insights that may contribute to the elevation of forum conversations, thereby fostering a more engaging, informative, and respectful environment for all involved. The Importance of Forum Conversation Insights When one reflects upon the dynamics of forum conversations, it becomes apparent that the structure and tone of exchanges play pivotal roles in shaping the overall experience. The insights gleaned from observing successful forums suggest that conversations flourish when participants adhere to principles of clarity, respect, and constructive engagement. For instance, the use of well-articulated arguments, supported by credible sources, often encourages others to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively. Moreover, the presence of moderators who gently guide discussions without imposing undue restrictions can help maintain a balance between freedom of expression and the prevention of disruptive behavior. It is also worth noting that the diversity of participants, encompassing varying levels of expertise and cultural backgrounds, enriches the dialogue but simultaneously necessitates a degree of patience and openness. In this context, forum conversation insights emphasize the value of asking clarifying questions and providing explanations that are accessible to both novices and experts. Such practices not only enhance comprehension but also foster a sense of community and shared purpose. Strategies for Enhancing Forum Conversations To cultivate an environment conducive to meaningful exchanges, several practical strategies may be employed. First and foremost, the establishment of clear guidelines that outline expected behaviors and the scope of discussions can serve as a foundation for respectful interaction. These guidelines might include recommendations for citing sources, avoiding inflammatory language, and remaining on topic. When participants are aware of these expectations, the likelihood of productive dialogue increases. Secondly, the encouragement of detailed, evidence-based contributions can significantly elevate the quality of conversations. For example, when discussing the architectural features of Sigiriya, a participant might reference archaeological reports or historical texts, thereby grounding their assertions in verifiable information. This approach not only lends credibility but also invites others to engage with the material in a more analytical manner. Thirdly, the use of summarization techniques, whereby key points from lengthy threads are periodically encapsulated, can aid in maintaining coherence and preventing the dilution of focus. Such summaries, ideally crafted by moderators or active members, help newcomers to quickly grasp the essence of ongoing discussions and contribute meaningfully. Finally, fostering an atmosphere of encouragement, where questions are welcomed and differing viewpoints are treated with consideration, can transform a forum from a mere information exchange platform into a vibrant intellectual community. What is the internet site where discussions take place? In the context of discussions pertaining to the Sigiriya rock fortress and related archaeological and historical topics, the internet site where such conversations predominantly occur is the online forum discussion hosted by Sigiriya.site. This platform has been designed with the explicit purpose of serving as a comprehensive resource, facilitating in-depth dialogue among individuals who share an interest in the rich heritage of Sigiriya. The forum’s structure allows for the categorization of topics, enabling users to navigate seamlessly between threads focused on historical analysis, archaeological findings, cultural tourism, and conservation efforts. Additionally, the site’s interface supports the inclusion of multimedia elements such as images and documents, which further enrich the discussions by providing visual and textual context. It is through this carefully curated digital space that participants can engage in exchanges that are not only informative but also respectful and well-moderated, thereby embodying the principles of effective forum conversation insights. Practical Recommendations for Participants For those who wish to contribute effectively to forum conversations, several actionable recommendations may be considered. Initially, it is advisable to familiarize oneself with the forum’s rules and the prevailing tone of discussions before posting. This preliminary step helps in aligning one’s contributions with community standards and expectations. When composing posts, clarity should be prioritized. This can be achieved by structuring messages with concise paragraphs, employing bullet points or numbered lists where appropriate, and avoiding overly complex jargon unless it is clearly defined. For example, when discussing archaeological terminology related to Sigiriya, providing brief explanations or links to authoritative sources can enhance accessibility. Moreover, participants should endeavor to engage with others’ posts in a manner that is both respectful and constructive. Rather than dismissing differing opinions outright, it is beneficial to acknowledge the validity of alternative perspectives and to offer reasoned counterarguments supported by evidence. This approach not only fosters mutual respect but also encourages deeper exploration of the subject matter. Lastly, the use of appropriate formatting tools available within the forum, such as bold or italic text, can help emphasize key points and improve readability, thereby making contributions more impactful. The Role of Moderation and Community Management The facilitation of high-quality forum conversations is not solely the responsibility of individual participants; rather, it is a collective endeavor in which moderators and community managers play an indispensable role. Their duties extend beyond mere enforcement of rules to encompass the nurturing of a positive and inclusive atmosphere. Effective moderation involves the timely identification and resolution of conflicts, the encouragement of participation from quieter members, and the promotion of threads that align with the forum’s thematic focus. For instance, moderators might highlight particularly insightful posts or initiate discussions on emerging research related to Sigiriya, thereby stimulating engagement. Furthermore, community management strategies such as periodic surveys or feedback sessions can provide valuable insights into user experiences and preferences, enabling continuous improvement of the forum environment. By adopting a proactive and empathetic approach, moderators help ensure that the forum remains a trusted and vibrant space for scholarly and cultural exchange. Sustaining Meaningful Engagement Over Time The challenge of sustaining meaningful engagement within an online forum, particularly one dedicated to specialized topics such as the history and archaeology of Sigiriya, requires ongoing attention to both content and community dynamics. It is often observed that forums may experience fluctuations in activity levels, which can be mitigated through deliberate efforts to maintain relevance and interest. One effective method involves the regular introduction of fresh content, such as recent research findings, upcoming events, or expert guest contributions. These stimuli serve to rekindle interest and invite renewed participation. Additionally, recognizing and celebrating the contributions of active members through badges, acknowledgments, or featured posts can foster a sense of belonging and motivation. It is also prudent to periodically revisit and update forum guidelines to reflect evolving community needs and technological advancements. By doing so, the forum can adapt to changing circumstances while preserving its core values. In sum, the sustained vitality of forum conversations hinges upon a delicate balance of content quality, participant engagement, and thoughtful stewardship. In reflecting upon the multifaceted nature of enhancing conversations within online forums, it becomes evident that a combination of clear guidelines, respectful interaction, evidence-based contributions, and effective moderation coalesce to create an environment where knowledge can flourish. The online forum discussion dedicated to the Sigiriya rock fortress exemplifies such a space, offering a model for how digital platforms may serve as catalysts for scholarly and cultural enrichment. It is through the collective efforts of all participants, guided by these insights, that the full potential of forum conversations may be realized, thereby advancing our shared understanding of history and heritage.

The exploration of ancient Sri Lankan frescoes, particularly those found at the Sigiriya rock fortress, offers a profound insight into the artistic, cultural, and historical fabric of a civilization that flourished over a millennium ago. These frescoes, preserved with remarkable care and skill, serve not only as visual narratives but also as invaluable artifacts that invite a measured and contemplative examination. It is through such an examination that one may begin to appreciate the layered complexity and subtle symbolism embedded within these works of art, which continue to captivate historians, archaeologists, and cultural enthusiasts alike. The Historical Context of Ancient Sri Lankan Frescoes The frescoes adorning the walls of Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress located in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, are believed to have been created during the reign of King Kashyapa I in the 5th century CE. This period, marked by significant political and cultural developments, witnessed the emergence of a unique artistic style that combined indigenous techniques with influences from the broader South Asian region. The frescoes, painted on a sheer rock face, were intended to embellish the royal palace complex and perhaps to convey messages of divine protection, royal legitimacy, and aesthetic sophistication. The technique employed in these frescoes involved the application of natural pigments onto a prepared plaster surface, a method that required both precision and an intimate understanding of materials. The colors, though faded over time, still reveal a palette dominated by reds, ochres, and greens, which were derived from minerals and organic sources available locally. This choice of materials and the frescoes’ remarkable preservation underscore the advanced knowledge and craftsmanship possessed by the artists of that era. Artistic Characteristics of Ancient Sri Lankan Frescoes The artistic style of these frescoes is distinguished by its fluidity of form, delicate use of line, and a subtle interplay of light and shadow that imparts a sense of three-dimensionality to the figures depicted. The subjects predominantly include celestial maidens, often referred to as "Apsaras," whose graceful postures and elaborate adornments suggest a connection to both religious iconography and courtly aesthetics. The figures are rendered with an emphasis on naturalism, yet they retain an idealized quality that elevates them beyond mere portraiture. One cannot help but notice the meticulous attention to detail in the depiction of jewelry, hairstyles, and garments, which not only reflects the fashion of the time but also serves as a visual record of the socio-cultural milieu. The frescoes’ composition, characterized by a harmonious balance between the figures and the surrounding space, reveals an understanding of spatial dynamics that is both sophisticated and evocative. The preservation of these frescoes, despite centuries of exposure to the elements, is a testament to the ingenuity of the original artists and the subsequent conservation efforts. It is worth noting that the frescoes were concealed for a significant period, which inadvertently contributed to their protection from environmental degradation and human interference. What is the meaning of Sigiriya frescoes? The interpretation of the frescoes’ meaning has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate, with various hypotheses proposed to elucidate their symbolic and functional significance. One prevailing theory suggests that the frescoes represent divine or semi-divine beings, possibly attendant goddesses or celestial nymphs, who were believed to bestow blessings upon the king and his realm. This interpretation aligns with the broader South Asian tradition of integrating religious iconography into royal art to legitimize and sanctify political authority. Alternatively, some scholars posit that the frescoes may depict courtly women or concubines, thereby offering a glimpse into the royal household and its ceremonial life. This perspective is supported by the frescoes’ location within the palace complex and the intimate, almost private nature of the scenes portrayed. The ambiguity surrounding the frescoes’ subjects and their intended message invites a cautious and nuanced approach, recognizing that multiple layers of meaning may coexist. In either case, the frescoes function as a visual narrative that transcends mere decoration, embodying themes of beauty, power, and spirituality that resonate across time. Their enduring allure lies in this very complexity, which continues to inspire inquiry and admiration. Techniques and Materials Used in the Frescoes The creation of these frescoes involved a sophisticated process that began with the preparation of the rock surface, which was smoothed and coated with a fine layer of lime plaster. This plaster served as the canvas upon which the artists applied pigments derived from natural sources, including minerals such as red ochre, yellow ochre, and green earth, as well as organic dyes. The pigments were mixed with a binding agent, possibly a plant-based gum, to ensure adhesion and durability. The artists employed a technique akin to fresco secco, wherein pigments were applied to dry plaster, allowing for greater control over detail but necessitating careful execution to prevent flaking. The layering of colors and the use of shading techniques contributed to the frescoes’ depth and vibrancy, which have remarkably withstood the test of time. It is also noteworthy that the frescoes exhibit a degree of stylization, particularly in the rendering of facial features and bodily proportions, which suggests adherence to established artistic conventions and symbolic codes. This stylization, far from detracting from their realism, enhances the frescoes’ expressive power and aesthetic harmony. For those interested in the technical aspects of ancient art, the Sigiriya frescoes provide a compelling case study in the interplay between material science and artistic vision, demonstrating how natural resources were harnessed to create enduring cultural treasures. Visiting Sigiriya and Experiencing the Frescoes For those who seek to engage directly with these remarkable works of art, a visit to the Sigiriya rock fortress is indispensable. The site, which is accessible via a well-maintained path and stairway, offers visitors the opportunity to view the frescoes in situ, thereby gaining an appreciation of their scale, context, and environmental setting. It is advisable to plan the visit during the early morning hours to avoid the midday heat and to experience the frescoes under optimal lighting conditions. When approaching the frescoes, one should take time to observe the subtle details and the interplay of colors, as well as to consider the frescoes’ placement within the broader architectural and natural landscape. Guided tours, often led by knowledgeable experts, can provide valuable insights into the historical and cultural significance of the frescoes, enriching the visitor’s understanding. Moreover, the site is equipped with interpretive signage and facilities that enhance the educational experience, making it accessible to a diverse audience. Photography is permitted, though it is recommended to respect preservation guidelines and avoid the use of flash to protect the delicate pigments. For those unable to visit in person, the sigiriya frescoes website offers a comprehensive digital resource, featuring high-resolution images, scholarly articles, and virtual tours that bring the artistry of Sigiriya to a global audience. The Enduring Legacy of Sigiriya Frescoes The legacy of the Sigiriya frescoes extends beyond their immediate historical and artistic context, serving as a symbol of Sri Lanka’s rich cultural heritage and its contributions to the world’s artistic patrimony. Their preservation and study continue to inspire interdisciplinary research, encompassing fields such as archaeology, art history, conservation science, and cultural tourism. In reflecting upon these frescoes, one is reminded of the delicate balance between human creativity and the forces of nature, as well as the enduring power of art to communicate across centuries. The frescoes stand as a testament to the ingenuity and vision of their creators, whose work has transcended time to offer contemporary audiences a window into an ancient world. As efforts to conserve and promote the Sigiriya site advance, it is hoped that these frescoes will continue to be appreciated not only as relics of the past but also as living sources of inspiration and knowledge for future generations. The ongoing dialogue between the frescoes and their viewers enriches our collective understanding of history, art, and the human experience. In this light, the study and appreciation of the Sigiriya frescoes represent a vital endeavor, one that invites continued exploration, reflection, and reverence.

In the pursuit of fostering a vibrant and informed audience around the ancient Sigiriya rock fortress, it becomes increasingly evident that the cultivation of meaningful connections through digital platforms is indispensable. The dissemination of knowledge, the exchange of insights, and the nurturing of curiosity are all processes that thrive when engagement is actively encouraged and sustained. It is within this context that I have found it necessary to explore and implement various online engagement strategies, which, when thoughtfully applied, can significantly enhance the depth and breadth of interaction among historians, archaeologists, students, and cultural tourists alike. The following discourse aims to elucidate these strategies, providing practical guidance and reflective analysis to those who seek to contribute to or benefit from a dynamic community centered on Sigiriya’s rich heritage. Online Engagement Strategies: Foundations and Practical Approaches The foundation of effective online engagement strategies lies in the recognition that interaction is not merely a transactional exchange but a complex, layered process that requires careful orchestration. To begin with, the establishment of a dedicated forum or discussion platform, such as the one provided by Sigiriya.site , serves as a crucial nexus where individuals with shared interests can converge. This platform must be designed to encourage participation through intuitive navigation, clear categorization of topics, and the facilitation of respectful discourse. In practical terms, several strategies can be employed to stimulate engagement: Regularly Scheduled Thematic Discussions : Hosting weekly or monthly discussions focused on specific aspects of Sigiriya’s history or archaeology can provide structure and anticipation for participants. Expert Q&A Sessions : Inviting scholars or field experts to answer questions in real-time or through asynchronous posts can deepen understanding and lend authority to the platform. User-Generated Content Initiatives : Encouraging members to share their own research findings, photographs, or travel experiences fosters a sense of ownership and community pride. Interactive Multimedia Content : Incorporating videos, virtual tours, and detailed maps can cater to diverse learning preferences and enhance engagement. These strategies, when implemented with consistency and sensitivity to the audience’s interests, can transform a passive readership into an active, collaborative community. Caption: The Sigiriya rock fortress, a focal point for historical and archaeological discussion. What is a community interaction? Community interaction, in the context of digital platforms dedicated to historical and archaeological subjects, can be understood as the multifaceted exchange of information, perspectives, and experiences among individuals who share a common interest. This interaction is characterized not only by the frequency of communication but also by the quality and relevance of contributions, which collectively foster a sense of belonging and intellectual stimulation. To elaborate, community interaction encompasses several dimensions: Informational Exchange : The sharing of factual data, research outcomes, and interpretative analyses. Emotional Connection : The development of empathy and shared enthusiasm for the subject matter. Collaborative Problem-Solving : Joint efforts to address unanswered questions or to interpret ambiguous findings. Social Bonding : The formation of relationships that extend beyond the immediate topic, often resulting in mentorship or friendship. In the specific case of Sigiriya, such interaction is invaluable, as it allows for the pooling of diverse expertise and perspectives, which can lead to more nuanced understandings of the site’s significance and preservation needs. Caption: An archaeological excavation site illustrating collaborative research efforts. Leveraging Technology to Enhance Engagement The integration of technology into the realm of historical and archaeological engagement offers unprecedented opportunities to reach and involve a global audience. Digital tools, when judiciously applied, can bridge geographical distances and temporal constraints, enabling continuous and inclusive participation. Among the technological solutions that have proven effective are: Discussion Forums and Message Boards : These platforms, such as the one hosted by Sigiriya.site , provide structured spaces for asynchronous communication, allowing participants to contribute at their convenience. Social Media Integration : Utilizing social media channels to share highlights, updates, and calls to action can attract new members and maintain interest. Webinars and Live Streaming : Real-time presentations and interactive sessions facilitate immediate feedback and dynamic exchanges. Mobile Applications : Apps designed for site visitors can offer augmented reality experiences, guided tours, and instant access to scholarly content. It is important to note that the successful deployment of these technologies requires ongoing moderation, content curation, and responsiveness to user feedback to ensure that the community remains engaged and that the information disseminated is accurate and relevant. Caption: Interactive digital tools enhancing the exploration of Sigiriya’s archaeological features. Encouraging Sustained Participation Through Incentives and Recognition One of the challenges inherent in fostering a thriving online community is maintaining sustained participation over time. While initial enthusiasm may be high, it often wanes without deliberate efforts to motivate continued involvement. To address this, I have found that the implementation of incentives and recognition mechanisms can be particularly effective. Some practical recommendations include: Highlighting Contributor Achievements : Featuring outstanding posts, research contributions, or insightful comments in newsletters or on the main page can validate members’ efforts. Offering Access to Exclusive Content : Providing members with early or exclusive access to new research findings, virtual tours, or expert interviews can serve as a compelling incentive. Organizing Competitions and Challenges : Inviting members to participate in photo contests, essay submissions, or quiz challenges related to Sigiriya can stimulate creativity and engagement. Facilitating Networking Opportunities : Creating spaces for informal interaction, such as virtual coffee hours or interest-based subgroups, can strengthen social bonds. By adopting such measures, the community not only grows in size but also in the quality of its interactions, thereby enriching the collective knowledge base. The Role of Moderation and Community Guidelines in Fostering Respectful Dialogue In any online forum, particularly those dedicated to scholarly and cultural topics, the maintenance of a respectful and constructive environment is paramount. The presence of clear community guidelines and active moderation ensures that discussions remain focused, inclusive, and free from hostility or misinformation. Key elements to consider include: Establishing Clear Rules : Guidelines should articulate expectations regarding civility, relevance, and the handling of disputes. Training Moderators : Moderators must be equipped to identify and address inappropriate behavior promptly and fairly. Encouraging Self-Regulation : Empowering community members to report issues and to model respectful communication fosters a shared responsibility. Providing Educational Resources : Offering materials on effective communication and critical thinking can enhance the quality of discourse. Such measures contribute to a safe and welcoming space where all participants feel valued and motivated to contribute meaningfully. Towards a More Connected and Informed Sigiriya Community In reflecting upon the various strategies and considerations outlined above, it becomes apparent that the enhancement of engagement through community interaction is not a singular effort but rather a continuous, evolving process. It requires a delicate balance of technological facilitation, human empathy, and scholarly rigor. By embracing these principles, the online community dedicated to Sigiriya can flourish, serving as a beacon of knowledge and inspiration for all who seek to understand and appreciate this remarkable cultural treasure. The journey towards deeper engagement is ongoing, and it is my hope that these insights will prove useful to those who endeavor to contribute to this vibrant digital ecosystem. Through collective effort and thoughtful application of online engagement strategies, the legacy of Sigiriya can be preserved and celebrated for generations to come.

Editors Senake Bandaranayake Mats Mogren Associate Editors Eva Myrdal-Runebjer Seneviratne Epitawatte Amy de Silva Nilu Abeyaratne Priyantha Karunaratne THE POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF KELANIYA PART I INTRODUCTION 1. Traversing an Archaeological Landscape Senake Bandaranayake 2. Objectives, Methods, Constraints and Perspectives Mats Mogren Appendix I: The Methodology of the 1992 SARCP Pottery Analysis Workshop. Appendix II: 14C-datings PART II ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 3. Approaches to the Prehistory of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region Gamini Adikari 4. Excavations at Aligala Prehistoric Site Priyantha Karunaratne and Gamini Adikari 5. Excavations at the Sigiri-Potana Cave Complex: A Preliminary Account Gamini Adikari PART III ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC PERIOD 6. The Archaeology of Talkote Mats Mogren Appendix: A Catalogue of Archaeological Sites in the Talkote Area 7. Excavations at Tammannagala Raj Somadeva and Manjula Kasthurisinghe 8. A Brief Report of the Excavation at Ibbankatuva, a Proto and Early Historic Settlement Site Priyantha Karunaratne 9. New Information on Mapagal a W.A. Kumaradasa 10. Dehigaha-ala-kanda (KO . 14) at Alakolavava: An Early Iron Production Site with a Highly Developed Technology Svante Forenius and Rose Solangaarachchi 11. The Eastern Precinct of the Sigiriya Complex Priyantha Karunaratne 12. The Archaeolo gy of Irrigated Agriculture. A Case Study of Vavalavava - Sigiri Maha vava Irrigation System Eva Myrdal-Runebjer PART IV EPIGRAPHY 13. Epigraphy of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region Raj Somadeva Appendix: A catalogue of inscriptions 14. Sigiri Graffiti: New Readings Benille Priyanka PART V ETHNO-ARCHAEOLOGY 15. Premodern Sigiriya Region an Ethno-archaeological Perspective Eva Myrdal-Runebjer 16. Food Procurement: Labour Processes and Environmental Setting Eva Myrdal-Runebjer 17. Hunting, Trapping, Catching and Fishing Eva Myrdal-Runebjer and Anura Yasapala 18. Dwelling and Household: Activity Areas, Tools and Auxiliary Devices Eva Myrdal-Runebjer, Damayanthi Gunawardena, Sudarshani Fernando* 19. The System of Lan and Domestic Measurement Used in Nagalavava Prishantha Gunawardena 20. Plants Used in the Household T.R. Premathilake, S. Epitawatte, Anura Yasapala, Eva Myrdal-Runebjer References for Ethno-archaeology Section Index of Pali, Sanskrit, Sinhala and Tamil Words Project Staff and Management

Relic-Chamber Paintings The use of painted decoration and ritual or didactic representations in association with free-standing architectural monuments is as old as the art of the rock monasteries, and probably predates the use of sculptural detail in architecture. In fact, the separation of rock-shelter or rock-face paintings, on the one hand, from architectural decoration and murals, on the otherie. between rock painting and wall painting is merely a convenient division imposed by us on a unified tradition which made no essential distinction between a cave-temple and one built of brick and plaster. The early rock-shelter residence of the monk, the guha or lena, was the equivalent of the free-standing monastic leaf hut' or pannasala, both of which became in time 'residences' of the Buddha. i.e. the cave-temple and the image house, respectively. The one was in no way different ritually from the other. In the same manner, the garbha grha or womb-chamber of the stupa or dagaba, in which relies of the Buddha were deposited. was the 'cave' par excellence, located at the centre of the *stupa-mountain". These ritual correspondences are clear to us in architectural interpretation but not so obvious in the study of paintings, with the result that the rock paintings often seem very different from the wall paintings. There are at least two reasons for this. The first relates to actual differences in the layout of the paintings in monuments of different types. Thus, in rock shelters or rock-associated structures, the choice and arrangement of the paintings were profoundly affected by the configuration of the rock surface and the available space, while structural monuments had a relatively regularized distribution of wall surface and painted area. The second concerns factors of destruction, where- as historical experience shows-the chances of survival in rock shelters were very much higher than in structural monuments. It is significant that there is virtually no coherent fragment of early wall painting that has survived to any appreciable degree other than the paintings recovered from the excavated relic-chambers of ancient dagabas and the unique example of the Tivanka murals at Polonnaruva. The fact that wall paintings and painted decoration were fairly widely applied in architecture is clear from literary and archaeological evidence. A number of ruined buildings, both at Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva but mostly dating from the Polonnaruva period, show vestiges of painted decoration both internally and externally. This takes the form of flat areas of monochrome colouring and simple linear decoration, often emphasizing or sometimes Pl. 34 Floral detail. From north entrance archway, Lankatilaka temple, Polonnaruva. 12th century (7), (From a copy by D.A.L.. Perera, c.1922, in the National Museum, Colombo) The original painting was on a plaster ground with a brick support. It resembles the vahalkada paintings from Anuradhapura described by Smither replacing moulded architectural detail-as in the case of the ruined palaces at Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva, or royal buildings such as the 'Audience Hall' and the "Mausoleum' at Polonnaruva- as well as much more intricate floral and geometrical motifs of the type seen in the ceiling paintings at Sigiriya, and in the Lankatilaka. "Potgul Vehera and Tivanka shrines at Polonnaruva. We can be fairly certain that many buildings were colourfully painted and much more profusely decorated than is indicated by the bare masonry and stonework which survive today." Bell's description of the Mausoleum' by the side of the lake at Polonnaruva, when it was first discovered, gives us an impression of the use of colour in architecture in a way that we can hardly visualize today: The surface ornamentation is tastefully conceived and has been completed with great care, the lines are true and sharp, the plaster hard and smooth vivid and varied (the) colouring of the entire facades. the main colouring of the walls is in monochrome: A bright blue covers all the broadest spaces, only the pilasters and narrow string courses are picked out in red The dagaha as the principal ritual monument of the Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition must certainly have been a subject of considerable painterly interest. This is clearly borne out by the floral and animal motifs and figures painted on the vahalkadas or highly ornamented frontispieces of almost all the principal dagabas at Anuradhapura. Protected over the centuries by being buried in earth, debris and vegetation, their exposure by early excavators has often led to the destruction of the paintings. Scanty remains of painted decoration, however, can still be seen at the Ruvanvalisaya and the Mirisavati dagabas at Anuradhapura and the Kantaka Cetiya at Mihintale (Fig.19). The frontispieces themselves are of great antiquity and date from the early centuries of the present era. Their sculptural decoration represents the earliest surviving examples of Sri Lankan sculpture in stone, preserving, as we observed earlier, a treatment of the female form that anticipates the art of Sigiriya. The paintings, however, as an carly documentalist, J.G. Smither, rightly observed, belong to the last phase of monumental restoration in the 12th or possibly 13th century. Smither's watercolour copies of the Ruvanvalisaya paintings are still preserved in the archives of the Archaeological Department in Colombo, while his description of the paintings is a detailed account of a method of architectural ornamentation that can rarely be seen today. Other examples of painted ornament from similar contexts are found in the copies in the National Museum (P134) and in recently discovered fragments from the Cultural Triangle excavations at the Jetavana Vihara at Anuradhapura (Fig 36). The Jetavana fragment shows and unusual combination of blue and green tones, as well as several layers of pigment." Fig. 36 Fragment with frieze of hamsas (sacred geese) and lotuses. Vahalkada, Jetavana dagaba, Anuradhapura. 12th century (?). (Drawing by Dayananda Binaragama,1985.) Fig. 37 Male figure and attendants. Relic-chamber drawing, Mihintale. c. 8th century. The principal figure is placed within a circle and centred upon a vertical line bisecting the circle. It has been identified as one of the Lokapalas, the four rulers protecting the world. Many of the motifs seen in these vahalkada paintings, such as dwarf, lion and hamsa figures, show close similarities to forms used in sculptural ornamentation and clearly demonstrate the unity of sculpture and painting. Moreover, the comparison of these vahalkada paintings with the ceiling paintings at Sigiriya shows the continuity as well as the development of decorative concepts and motifs over a period of nearly seven or eight hundred years. This is particularly noticeable in the very similar and, at the same time, very different use of the intricate whorl or volute and the combination of alternating circle or diamond forms. Of course, the best-preserved examples of paintings from dagabas are relic-chamber paintings from Mihintale and Mahiyangana, now removed from their original contexts and housed in the museums at Mihintale and Anuradhapura. The representation in relic-chambers of Jatakas and of the events associated with the life of the historical Buddha is, as we have seen, one of the most ancient practices in Sri Lankan art. It goes back, if the Mahavamsa account can be relied on at this early date, to the 2nd century BC, in the paintings executed in the relic-chamber of the Ruvanvalisaya.S9 In this connection, an interesting expression of the Sri Lankan concern with historical tradition is to be found in the 18th-century € Mahavamsa' panels at Dambulla, where we have an actual painting of the Ruvanvalisaya with its relic-chambers showing the Vessantara Jataka and other murals. The Mihintale and Mahiyangana paintings are archaeological discoveries which confirm the existence of these traditions in the Late Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva periods. The Mihintale relic-chamber was discovered by Paranavitana in his excavations of a dagaba to the east of the Kantaka Cetiya at Mihintale.60 As with all relic chambers, this was one of several — usually three — compartments, located one above the other in the centre of a solid mass of brick masonry which forms the dome and basal terraces of the dagaba. The chambers were embedded in the masonry and totally inaccessible. They served as repositories for the relics, which signified the presence of the Buddha within the monument. They also formed part of the cosmological symbolism associated with the dagaba. The chambers seem to have represented the three worlds the heavens, the earth and the underworld — of Buddhist cosmology, centred around the cosmic mountain, Mount Meru. The paintings, therefore, though never actually viewed once the monument was completed, were part of the ritual apparatus that activated the symbolic meaning of the chambers and their contents — as Paranavitana expresses it, they served 'purposes that may be called magical' .61 The paintings at Mihintale, dated by associated palaeographic evidence to the 8th century, are only red-and-black line-drawings or painters' sketches, even retaining the geometrical outlines that guided the composition. They are intentionally unfinished, perhaps for reasons of economy or time, but were obviously considered adequate for the ritual functions which they performed. The paintings depict Lokapalas, the four rulers protecting the world. Each occupies the Fig. 38 Crowned male figures, probably with male and female attendants, seated amidst clouds. Relic-chamber drawing, Mihintale. c. 8th century. If the identification of the principal figures as Lokapalas is correct, the figure to the left would represent the central figure in this composition.

INTRODUCTION 1. SIGIRI, ITS HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION 1. THE rugged mass of granite forming the rock of Sigiri(1 Sigiri is in the Inämaluve Köra!é of the Mätalé District, and the road to it branches off from the Kandy—Trincomalee trunk road between its 50th and 51st mile-posts. B 597 ) rises, with unscalable, precipitous sides, to a height of 1,193 feet above mean sea-level—nearly 600 feet above the surrounding plain. In the fifth century, in consequence of a series of violent and brutally cruel deeds which disgraced the domestic life of the princes then ruling Ceylon, this rock suddenly became the focal point of the Island's political life, only to revert to its former obscurity after a brief, though splendid, period of eighteen years. Monumental remains of unusual interest to be seen today on the summit, as well as at the foot of the rock, bear testimony to the royal splendour which was once manifested on or around it. The history relating to Sigiri, as narrated in the chronicles,(2 For the history of Sigiri, as narrated in the chroni- cles, see Cülavathsa (Geiger's translation), chap. 38,) is briefly thus: 2. Dhätusena, who ascended the throne of Anurädhapura in or about 456 A.D., had two sons, one named Moggalläna, born of the anointed queen, and the other, Kassapa, by a consort of lesser rank. He also had a 'charming daughter, who Was as dear to him as his life'. This princess was given in marriage to the sister's son of Dhätusena, who held the office of senäpati (commander-in-chief). Without any fault on her part, she was on one occasion severely whipped on her thighs by her husband. Dhätusena saw her with blood-stained garments and, in his rage at the brutal treatment meted out to his favourite daughter, had the senäpati's mother, his own sister, burnt to death, naked. The senäpati, who now was the aggrieved party, resolved to avenge his mother, and plotted with Kassapa to bring about Dhätusena's downfall. They undermined the loyalty of the people towards their sovereign, seized power, and kept the king a prisoner. The rightful prince, Moggalläna, escaped to India. The senäpati, having persuaded Kassapa that Dhätusena had concealed his treasures for the benefit of the exiled prince, received orders to have the king put to death. Dhätusena thus ended his days by being walled up in a room. 3. Kassapa, t ough he was firmly established on the throne, lived in fear of the day of reckoning— the return of Moggalläna with military aid from India. He, therefore, wished to build for himself a stronghold where he could hold out against adversaries in times of danger; and found Sigiri to be a suit- able place for this purpose. He cleared the land round about the rock which 'was difficult of ascent for human beings', 'surrounded it with a wall and constructed stair-case houses in the form of lions'. It was this last-named detail which gave the rock the name that it bears to this day. 'He collected treasures and kept them well protected and for the (riches) kept by him he set guards in different places. Then he built there a fine palace, worthy to behold, like another Älakamandä, and dwelt there like (the god) Kuvera. (3 Cü!avaphsa, Geiger's translation, Part I, p. 42.) 4. After Kassapa had reigned for eighteen years, Moggalläna returned with an army from India. Kassapa, confident of victory, went out with his own forces to meet Moggalläna on the battlefield; but a trivial incident decided the day against him. Mounted on his elephant, he was manoeuvring for position in the course of the battle; and, coming to a swampy ground, he turned the elephant so as to avoid this obstacle. His army, however, mistook this movement for a retreat, lost their morale, broke ranks and fled in disorder. Kassapa, who found himself almost alone facing his enemies, realized that all was lost and, rather than fall into the hands of his brother, from whom he had no right to expect any mercy, cut his own throat with his dagger, 'raised the knife on high and stuck it in the sheath'. Moggalläna, having regained the throne, took up his residence at the ancient royal seat, Anurädha- pura, for he had no inclination to continue the policy or preserve the works of his brother who had so grievously wronged him and his father. He, therefore, converted the palace on the summit of Sigiri rock into a monastery, but the Buddhist Church itself evidently had no great love for the place, for it is not mentioned afterwards as having had anything to do with religion. 5. About a century after the close of the reign of Moggalläna, Sigiri is again mentioned in the chronicles as the scene of the tragic end of a prince. Samghatissa, who came to the throne in or about 606 A.D., had an adversary in the person of Moggalläna, the general of his predecessor. Due to the treachery of his own general, Sarhghatissa was at last defeated on the battlefield, and fled for his life, accompanied by one of his sons and a faithful minister. In the garb of Buddhist monks, they wended their way to Rohapa; but at Minneri they were recognized and captured by Moggalläna's men. Mog- galläna, on being informed of this, ordered the royal fugitive and his son to be taken to Sigiri and decapitated. The faithful minister was to be sent to him alive. The young prince begged of the executioners to be beheaded first, so that he might be spared the agony of seeing his father's end. Thus, at Sigiri, Samghatissa and his son had to bow their heads before the axe of the executioner. The faithful minister refused to remain alive, and lay prostrate, holding his dead master's feet, so that Moggalläna's men had perforce to cut off his head, too. 1

BENILLE PRIYANKA This article is a continuation of an earlier paper on the same subject which appeared in The Settlement Archaeology of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region (Bandaranayake 1990). In the former article 53 Sigiri Graffiti, of which 49 were deci phered for the first time, were published with texts and trans­ lations. The present article brings to light texts and translations of yet another 97 Sigiri Graffiti, hitherto unread. Among these, 83 belong to the Anuradhapura period and 14 to the Polonnaruva and Dambadeniya periods. The purpose of this article is only to present the author’s findings. It is in no way a comprehensive study. An analysis based on the grammar, epigraphy and etymology of the graf­ fiti has to be studied at a later stage. The present endeavour is to decipher as many of the unread graffiti as possible be­ fore undertaking a linguistic study. A few brief remarks on the new collection of Sigiri Graf­ fiti presented in this article are given below. No. 55. is a song attributable to the 10th century AD. (Late Anuradhapura Period). The writer has commenced the record by mentioning ‘Seneviradun Vahansege', which re­ veals that he was a general of King Sena’s army. The song concludes with mention of ‘Senrajäli kit, which is interprete- d interpreted that the writer’s name was Kit (Kirti) who served King Sena. No. 73. suggests that some writers considered very sim­ple records as gi and briefly mentions that they saw the ‘golden lady in the cave’. ‘Mapattalaviya janavi Aboya ga gi/Gal beyadhi ranavana dutuvamo me gi-badmo' No. 71. "Sarasavi Bälu Pansilu Agano bälu" In this poem we come across another interpretation for the ladies in the paintings. The writer of this record has viewed the paintings as depicting ‘Sarasavi’ (Sri Kantha) and ‘Pansilu’. It may be noted that among the 685 graffiti deciphered by Paranavitana, there were a number of poems in which their writers give different interpretations to the ladies in the paintings. The above poem adds to this collection of inter­ pret- ations. Unlike the poetic graffiti which are versified, another simpie category of records can be identified too. They are short sentences written by various visitors recording their visit. No. 67 mentions simply that the writer is paying a visit to the great lion in the Sigiri rock. ‘Sri! Mihi Sihimiyan Galamen Yanne' No. 72 mentions that the writer came to Sigiriya to record news on the Mirror Wall. He also mentions that he saw the ‘golden lady in the cave’. "Puvat ley a yannat amo, Sigiri bedahi ranvan katava bälumo' No. 69 is another short record. It says that the writer did not compose and record a poem (gz) because many people before him had written songs on the Mirror Wall. "Kamaravulu Budmit pa ma Bomi! GT boho jana liyen nolTmT A considerable number of such short records which are not poems still await deciphering. On the other hand, very brief records which demonstrate more poetic expression have been deciphered and presented in this article. They cannot be considered mere prose sen­ tences. Some examples are : No. 75. ‘Topa kima bahakaya pavasata me sihi srT padaye * No. 79. ‘Svasti! Pahandak kadabitve he kat nevandute balu’ No. 76. ‘Sihiraka dev ad parijima siri kadvure asuvi kopaya’ No. 74. "Svasti! Sohaduk nivada avuda pirivarni gT tivara giya ’ No. 71. "Sarasavi balu pansilu agano balu’ The majority of the graffiti appearing in Paranavitana’s publication {Sigiri Graffiti), are relatively longer than the examples given above. We do not know whether Paranavitana had been selective in deciphering the longer graffiti, or whether he read the ones which conform to the specific prosody he had been discussing in his book. In addition to the examples quoted above, the collection of graffiti presented here contains a number of songs, eg. Nos. 55,64, 66, 80, 100, 101, 102, 103 which conform both by length and poetic expression to the pattern of poems gen­ erally found on the Mirror Wall. Other than the above, there are 11 records which are incomplete poems. Five other records mention only the name of the writer. All the exam­ ples quoted above belong to the Late Anuradhapura Period (circa 8th century AD. - 10th century AD.). A number of records belonging to the Polonnaruva and Dambadeniya Periods (circa 11th century AD. - 13th century AD.) have also been deciphered here. Among them No. 99. is a record which had been written in the 25th regnal year of King Parakramabahu. No. 56. had been written in the 10th year of ‘Kalinga Chakravarti'. There is another record which had been written in the 15th year of ‘ Vathimi Nakka Siva\ interpreted ‘Nakka Siva’ (name), whose title was ‘ Vathimi' (treasurer). As shown below, the Mirror Wall is marked with yard numbers. The following examples will illustrate the identi­ fication of the graffiti using the respective measurements (see fig. 14:2 and 14:3). Example: Identification of Graffiti A. Between yard Nos. 10 and 11. x:5"/y:50”. Horizontal distance from the vertical lines demarcating yard No. 10. x is always read from the lesser yard No. y:50" the vertical distance from ground level. Identification of Graffiti B. Below yard No. 11 .x:0"/y:40". x:0" the vertical line yard No.l1. y:40" the vertical distance from ground level Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:28”/y:70”. Between yard Nos. 29 and 30. Four lines. The first is 11 l/2in., the second 10 l/2in., the third 10 in. and the fourth l in. in length. The script is of the 12th century. Average height of the letters is about 1 in. Text : › 1.ශ්‍රී මායාගෙහි සාහිතිය රාජො ඈ 2.දුරු කාවා කොනුර ගලහි 3.විහි රතපුලැ කොටැ ලී 4.වී Text 1. Sri māyāgehi sāhitiya rajo ä 2. duru kākā konura galahi 3. vihi ratapulä Kota li 4. vi Translation : Sri! I am Konura, the Chief poet of the Coun­cil of the heir to the throne ((māyā – the maha ādipada)I wrote this for the red lotus who lives on the Rock. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:15 l/2”/y:84". Between yard Nos. 63 and 64. Three lines. The first is 22in., the sec­ond 71 in. and the third 23 l/2in. in length. The script is of the 10th century. Average height of the letters is about 2in. Text 1.සෙනෙවිරදුන් වහසෙගෙ 2.එදැක අගනටප සිහිවන හිතිනි වෙය සෙනෙ එහි රජණන් වන් රන්වනිහන් ඒහි ඒබස් රස ජනනෙ ගී කෙ වලින් නොලියෙනය් 3.සෙන්රජැලි කිත් රැව රසගා ලි Text 1.Seneviradun Vahasege 2.Edäka aganatapa sihivana hitini veya sene ehi rajanan van ranvanihan ehi rasa janane gī kevalin no liyeneyi 3. Senrajäli Kit ruva rasaga lī Translation : This is by the Honourable General (of the king’s army). These golden ladies are like queens who in­ spire love in our hearts. When they speak such beautiful words, who can resist writing a poem ? I am Kit (Kirti) who serves King Sena. I composed this poem in appreciation of the painting on the Rock. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:57/y:56". Between yard Nos. 6 and 7. Six lines. The first is 12in., the second 12in., the third 12 l/2in., the fourth 12 l/2in., the fifth 11 l/2in. and the sixth 3in. in length. The script can be assigned to the 12th century. Average height of the letters is about 1 in. Text : 1.කාලිංඟ වක්‍රවන්ති සුවාමින් 2.වහන්සෙ දස වනුයේ ශ්‍රී පාදා 3.සව වසනා මාපහ නකරෙ පාලක 4.මි ... පැමැණ.. බලා ගියෙ 5.රදගෙයි සෙද පියොවියන් බලා ගියෙ 6.නියායි. Text 1. Kālinga cakravatti suvāmin 2. vahanse dasa vanuye srī pādā 3. sava vasana māpaha nakare pālaka 4. mi ... pämina .... balā giye 5. radageyi seda piyoviyan balā giye 6. niyāyi Translation : (I) visited this place in the 1 Oth regnal year of my Lord, King Kalinga Chakravarti. I am a Governor of a city. I serve the King. 1 saw the lovable ladies of this court. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:18"/y:66". Between yard Nos. 17 and 18. Two lines. The first is 10 l/2in. and the second 11 l/2in. in length. The script is of the 11th century. Average height of letters is about 3/4in. Text 1.විසිවනු බැගැ නැඟී කැටපත් මහරු පවු 2.හැමැ දෙනු ව හසෙ පුළ කත්ති ලීමි. Text 1. Visivanu Bagä nägī kätapat maharu pav 2. häm ä denu vaha se pula Kitti līmi Translation : I am Pula Kitti. I visited the Mirror Wall in the month of Bak in the twentieth regnal year of the King. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:87y:9 3/4". Between yard Nos. 8 and 9. Two lines. The first is 13in. and the second 9 3/4in. in length. The script is attributable to the 11th cen­tury. Average height of the letters is about 1 in. Text 1.මෙ බලා ගියෙමො සයැ අද් බල 2.යාමි මා නියම් කෙතාමි Text 1. Mebalā giyemo sayä ad bala 2. yāmi māniyam ketāmi Translation : We visited this place. (We say) Saya athbalaya and Maha niyam ketā. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:20.5'7y:68". Between yard Nos. 26 and 27. Two lines. The first is 4in. and the second 3 3/4in. in length. The script is of the 12th century. Average height of the letters is about l/4in. Text 1. බෙනර් වැහි ......වඩ්ගුර 2. සුවයාමි (නැ)ග ලිමි Text 1. Benar vähi.... vadgura 2. Suvayāmi (nä)ga līmi Translation: I am Suvayā the Master carpenter (vadgura) who lives at Benara. I climbed (up here) and wrote this. Text 1. ජෙටෙ බස් වජ් හිණිගෙර් පාලයහයාමි 2. බැලීමි Text 1. Jete bas vaj hiniger pālayaha yāmi 2. bälīmi Translation : 1 am Hiniger Pāia, the jeta bas vaj (a title). I saw this place. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:7'/y:6". Between yard Nos. 6 and 7. One line which is l0in. in length. The script is of the 12th century. Average height of letters is about 1 in. Text 1. සාපෙලවක වත්කැමි බලා ගැයැ Text 1. Sāpelavaka Vatkämi balā giyä Translation : I am sā pelavaka Vatkämi, who visited this. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:8”/y:67". Between yard Nos. 24 and 25. Two lines. The first is 8in. and the second 6in. in length. The script is attributable to the 12th century. Average height of the letters is about l in. Text 1 සණා පසල් දෙවැ 2. වමහ... Text 1. Sanā pasal deva 2. Vamaha….. Translation : I am Sanā Pasal Devä Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:9'/y:73". Between yard Nos. 2 and 28. Three lines. The first is 5 l/2in., the second 6in. and the third 1 l/2in. in length. The script is attributable to the 11th century. Average height of the letters is about 1 in. Record is an incomplete song. Text 1 මහමැහි පියණා මි 2.තා මිය නෙ දැකැ 3. පත Text 1. Mahamähi piyanāmi 2. tā miya ne däkä 3. pata Translation : I am Maha Mahi Piyana. Seeing you dying (incomplete poem). Text 1 දුරුවැ යැනා කතුන්ගෙ වග රුහිසිලියාසෙ 2.බැලි ති සය නිවෙ දාකුත් දො සොහි ලියා බසිමි. Text 1. Duruvä yänā katunge vaga ruhisiliyāse 2. bäli tā say a nive dākut do sogi liyā basimi Translation : I saw the beauty of these damsels who are fading away. I have found consolation for my grief. Yet I write this sad poem and climb down. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:0'7y:21". Below yard No. 11. One line which is 4in. long. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the letters is about 1/4 in. Text 1.ඇජ්ගිරි වෙහෙරින් ආ දළ් බතිමි ලිතිමි. Text 1. Äjgiri veherin ā dal batimi litimi Translation : I who wrote this am Dal Bati who came from Athgiri Vihara. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:30"/y:32.5". Between yard Nos. 27 and 28. Three lines. The first is 4in., the second 7in. and the third 4.5in in length. The script can be dated to the 10th century. Average height of the letters is about 1/4 in. Text 1. මන ගන්න වරණෙනන තොප 2. හන්දුනෙනු කළා සිර්මැලියෙ ගතා යෙහෙලියි 3. කි ඒනු වනිද් නිල සිවනු ගී Text 1. Managanna varanenana topa 2. hadunenu kala sirmäliye gatā yeheliyi 3. Kienu vanid nila sivanu gī Translation : I recognized you from your attractive complexion (colour). Your body is tender. O my friend ! This is a song by the merchant (vanid) Neela Siva. Position : On the Mirror Wall, x: 1l"/y:7.5". Between yard Nos. 37 and 38. One line which is 6in. in length. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the let­ ters is about l/4in. Text 1. ශ්‍රී මිහි සිහිමියන් බලමෙන් යන්නෙ Text 1. Sri mihi sihimiyan balamen yanne Translation : Sri! We look at the great lion as we go along. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:30"/y:66.5". Between yard Nos. 47 and 48. One line which is 4in. in length. The script is attributable to the 8th century. Average height of the let­ ters is about l/8in. Text 1. ස්වස්ති බොදුර් වමයැ අයුත මමයි බැලි. Text 1. Svasti! Bodur vamayä ayuta mamayi baäli Translation : Hail ! I am Bodur. I have come to visit this place. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:13.57y:65". Between yard Nos. 47 and 48. One line which is 64.5in. long. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the letters is about l/4in. Text 1. කාමරවුලු බුද්මිත් පා ම බොමි ගී බොහො ජනා ලීයෙන් නොලීමි. . Text 1. Kamaravulu Budmit pā mabomi gī boho janā līyen nolīmi Translation : I am Maha Bo from the bud mit pā (temple or mansion) at Kamaravulu. Since many have written poems, I do not write one. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:3”/y:19.5”. Between yard Nos. 30 and 31. One line which is 8in. in length. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the let­ ters is about l/2in. The song is incomplete. Text 1.කොටියාල බතියුනා ගී ස්වස්ති බැලුමො නැගැ Text 1. Kotiyāla batiyuna gī Svasti balumo nagä Translation : This is the song of Batiyunā from Kotiyāla. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:20"/y:32”. Between yard Nos. 12 and 13. Two lines. The first is 5.5in. and the second 3.5in. in length. The script is attributable to the 10th cen­ tury. Average height of the letters is about l/2in. Text 1. සරසවි බැලු පන්සිලු 2.අගනො බැලූ Text 1. Sarasavi bälu pansilu 2. agano bälu Translation : We saw the ladies who resemble Sarasvati. They seem the work of Pansilu (Vishvakarma). Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:327y:23”. On yard No. 14. One line which is 12in. in length. The script is attribut­ able to the 9th century. Average height of the letters is about 1/4 in. Text 1. පුවත් ලෙයා යන්නට් ආමො සිහිගිරි බෙදහි රන්වන් කතව බැලුමො Text 1. Puvat leyā yannat āmo Sihigiri bedahi ranvan katava bälumo Translation : We came to record the information (that) we saw the golden damsels in the Sigiri cave. Position : On the Mirror Wall.x:3l”/y:28.5". Between yard Nos. 13 and 14. One line which is Ilin, in length. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the let­ ters is about l/8in. Text 1. ම පත්තලාවිය ජනවි අබොය ගැ ගී ගල් බෙයද්හි රනවන දුටුවමො මෙ ගී බද්මො Text 1. Ma pattalāviya janavi Aboya gä gī gal beyadhi ranavana dutuvamo me gī badmo Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:27.5’7y:22.5". Between yard Nos 12 and 13. One line which is 5in. long. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the let­ters is about l/8in. Text 1. ස්වස්ති සොහදුක් නිවද අවුද පිරිවිර්නි ගි තිවර ගිය Text 1. Svasti! Sohaduk nivada avuda pirivimi gitivara giya Translation : Hail ! Our company has arrived. We leave this song to comfort you in your grief. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:32"/y:22.5". Between yard Nos. 28 and 29. Two lines. The first is 3in. and the second 1/ 2in. in length. The script is attributable to the 8th century. Average height of the letters is about l/8in. Text 1. තොපැ කිම බහකය පවසන මෙ සිහි 2. ශ්‍රී පාදයෙ Text 1. Topä kima bahakaya pavasata me sihi 2. Srī padaye. Translation : What do you keep murmuring at the feet of this majestic Lion. Position : On the Mirror Wall. x:0"/y:24". On yard No. 31. One line which is 7.5in. in length. The script is attributable to the 9th century. Average height of the letters is about 1/ 16in. Text 1. සිහිරක දෙවි අද් පරිජිම සිරි 2. කද්වරෙ අසුවි කොපයැ Text 1. Sihiraka dev ad parijima 2. Siri kadvure asuvi kopaya Translation : You who are caught in this jail are very angry. You must keep your proper senses (stay calm) now and in the future.

CITY, PALACE AND ROYAL GARDENS SENAKA BANDARANAYAKE Page 112 One of Asia's major archaeological sites, Sigiriya presents a uniq concentration of fifth-century urban planning, architecture, gardenin engineering, hydraulic technology and art. Centred on a massive rock risin 200 metres above the surrounding plain, Sigiriya's location is one considerable natural beauty and historical interest. An area of ancie settlement lying between the historic capitals of Anuradhapura an Polonnaruva, the Sigiriya plain still retains much of its forest cover, an many of its present village settlements and man-made village reservoir date back to the first millennium B.C. In its present form, Sigiriya itself i essentially a walled-and-moated royal capital of the fifth century A.D. with a palace complex on top of the rock, elaborate pleasure gardens extensive moats and ramparts, and the well-known paintings on the western face of the rock. The history of Sigiriya, however, extends from prehistoric times to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The earliest evidence of human habitation is in the Aligala rock-shelter which lies to the east of the Sigiriya rock. This is a major prehistoric site of the mesolithic period, with an Occupational sequence starting nearly five thousand years ago and extending up to early historic times. The historical period a Sigiriya begins about the third century B.C., with the establishment of a Buddhist monastic settlement on the rock-strewn western and northern slopes of the hill around the rockAs in other similar sites of this period, partially man- made rock-shelters or 'caves', with deeply-incised protective grooves or drip- ledges, were created in the bases of several large boulders. There are altogether 30 such shelters, many of them dated by the donatory inscriptions carved in the rock face near their drip-ledges to a period between the third century B.C., and the first century A.D. The inscriptions record the granting of these caves to the Buddhist monastic order to be used as residences. Kasyapa, the master builder Sigiriya comes dramatically, if tragically, into the political history of Sri Lanka in the last quarter of the fifth century during the reign of King Dhatusena I (459-477 A.D.), who ruled from the ancient capital at Anuradhapura. A palace coup by Prince Kasyapa, the King's son by a non-royal consort, and Migara, the king's nephew and army commander, led ultimately to the seizure of the throne and the subsequent execution Rock, lake, water gardens and moats, Sigiriya, 5th century. The western precinct of the Sigiriya Complex of Dhatusena. Kasyapa, much reviled for his patricide, established a new capital at Sigiriya, while the crown prince, his half-brother Moggallana, went into exile in India. Kasyapa I (477-495 A.D.) and his master-builders gave the site its present name, 'Simha-giri' or 'Lion-Mountain', and were responsible for most of the structures and the complex plan that we see today. This brief Kasyapan phase was the golden age of Sigiriya. The post-Kasyapan phases, when Sigiriya was turned back into a Buddhist monastery, seem to have lasted until the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Sigiriya then disappears for a time from the history of Sri Lanka until, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it appears again as a distant outpost and military centre of the Kingdom of Kandy. In the mid- nineteenth century antiquarians begin to take an interest in the site, followed some decades later by archaeologists, who have now been working there for nearly 100 years, since the 1890s. The Cultural Triangle project began its work at Sigiriya in 1982 and has focussed attention not only on the best-known and most striking aspects of Sigiriyathe royal complex of rock, palace, gardens and fortifications of the 'western precinct, but also on the entire city and its rural hinterland. Urban form One of the most important aspects of the archaeology of Sigiriya is that it is one of the best-preserved and most elaborate surviving urban sites in South Asia from the first millennium A.D. What we know presently about its urban form is that it consists of a series of concentric precincts, the outermost of which, not yet completely surveyed, seems to form a precise geometrical rectangleThese successive precincts are centred on the great Sigiriya rock, a massive monadnock or inselberg rising about 200 metres above the surrounding plainIt has a part-naturalpart man-made, stepped plateau of about 1.5 hectares on its summit. On this plateau is located the royal palace and the immediate palace gardens The palace stands about 360 metres above mean sea level and 200 metres above the surrounding plain. On the plain below, extending east and west, are two fortified precincts, 90 and 40 hectares in extent. Around the rock itself is a walled citadel' or inner royal precinct, covering an area of about 15 hectares. This citadel presents an irregular, broadly elliptical plan, more or less defining the outer limits of the hill slopes around the base of the rock. This boulder-strewn hillside has been fashioned into a series of terraces, forming a terraced garden around the rock. It also incorporates rock-shelters and rock-associated pavilions which form the distinctive architecture of the boulder gardens both to the west and the east of the citadel. The area to the west of the citadel is laid out as a symmetrically- planned royal park or pleasure-garden with elaborate water retaining structures and surface and sub-surface hydraulic systems. It is surrounded by three ramparts and two moats forming a square, whose inner dimensions are about 900 by 800 metres. To the east of the citadel extends the 'eastern precinct' or 'inner city', a rectangular form whose inner precincts measure about 700 metres from east to west and 500 metres from north to south with a high earthen rampart, gateways and vestiges of a moat. Our present City of Sigiriya 1. Outer Moat and Rampart 2. Mapagala Complex 3. Outer City 4. Inner Moat and Rampart 5. Entrances 6. Water Gardens 7. Boulder Gardens 8.Terrace Gardens 9.Mirror Wall and Paintings 10. Lion Platform 11. Palace at the summit 12. Inner City, Ramparts and Gates 13. Lake interpretation of this area is that it represents a ceremonial precinct with no permanent structures other than a large central pavilion erected on a long, low rock outcrop The outermost rampart of the Sigiriya complex is today a low, much eroded vestigial earthen embankment defining the extent of the still largely uninvestigated eastern residential or 'outer city area. This is more or less laid out as a rectangle, 1,000 by 1,500 metres, with two eastern gateways, suburban settlements beyond its northern walls, and the great man-made Sigiriya Lake to its south. Among the most remarkable aspects of the urban form at Sigiriya are its planning mathematics and total design conceptThe plan of the city is based on a precise square moduleThe layout extends outward from the coordinates at the centre of the palace complex on top of the rockThe eastern and western entrances are directly aligned with the central east west axis. The royal water-gardens and the moats and ramparts of the western precinct are based on an echo' plan, which duplicates the layout on either side of the north-south and east-west axes. In its total conception Sigiriya represents a brilliant combination of concepts of symmetry and asymmetry in a deliberate interlocking of geometrical plan and natural form. The Apsara paintings The most famous features of the Sigiriya complex are the fifth-century paintings found in a depression on the rock face more than 100 metres above ground levelReached today by a modern spiral staircase, they are but fragmentary survivals of an immense backdrop of paintings that once extended in a wide band across the western face of the rock. The painted band seems to have extended to the north-eastern corner of the rock, covering thereby an area nearly 140 metres long and, at its widest, about 40 metres high. As John Still observed. The whole face of the hill appears to have been a gigantic picture gallery the largest picture in the world perhaps (Still 1907: 15). All that survives of this great painted backdrop are the female figures preserved in two adjacent depressions in the rock-face known as 'Fresco Pocket A' and 'Fresco Pocket B' (three other depressions: 'Fresco Pockets C, D and E' higher up the rock-face, also contain patches of plaster and pigment andin at least one instance, fragments of a painted figure)Traces . of plaster and pigment elsewhere on the rock-face provide further evidence of the extent of the painted bandThey represent apsaras or celestial nymphs, a common motif in the religious and royal art of Asia The Sigiriya paintings have been the focus of considerable interest and attention in both ancient and modern times. The poems in the graffiti on the Mirror Wall, discussed below, dating from about the sixth to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, are mostly addressed to the ladies in the paintings, who seem also to have been studied and reproduced in the eighteenth century by the Kandyan artists who painted the Dambulla murals. Antiquarian descriptions of the figures in the fresco pocket' date back to the 1830sThe first proper descriptions in the nineteenth century are based on the examination of the paintings by telescope from the plain below. The first person in modern times to find his way into the fresco pocket and come face to face with the paintings was an engineer named Murray of the Public Works Department. He made tracings, copied them in pastel and published a paper in 1891. The first real study of the paintings, however, begins with the commencement of archaeological operations at Sigiriya by H.C.P. Bell from 1894 onwards and the facsimile copies in oils made by Muhandiram DAL Perera in 1896-7. Meaning and style An important and largely unanswerable question is how the present figures related to the entire composition of the painted band extending across the rock-face. Their fragmentary nature and unusual dramatic location have led to the Sigiriya paintings being interpreted in a number of ways Apsara celestial nymph, Sigiriya, 5th century. An outstanding example of the classical school of Sri Lankan painting. 'Fresco Pocket B' Sigiriya, 5th centuryIt is now thought that the Sigiriya paintings were executed in the tempera rather than true fresco technique. Detail from 'Fresco Pocket B', Sigiriya, 5th century. An Apsara holds a flower in a classical dance gesture. sometimes quite fancifully. Of the proposals that deserve scholarly consideration the three most important ones are those of Bell, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Senerath Paranavitana. Bell's idea that they portray the ladies of Kasyapa's court in a devotional procession to the shrine at Pidurangala is a purely imaginative reconstruction and has no precedent in the artistic and social traditions of the region or the periodIt seems quite likely, however, that the court ladies and their costumes and ornaments provided models for the Sigiriya artists and that, as such, the paintings reflect the life and atmosphere, the ideals of beauty and the attitude to women, of the élite society of the time. Paranavitana's suggestion that they represent Lightning Princesses (vijju kumari) and Cloud Damsels (meghalata) is an interpretation at once more literary and sociological. It forms part of his elaborate hypothesis, which attempts to explain Sigiriya as an expression of the cult of divine royalty, the entire palace complex being a symbolic reconstruction of the abode of the god Kuvera. While these identifications may seem to us today an overinterpretation too specific to accept in its totality, deriving from Paranavitana's attempt to see the Sigiriya palace and royal complex primarily as an expression of divine kingship, they do draw our attention to important sociological dimensions in the understanding of ancient works of art. There is no doubt that the spatial organization and symbolism of the Sigiriya complex is profoundly determined by the cult of the king and the ideology of kingship. The great tapestry of paintings at Sigiriya, the palace on the summit and the lion staircase, are all part of a complex 'sign-language" expressing royal power and ritual status. Coomaraswamy's identification of the Sigiriya women as apsaras is in keeping with well-established South Asian traditions and is not only the simplest but also the most logical and acceptable interpretation. Recent studies have reinforced this idea, showing that apsaras are often represented in art and literature as celestial beings who carried flowers and scattered them over kings and heroes as a celebration of victory and heroismWe can say almost with certainty that the Sigiriya ladies are celestial nymphs, very similar in essence to their successors thirteen hundred years later in the Daughters of Mara panel from Dambulla, but it is also likely that they had more than one meaning and function: as expressions of royal grandeur and status and as artistic evocations of courtly life, with aesthetic and erotic dimensions. Such an interpretation, with its varying levels of ambiguity, allows us to accommodate both Bell's and Paranavitana's suggestions at either end of a semiological spectrum. It also makes it possible for us to view the painted band at Sigiriya as a rare and early survival of a royal citrasala, or picture gallery, well known in Indian literature and implicit in the Culavamsa account of Parakramabahu's palaces and audience halls at Polonnaruva The style and authorship of the paintings have been as controversial a question as that of their identity. Early writers such as Bell, and even Coomaraswamy, saw them as extensions of the Central Indian School of Ajanta or of several related traditions such as those of Bagh or of Sittanvasal in South India. Bell even suggested that 'artists trained in the same school possibly the same hands - executed both the Indian and Ceylon frescoes. These were views expressed at a time when very little was known of the extent and character of early Sri Lankan painting Benjamin Rowland was amongst the first to observe carefully the actual painterly technique at Sigiriya and to note in what specific way it differed from Ajanta and other subcontinental traditions: The Sigiriya paintings. outside of their exciting and intrinsic beauty, are perhaps most notable for the very freedom they show at a time when the arts were tending to become more and more frozen in the mould of rigid canons of beautyThe apsaras have a rich healthy flavour that in contrast almost makes the masterpieces of Indian art seem sallow and effete in over-refinementJust as the drawing is more vigorous than that of the more sophisticated artists of India, so colours are bolder and more intense than the tonalities employed in the temples of the Deccan' (Rowland 1938: 84). These insights have been pursued and reinforced by contemporary Sri Lankan scholars, who rightly argue that, while the Sri Lankan paintings belong to the same broad traditions of South Asian art as the various subcontinental schools of the time, the specific character and historical continuity of the Sri Lankan tradition give it its own distinctive place in the art of the region. Thus, the Sigiriya paintings represent the earliest surviving examples of a Sri Lankan school of classical realism, already fully evolved when we first encounter it in the fifth century. The Boulder-Garden paintings The art of Sigiriya is not confined to the paintings on the great rock itself. Of equal archaeological and even aesthetic interest, though less well- preserved, are a number of paintings found in the rock shelters at the foot of the rock in the area that formed the boulder gardens in the time of Kasyapa. This was also the centre of both the ancient and the post- Kasyapan monasteries. Nearly thirty rock shelters and boulder arches (i.e.. archways formed of natural boulders) have been found at Sigiriya. Significant fragments of paintings can be seen in at least five of these. Many of the others contain traces of plaster and pigment, indicating an extensive complex of painted caves and pavilions in the whole of the boulder garden area. The most ambitious composition can be found on a large area of plaster in Cave 7 where there are faint traces of several female figures carrying flowers and moving amidst clouds, again in a northerly direction, very much like the apsaras on the main rock above. Even in ornamentation and general figural treatment, these women are broadly similar to those in the famous paintings, except for the fact that at least three of them are not cut off at the waist by clouds but are full-figure representations, with legs bent in a conventional flying posture. Altogether there are less than half a dozen distinct forms here, barely discernible in traces of body colour and linework The most extraordinary and certainly the most dramatic manifestations of the painter's art at Sigiriya are the remains of ceiling paintings in the rock shelter popularly known as the 'Cobra-hood Cave' (Cave 9) on account of its equally dramatic rock formation. The shelter itself dates from the Terracotta architectural detail, Boulder Garden, Sigiriya, 5th-8th century. This detail is typical of the moulded ornamentations of the lost brick and timber buildings in the Boulder Garden. Geometrical shapes and motifs, Cobrahood cave, Sigiriya, 5th century. A complex rendering of characteristic volute or whorl motifs earliest phase of occupation at Sigiriya and bears a donatory inscription belonging to the last few centuries B.C. The painting combines geometrical shapes and motifs with a free and complex rendering of characteristic volute or whorl motifs. It is nothing less than a masterpiece of expressionist painting, displaying considerable imaginative range and artistic virtuosity in a way not seen elsewhere in the surviving paintings of the Sri Lankan tradition. The characteristic brushwork style and tonal qualities of the Sigiriya school are immediately noticeable here. There is little doubt that this awning is contemporary with the paintings on the main rock. Further excavation in the caves of the boulder garden and detailed investigation of plaster layers and pigments will give us a much clearer idea of the successive phases of artistic activity at Sigiriya. Considered in their totality, the paintings in the boulder-garden area at Sigiriya, though vestigial, provide important evidence of the continuation of the Sigiriya school over a fair period of time. Excavations have shown several post-fifth-century phases of occupation in the rock shelters in this area, continuing until perhaps as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century. This situation is paralleled by the layers of plaster and painting which provide evidence of several successive phases of painterly activity at Sigiriya. The Sigiri graffiti The Sigiriya paintings have preoccupied visitors to the site over many centuries. After the abandonment of the palace in the fifth or sixth century and the establishment of a monastery in the boulder and water garden area to the west of the rock, Sigiriya became a place of pilgrimage for visitors from all over the country, who came to see the paintings, the palace and the lion staircase. Greatly inspired by the paintings, they composed poems addressed mostly to the ladies depicted in them and inscribed their verses on the highly polished surface of the Mirror Wall just below the painting gallery. Known as the Sigiri graffiti and dating from about the sixth to the early fourteenth century, hundreds of these scribbled verses cover the surface of the gallery wall and also some of the plastered surfaces in the caves below. Nearly seven hundred of these were deciphered by Paranavitana, and another 150 recently by Benille Priyanka The poems, which express the thoughts and emotions of ancient visitors to Sigiriya, provide not only revealing comments on the paintings themselves but also an insight into the cultivated sensibilities of the time and its appreciation of art and beauty. 'Art about Art': early souvenir sculptures Closely connected with the paintings and the poetry are a series of miniature terracotta figurines found in the debris of collapsed structures in the Boulder Garden area on the western slopes at the base of the Sigiriya rock. These are among the most interesting archaeological finds from nearly a decade of Cultural Triangle excavations at Sigiriya. Most of the figurines appear today as female torsos, modelled in the familiar 'classic- realist' style of the Middle Historical period (circa sixth to thirteenth century). The modelling of the figurines shows a characteristic concern with three-dimensional form and a sensitivity to both anatomical and decorative detail. From their archaeological context and style we may tentatively date them to a period between the seventh and the tenth centuries. As for as we know, terracotta figures of this specific type have only been found at Sigiriya, but they are clearly related to a contemporary tradition of fine terracotta sculpture associated with other sites in the region. What is particularly interesting is that these figures are representations or models of the famous apsaras of the Sigiriya paintings The concept of the unity of sculpture and painting, ie., the equivalence of the three- dimensional and the two-dimensional image, is a basic principle of South and Southeast Asian art. What is rare, perhaps even unique, at this early period is to find ancient works of art which are deliberate representations or, in this case, actual models or miniature reproductions of other works of art, a process which can be described as 'art about art. The correspondences between the paintings and the sculptures and the diminutive size of the latter (usually between 10 and 20 cm) suggest that the figurines were portable objects and not part of any fixed architectural decoration further supporting the notion that they are models or 'souvenirs'. The production of models and souvenirs to be carried away by pilgrims visiting famous religious centres is, of course, an ancient practice, well-known in the art and archaeology of Asia. Sigiriya, however, is an example of a site, rare in the archaeological record, which seems to have been visited purely on account of its secular aesthetic and 'archaeological' attractions. The verses are mostly addressed to the ladies in the paintings, thus, the terracotta figurines seem to have been produced as souvenirs to be taken away by visitors who appreciated the paintings This interpretation 'Their bodies' radiance Like the moon Wanders in the cool wind.' 'The song of Lord Kital: Sweet girl Standing on the Mountain Your teeth are like jewels Lighting the lotus of your eyes Talk to me gently of your heart." 'I am Lord Sangapala I wrote this song We spoke But they did not answer Those ladies of the Mountain They did not give us The twitch of an eye-lid.' Ladies like you Make men pour out their hearts And you also have thrilled the body Making its hair Stiffen with desire.' Terracotta Souvenir Sculpture, Sigiriya, 5th century. Terracotta models of the painted figures on the rock. is preferable to one that would view the figures as decorative or iconic sculptures associated with the monastic structures amongst whose debris they occur. The Sigiriya torsos, like the poems on the Mirror Wallare undoubtedly an expression of art about art'. They interest us not only as beautiful terracotta sculptures but also as unique historical documents, supplementing the insights we gain from the poems into the society and sensibilities of the period The Royal Gardens One of the major foci of the Cultural Triangle excavations has been the Sigiriya gardens. Sigiriya provides us with a unique and relatively little- known example of what is one of the oldest landscaped gardens in the world, whose skeletal layout and significant features are still in a fair state of preservation. Three distinct but interlinked forms are found here: water gardens, cave and boulder gardens, and stepped or terraced gardens encircling the rock. A combination of these three garden types is also seen in the palace gardens on the summit of the rock. The Water Gardens The water gardens are, perhaps, the most extensive and intricate, and occupy the central section of the western precinct. Three principal gardens lie along the central east-west axis. The largest of these, Garden L. consists of a central island surrounded by water and linked to the main precinct by cardinally-oriented causeways. The quartered or char bagh plan thus created, constitutes a well-known ancient garden form, of which the Siginya version is one of the oldest surviving examples. The entire garden is a walled enclosure with gateways placed at the head of each causeway. The largest of these gateways, to the west, has a triple entrance. The cavity left by the massive timber doorposts indicates that it was an elaborate gatehouse of timber and brick masonry with multipletiled roofs. Garden 2, the Fountain Garden', is a narrow precinct on two levels. The lower, western half has two long, deep pools with stepped cross-sections. Draining into these pools are shallow serpentine 'streams' paved with marble slabs and defined kerbs. These serpentines are punctuated by fountains. consisting of circular limestone plates with symmetrical perforations. They are fed by underground water conduits and operate on a simple principle of gravity and pressure. With the cleaning and repair of the underground conduits, the fountains operate in rainy weather even today Two relatively shallow limestone cisterns are placed on opposite sides of the garden. Square in plan and carefully constructed, they may well have originally functioned as storage or pressure chambers for the serpentine and the fountains. The eastern half of the garden, which is raised above the western section, has few distinctive features, a serpentine stream and a pavilion with a limestone throne being almost all that is visible today. Garden 3, on a higher level consists of an extensive area of terrace and halls Its northeastern corner is a large octagonal pool and terrace at the Water Garden, Sigiriya, 5th century. The gardens in the morning mist of the rainy season. Water Garden at Sigiriya 1. Water Garden 2. Boulder Garden 3.Terrace Garden 4.Palace Rock base of a towering boulder forming a dramatic juxtaposition of rock and water at the very point at which the water garden and boulder garden meet. A raised podium and a drip-ledge for a lean-to roof form the remains of a 'bathing pavilion on the far side of the pool.. The eastern limit of Garden 3 is marked by the wide entrance and massive brick and stone wall of the citadel. The citadel wall forms a dramatic backdrop to the water gardens, echoing the even more dramatic vision of the great rock and the palace on its summit to the east. When viewed from the water gardens, the wall extends from the towering boulder of Garden 3 to a matching bastion on the south-east, formed by wide brick walls and a series of boulders which surround a cave pavilion housing a rock-cut throne. The three water gardens form a dominant series of rectangular enclosures varying size and character, joined together along a central east-west of axisMoving away from this to the wider conception of the western precinct as a whole, we see that its other dominant feature is a sequence of four large moated islands, arranged in a north-south oriented crescent, cutting across the central axis, of the water garden. These, once again, follow the principle of symmetrical repetition, the two inner islands, on the one hand, and the two outer islands, on the other, forming pairs. The two inner islands closely abutting the Fountain Garden on either side, are partially built up on surfacing bedrock. They are surrounded by high rubble walls and wide moats. The flattened surface of the island was occupied by summer palaces' (Sinhala sitala maliga or cool palaces) or water pavilions. Bridges built or cut into the surface rock, provide access to these palaces. Further to the north and south, almost abutting the ramparts, are the two other moated islands, still unexcavated but clearly displaying the quartered or char bagh plan. Intricately connected with the water gardens of the western precinct are the double moat that surrounds it and the great artificial lake that extends southward from the Sigiriya rock. Excavations have revealed that the pools were interlinked by a network of underground conduits, fed initially by the Sigiriya Lake and probably connected at various points with the surrounding moats. Ancient Fountains, Sigiriya, 5th century. Fountains at play in the rainy season. The Miniature Water Garden To the west of Water Garden 1recent excavations have revealed a miniature water garden very different in character from those described above. There are at least five distinct units in this gardeneach combining pavilions of brick and limestone with paved, water-retaining structures and winding water-courses. The two units at the northern and southern extremities are badly eroded, but the general layout of the major portion of the garden and of the three central units is clear. A striking feature of this miniaturegarden (it is in fact about ninety metres long and thirty wide) is the use of these water-surrounds with pebbled or marbled floors, covered by shallow, slowly-moving waterThese, no doubt, served as a cooling device and at the same time had great aesthetic appeal, creating interesting visual and sound effects. Another distinctive aspect is the geometrical intricacy of the garden layoutWhile displaying the symmetry and echo-planning' characteristic of the water-gardens as a whole, this miniature garden has a far more complex interplay of tile-roofed buildingswater-retaining structures and water-courses than is seen elsewhere in Sigiriya; even more intricate, in fact, than the beautiful Fountain Garden' Miniature Water Garden, Sigiriya, 5th century. This refined garden layout retains various paved ponds using pebble and marble floors with slow moving water. Rock cut footings, Sigiriya, 5th century. These cuttings on the rock were meant as foundations for brick masonry. Moat of the Summer Palace, Sigiriya, 5th century. The southern Summer Palace is one of five moated islands in the water gardens at Sigiriya. This newly-discovered garden seems to belong to more than one phase of construction. As far as we are able to say at this stage of our investigation, the garden seems originally to have been laid out as an extension and 'miniaturized' refinement of the Kasyapan macro-plan and therefore belongs in essence to the last quarter of the fifth century: But it seems to have been added to later and remodelled and then finally abandoned and again partially built over in the last phases of the post- Kasyapan period, between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. It seems very likely that a similar garden lies buried beneath the lawns of the unexcavated parallel sector in the northern half of the water-gardens, an 'echo' or 'twinof the present garden in the south. The Boulder Garden The boulder garden presents a garden design which is in marked contract to the symmetry and geometry of the water gardens. It is an entirely organic or symmetrical conception, consisting of a number of winding pathways, which link several clusters of large natural boulders extending from the southern slopes of the Sigiriya hill to the northern slopes below the plateau of the lion staircase. One of the most striking features of this boulder garden is the way in which almost every rock and boulder had a building or pavilion set upon it. What seem to us today like steps and drains or a honeycomb of holes on the sides or tops of boulders, are in fact the foundations or footings of ancient brick walls and of timber columns and beams. Among the unusual features of the garden are the impluvium of the Cistern Rock', taking its name from a large cistern formed out of massive slabs of granite, and the 'Audience Hall Rock' which has a flattened summit and a large 5-metre long- throne carved out of the living rock. The honeycomb of post-holes and flattened ledges of the 'Preaching Rock' are others. While considerable excavation will have to be done before we can recover the original pathways of the boulder garden, at least two distinct Cobrahood cave, Boulder Garden, Sigiriya, 3rd century B.C., and later. A drip-ledge inscription indicates that this rock- shelter was an early Buddhist monastic residence, while its painted ceiling, dates from the 5th century A.D. Assembly Hall and Ritual Bath, Boulder Garden, Sigiriya, 5th century. markers are provided by two boulder arches' and limestone staircases, as well as various flights of steps and passageways constructed of polished marble blocks and slabs. The vertical drains' cut in the sides of rocks in a few places indicates that, water-courses and controlled water movement formed part of the garden architecture in this area too. The Terraced Gardens The third garden form at Sigiriya, the terraced gardens have been fashioned out of the natural hill at the base of the Sigiriya rock by the construction of a series of rubble-retaining walls, each terrace rising above the other and running in a roughly concentric plan around the rock. The great brick-built staircases with limestone steps traverse the terrace gardens on the west, connecting the pathways of the boulder garden to the precipitous sides of the main Sigiriya rock itself. From here, a covered ambulatory or gallery provides access to the belly of the rock to what is in effect the uppermost terrace, the 'Lion Staircase plateau', with its chambers, buildings and pavilions and the great lion itself. The Mirror Wall The Mirror Wall dates from the fifth century and has been substantially preserved in its original form. Built up from the base of the rock itself with brick masonry, the wall has a highly polished plaster finish, from which it gets its ancient name, the Mirror Wall. The wall encloses a walk or gallery paved with polished marble slabs. The famous Sigiriya paintings are found in a depression high above this gallery. The polished inner surface of the mirror wall contains the Sigiriya Graffiti as described above. The Lion Staircase One of Sigiriya's most dramatic features is its great Lion Staircase, now preserved only in two colossal paws and a mass of brick masonry surrounding the ancient limestone steps Boulder Archway, Sigiriya, 5th century. One of the natural archways in the Boulder Garden. The lion staircase and the palace on the summit, Sigiriya, 5th centuryThe lion staircase was the main gateway to the palace on the summit. Palace, Lion Staircase, Garden and Lake, Sigiriya, 5th centuryA panoramic view of the centre of the Sigiriya complex, with the Terrace and Boulder Garden in the foreground and the lake in the distance(overleaf) 'We saw at Sihigiri the king of lions whose fame and splendour remain spread in the whole world' Having ascended Sigiriya to see what is (there) I fulfilled my mind's desire and saw His Lordship the Lion', The lionso impressive even in its ruined state today, must have afforded a vision of grandeur and majesty when it was intact. Remarkablywe have poems recording the impact of the Lion on ancient visitors to the site. The monstrous Simha - suggestive of the legendary founder of the Sinhalese race towering majestically against the granite cliffbright- coloured, and gazing northwards over a vista that stretches almost hill-less to the horizonmust have presented an awe-inspiring sight for miles around. (H.CP. Bell 1904: 9) We know from the chronicle account of Kasyapa's construction of Sigiriya that the Lion Staircase House was one of the principle features of his plan of the Sigiriya complex. The Lion was in effect the ultimate and solitary gatehouse to the palace on the summit. At the same time it made a major symbolic statement, operating on several levels of meaning, enhancing the power and majesty of royal authority and invoking ritual notions of dynastic origins, the Lion being the mythical ancestor and the royal symbol of the Sri Lankan Kings. The actual structure of the Lion Staircase House itself can be at least partially reconstructed from the evidence still remaining at the site. The paws, the surving masses of brick masonry and the original limestone risers give us a clear idea of the form, scale and materials used in the construction of the Lion: basically a brick masonry structure with its surface moulded fairly realistically in a thick coating of lime plaster. The Lion seems to have been in a crouching position, represented by its paws, head and shoulders projecting from the rock. The exact width and height of the Lion is indicated by cuts and grooves in the rock-face. It is likely that timber posts, beams and lintels were used inside the brick masonry to create the passages for the stairs, the decay of this timber framework leading ultimately to the collapse of a substantial part of the entire structure. The Lion Staircase House stood to a height of fourteen metres. Above this the gently-sloping rockface was utilized once again to erect a gently ascending gallery and staircase, presumably of brick masonry with stone risers. The Palace The summit of the Sigiriya rock is in the form of a stepped plateau with a total extent of more than 1.5 hectares. The palace was the centre of the royal city. Lying abut 180m above the surrounding plain and 360 m above mean sea level at its highest point, it is not only the loftiest and inner-most precinct of the Sigiriya complex, but it is also the geometrical centre of the ancient modular grid on which the plan of Sigiriya is based. The central north-south and east-west axes of the entire complex intersect near the mid-point of the palace area. The earliest surviving palace in Sri Lanka, with its layout and basic ground plan still clearly visible, it provides important comparative data for the study of Asian palace forms. The palace complex divides into three distinct parts: the outer or lower palace occupying the lower eastern part of the summit; the inner or upper palace occupying the high western section, and the palace gardens to the south. The three sectors converge on a large and beautiful rock-cut pool bordered on two sides by a stone-flagged pavement. A marble-paved walk runs down the centre of the complex between the outer and the inner palace, forming an axial north-south corridor. The palace 5th century. on the summit, Sigiriya, A view from the south. Rock Pool on Summit, Sigiriya, 5th centuryThis rock-cut pool was the central feature of the palace gardens on the summit. Sigiriya territory with Buddhist monasteries, village tanks and major iron producing centres. 1. Sigiriya city. 2. Pidurangala monastery. 3. Ramakale monastery. 4Talkote settlement complex. 5. Alakolavava iron-production site. 6. Sigiri Mahavava The Sigiriya Hinterland The archaeology of the Sigiriya complex is not limited to the palace, the gardens and the city, but extends to a large hinterland known in ancient times as the 'Sihagiri Bim', the Sigiri TerritoryRecent archaeological explorations have shown that this area presents a complex archaeological landscape consisting of a large number of rural settlement sites, village tanks, protohistoric cemeteries, major iron-producing centres, and a variety of Buddhist monasteries. The immediate greater Sigiriya area includes suburban settlements outside the city walls and along the Sigiri Oya. A major irrigation network to the south of the Sigiriya rock is formed by the Sigiri Mahavava, a great man-made lake more than eight kilometres in length, and the twelve - kilometre long Vavala canal network. Immediately to the north and south of the city are the ancient fortress of Mapagala, with its 'Cyclopean' walls, dating from the first to the third centuries A.D., and the major monastery complexes of Pidurangala and Ramakale. Recent studies of this remarkable landscape have made it one of the most intensively surveyed archaeo-historical micro-regions in South Asia

SENAKE BANDARANAYAKE WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY GAMINI JAYASINGHE THE EVOLUTION OF A PICTORIAL TRADITION Prehistoric Art 07 Early Buddhist Rock Monasteries 11 Classic and Late Classic Styles 13 The Gampola and Kotte periods 15 The Kandyan and Southern Schools 17 Transitional Styles of the Modem period 19 Context and Method 22 EARLY AND MIDDLE PERIOD PAINTING The Art of Sigiriya 26 The Boulder-Garden Paintings 31 Cave-Shrines of the Anuradhapura Period 34 Relic-Chamber Paintings 73 Polonnaruva Murals 79 LATE PERIOD MURALS 'Impressionism' and 'Idealism' 106 Origins of the Post-Classic Style 109 The Central Kandyan Tradition 112 The Dambulla Cycle 153 Provincial Kandyan Schools 161 Evolution of the Southern Tradition 201 Southern Styles of the 19th Century 204 NOTES 281 ABBREVIATIONS 285 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 289 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 290 INDEX 295 AFTERWORD 2006 ADDITIONS TO THE SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Sri Lanka has a long history of rock and wall painting extending from at least the last few centuries BC to the early 20th century. Fragmentary remains of early painting are known from a number of ancient archaeological sites, while a great cycle of 18th and 19th century murals is found in many urban and rural temples and monasteries. The early paintings, fragmentary and incomplete though they are, give us vivid and complex images of a distant historical epoch. The later paintings - some of them painted almost within living memory - constitute one of the richest and most substantial expressions of Sri Lankan pictorial art in its final period of efflorescence. They give us access to an imaginative world of the recent past in a way that is not easily paralleled by any other form of documentation. Modem interest in Sri Lankan rock and wall paintings began in the late 19th century. Although there have been several books and articles published on the subject since, this study is the first to present an overview of the entire tradition from its early historical origins to its contemporary traditional manifestations. It brings together almost all the available material belonging to the Early and Middle Historical periods and selected studies of the Kandyan and Southern schools of the later epoch. The analytical and descriptive text is accompanied by photographs and line-drawings selected to illustrate the thematic range, compositional methods and stylistic variety displayed in these paintings as well ad their historical evolution and functional context. Looked at in a regional perspective, the Sri Lankan murals take their place in a broad spectrum of South and Southeast Asian traditions, best known from the Indian subcontinent for the early period and from Burma and Thailand for the later. At the same time, the specific character and continuity of Sri Lankan art over a period of two millennia give it a distinctive place in the art and art-history of the region. 305 PAGES WITH 272 ILLUSTRATIONS INCLUDING 174 COLOUR PLATES AND 98 BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS, LINE­ DRAWINGS AND MAPS Jacket illustrations. Front:Lady attendant accompanying Madri Devi, wife of Vess ant ar a (detail). Vessantara Jataka, Kumaramahavihara, Kumarakanda, Dodanduva. Late 1880's. Back: Colossal painted door with fretwork panels (detail). Lankatilaka Temple, Handassa. 18th century. Senake Bandaranayake is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Kelaniya. He is the author or editor of a number of books on the archaeology and culture of Sri Lanka, among them Sinhalese Monastic Architecture (1974); Sri Lanka- lsland Civilisation (1977); Sigiriya: Excavations and Research (1984); The Settlement Archaeology of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region (1989); Sri Lanka and the Silk Road of the Sea (1990; repr.2003); The Heritage of Asia and Oceania (1993); Ivan Peries: Paintings 1938-88 (1996); and Sigiriya: City, Palace and Royal Gardens (1998; repr.2003). Prof. Bandaranayake is best known for his excavations and research at Sigiriya, over a period of nearly two decades, and has worked and lectured widely at various universities in Asia, Europe and America. His interest in traditional and contemporary art goes back to the 1960s when he was Associate Editor of the UNESCO-WCOTP series, Man Through His Art. He was the founding Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology in Colombo, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, and served as Sri Lanka's Ambassador to France and UNESCO and High Commissioner in India. Gamini Jayasinghe is a freelance photographer and film-maker who has been involved in the photographic documentation of Sri Lankan rock and wall paintings since 1965, and has become one of the leading specialists in this field. He began his professional career as a film editor in the Government Film Unit. Later, he became Manager, Foreign Productions, in the State Film Corporation, from which post he resigned in 1980 to take on a four-year commission to document temple murals for the Lever Cultural Conservation Trust, a collection now deposited in the National Archives in Colombo. He has worked on a number of documentary and feature films as photo-director, cameraman and editor. His photographs have appeared regularly in Sri Lankan and international journals and magazines and he has illustrated a number of books. Gamini Jayasinghe lives at Waradala, Kotadeniyawa. ISBN -955-1131-10-X Published by Stamford Lake (Pvt) Ltd Pannipitiya, Sri Lanka E-mail: stamford@eureka.lk Distributed by Lake House Bookshop Colombo, Sri Lanka

THE ROCK AND WALL IPAINTINGS OF SRI LANKA The evolution of a pictorial tradition Prehistoric Art 07 Early Buddhist Rock Monasteries 11 Classic and Late Classic Styles 13 The Gampola and Kotte periods 15 The Kandyan and Southern Schools 17 Transitional Styles of the Modem period 19 Context and Method 22 Sri Lanka has a long and rich tradition of rock and wall painting, extending possibly from prehistoric times, and at least from the 2nd or 3rd century BC, to the 20th century. The great majority of these paintings are found in Buddhist contexts — in monasteries and temples, many of them established hundreds of years ago. Historical chronicles record the use of pictorial representations in the relic­ chambers of Buddhist stupas, in monastic residences, and in architectural drawings, as early as the 2nd century BC. Fragmentary remains of early paintings are known from a number of ancient archaeological sites, while a great cycle of 18th-and 19th-century murals can be seen in many urban and rural temples, still forming part of a living religious tradition. Secular paintings, on the other hand, are relatively rare though not entirely unknown. It is significant that the earliest securely dated paintings that have been preserved are the well-known female figures from the 5th-century palace complex at Sigiriya. We know little of the more ephemeral forms of secular art and painted decoration, although the application of polychrome decorative detail to personal and domestic articles and the use of painted textiles are familiar practices, well-documented from Late Historical times. Paintings and painted sculpture from ritual and ceremonial contexts associated with Buddhism or related cults — manuscript illustrations, painted cloth or paper hangings and scrolls, flags and banners, illustrative and decorative panels on ceremonial arches erected during the annual festival of Vesak? an array of wooden mask forms, paintings of astral deities associated with the Bali rituals2 — all reflect a many-faceted, traditional world of colour, which we perceive today only in an isolated and fragmented way. The most ancient examples of an art form which transcends — because, at least in essence, it predates — the separation of religious and secular are the paintings and ‘engravings’ in a primitive style, found in ancient rock shelters. Some of these may well be of prehistoric origin, while others are clearly of more recent date and seem to have been produced by the forest-dwelling Vadda peoples, who like their hunter-gatherer ancestors of prehistoric times and other similar rock-art-producing sewhere, used these shelters as seasonal dwellings. However rich these varied contexts, and however important they may be for historians, archaeologists and ethnographers, it is in the rock and wall paintings of the historical period that we find a substantive and interconnected body of artistic material, which allows us to examine and delineate a distinctively Sri Lankan tradition, with its own internal history of continuity and development. If we set apart the ‘primitive’ rock-shelter paintings and graffiti associated with the prehistoric and the Vadda peoples, it is possible to subsume the main body of Sri Lankan rock and wall paintings in three distinct but related groups: the fragmentary paintings of the Early and Middle Historical periods, the murals of the Kandyan school and those of the Southern or maritime tradition. The first dates from around the 5th to the 13th century, while the others belong to the last phase of the Late Historical period in the 18th and 19th centuries. Figure 1 presents in diagrammatic form the chronology of these developments and their relationship to other aspects of the Sri Lankan pictorial tradition. The schools of Sri Lankan mural painting that we encounter in historical times form the principal concern of this book. The pictures reproduced here have been selected to illustrate the thematic range, compositional methods and stylistic variety displayed in these wall paintings, as well as their historical evolution and functional context. Prehistoric Art For the archaeologist, concerned with the reconstruction of the patterns and processes of the past from its fragmentary material remains, one of the most elusive dimensions of human behaviour is ancient man’s use of colour for decoration, ritual or imaginative expression. Pigment, which is usually the material basis of colour, is not only the most fragile of artefacts, but is also doubly vulnerable, depending as it often does on equally fragile and perishable materials for its support. The existence, therefore, of ancient paintings anywhere and from any period is always a rare phenomenon, astonishing not only by virtue of their artistic character and the insight they provide into the imaginative and conceptual world of the past, but also for the sheer feat of survival. When that art relates to prehistoric times, the chances of survival are even more remote. Unlike with the art of historical communities, which are often linked with their modern successors, in prehistory we are faced with much broader time-scales and much greater discontinuities in social and cultural evolution It is surprising, therefore, that we know as much as we do about the art of prehistoric man in many different parts of the world (as a result of archaeological investigations and discoveries, and through ethnological analogies with the art of communities which still preserve, or preserved until recent times, a prehistoric mode of existence). Sri Lanka shares in this general experience, if only in a limited way. The early rock art and the associated lifestyle of the Vaddas make a tangible contribution to our understanding of artistic activity in prehistoric times, even though we know hardly more about the paintings themselves than that they are extremely rare and of uncertain date and origin. The study of this prehistoric art, while lagging behind prehistoric research in general, goes back to the turn of the century. The pioneer interest in the subject was shown by the archaeologist H.C.P. Bell3 and the ethnologists, Charles and Brenda Seligmann, who produced the classic study of the Vaddas.4 The Seligmanns were also amongst the first to investigate the connections between the basically stone-age way of life of the Vaddas, on the one hand, and prehistoric man in Sri Lanka, on the other, and to draw attention to the rock shelters occupied both by prehistoric man and the Vaddas and to the rock art found in those shelters. Subsequent work on the subject has been more or less limited to brief reports, notably the observations made by John Still on paintings in the Anuradhapura district5 and to P.E.P. Deraniyagala’s notes on a number of rock-shelter paintings and engravings at sites in the southeast and north-central regions.6 There are altogether about thirty-three cave and rock­ shelter sites at which paintings and graffiti have been recorded.7 They contain three basic types of rock art, as described by Deraniyagala: monochrome silhouettes, polychrome paintings and incised representations. The ‘artists’ have employed white or coloured clays, kaolin and ash, or have just bruised the surface of the rock in a primitive form of engraving. Line or ‘stick’ figures, thicker finger drawings and smears, portray stylized animal forms, hunting figures holding bows and arrows, men riding on animals, and geometrical or symbolic motifs. Some forms are highly imaginative or symbolized renderings in which the identification of subject matter is dependent on interpretation. Others are clearly influenced by more representational concepts, such as a man riding a horse or two human figures framed within a rectangle. The colours used are, as we might expect, earth colours — ash grey, light-brown or white, dull-red or, occasionally, a pale orange colour from ferruginous clay. Fig. 2 Prehistoric’ or Vadda rock-art sites. (After Nandadeva 1985.) Although similar in character and in the contexts in which they are found to the much more extensive and well-documented rock art of Central India,8 there is a considerable degree of uncertainty regarding the date and authorship of the Sri Lankan paintings. None of the examples has been recovered from excavated or stratigraphically related contexts nor dated by any objective method. Their ascription to the prehistoric period — or, more accurately, their classification as paintings and engravings of a ‘prehistoric type’— has been on a stylistic and locational basis. In many instances, it is not even clear whether these examples are nearly contemporary graffiti, produced by the Vaddas or other people frequenting these areas, or the productions of fore st-dwellers in historical rather than prehistoric times. This is not to say, of course, that their authenticity as an organic rock-shelter art is in doubt. On the contrary, their stylistic character and technique, and the clear correspondence they bear to rock art in India and elsewhere, confirm beyond question the fact that they represent the spirit if not the actual form of the earliest manifestation of pictorial art in Sri Lanka. We are nowhere closer to the art of the prehistoric period than in the handful of rock-shelter paintings and engravings that has so far been discovered and documented. Other sources that recall the colours and images of this prehistoric world, such as brand marks on cattle9 or the brightly coloured animal and demonic masks associated with shamanistic rituals and ritualised theatre,10 or even the painted and incised designs on clay grain-storage bins (bihi citra)^ often bear unmistakable echoes of the style and imagery of the primitive rock-shelter paintings. In the much broader if still rather grey picture of Sri Lanka’s pre- and protohistoric past that is emerging today, as a result of the archaeological research of the last two decades, the early art of the rock shelters provides a bright if elusive image of the imaginative world of prehistoric Sri Lankan man. Fig. 3 •Prehistoric’ or Vadda rock art. Kadurupokuna, near Mahalenama. (After Deraniyagala. ASCAR 1957.) Fig. 4 ‘Prehistoric’ or Vadda rock art. Ganegama. (From a photograph, ASCAR 1957.) Fig. 5 ‘Prehistoric’ or Vadda rock art. Komarika-galge. (From a photograph, SZ (2)1, 1951.) Early Buddhist Rock Monasteries If the rock-shelter paintings constitute, at least typologically, the art of the hunter-gatherers of the prehistoric epoch, and the mask and bihi paintings represent that of the early agriculturalists, the paintings of the historical period are a product of the great transformation that Sri Lankan society and culture underwent in the last few centuries BC: a leap from preliterate protohistory to the beginnings of literate civilization, with the institutional, technological and cultural developments that were part and parcel of that transformation. Thus the paintings of the historical period have little connection with the rock art of the previous epoch, except for the fact that the rock shelters used by the prehistoric hunting peoples were adapted by the early Buddhist monastic communities as monastic dwellings. These early rock-shelter residences, and their successors, became the most enduring monuments of Sri Lankan ‘architecture’ and thereby one of the main repositories of extant historical paintings. As we may still observe at a number of sites, the Buddhist monks and builders developed a technique of deepening a rock shelter or cave by ‘peeling off’ the weathered surface and striated layers of the rock to form a deep cavity or declivity below a large natural boulder or projecting cliff­ face. The cavity thus formed was further protected by a deeply incised groove or drip-ledge, which marked the upper limits of the peeled surface. This drip-ledge quite effectively prevented rainwater flowing down the sides of the boulder or cliff, into the depression. The depression or cave, in turn, was enclosed and enlarged by the addition of frontal screen walls — originally made of mud and wattle or rubble, later of brick or stone masonry — and was surmounted by a lean-to roof to form a ‘cave-dwelling’ or later a ‘cave-shrine’. The rock-face was then plastered and the plastered surface, including the internal walls, was finally covered with paintings. The dates of the earliest of these rock-shelter monasteries are firmly established by the existence of donatory inscriptions, usually located just below the drip­ ledge. Familiarly known as the ‘Brahmi’ inscriptions, on account of the Indian alphabet they use, they are written in the local proto-Sinhala language. Nearly three thousand such inscriptions, dating between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD, have been recorded. The rock-shelter and walled-in-extension concept maintained an extraordinary history of continuity in the Sri Lankan tradition. Many of the sites established at the beginning of the Early Historical period were occupied through Middle Historical Times, Although they were generally Converted into in to shrines rather than dwellings; i.e. with a ritual rather than a residential function. Many of these were also restored or refurbished in the Later Historical period and especially during Kandyan times in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the most famous sites associated with the late-period murals, such as Dambulla or Mulkirigala, have a history covering two thousand years of occupation or repeated restorations. The rock shrines at Mulkirigala were established as monastic dwellings in the period of the Brahmi inscriptions. They are known to have contained murals in the early 18th century, and were repainted in the late 18th and then again in the mid-19th century.12 Similarly, the rock temples at Dambulla13 belong to a group of more than seventy such shelters used by one of the largest monastic communities of the early period. They still bear the donatory inscriptions of the period BC, and contain fragments of painting belonging to the Middle Historical period and sculpture and epigraphical records of the 12th century. The four main shrines were completely restored in the 18th century and a fifth in the early years of the 20th. Recent excavations at Sigiriya reveal a series of developments extending from the 2nd or 3rd century BC to the 12th or 13th century.14 Brahmi inscriptions, periodic extensions of drip-ledges and deepening of rock shelters, successive layers of plaster and painting and at least five or six reconstructions of the walled extensions and the internal partitions, are all represented in the archaeological record. Elsewhere, archaeological investigations have revealed repeated occupation of rock shelters in both prehistoric and historic times.15 Fig. 8 Early Buddhist rock-shelter residence. Cave 9 (‘Cobrahood Cave’), Sigiriya. c. 3rd-2nd century BC. A Brahmi donatory inscription beneath the drip-ledge establishes the date of the original shelter. Ceiling paintings from the 5th century AD indicate the continuing occupation of the cave in later times. Classic and Late Classic Styles The patterns of development seen in the evolution of the rock monasteries and shrines — such as the formation of an indigenous Sri Lankan tradition linked with, but distinct from, that of the Indian subcontinent, and the continuity and reinterpretation of that tradition through a long historical trajectory — are equally applicable to other fields of cultural activity such as painting and sculpture. The earliest paintings that accompanied the formation of a Sri Lankan Buddhist architecture are no longer extant. Literary and epigraphic records, however, show an active propagation of the painter s art during the remarkable cultural efflorescence of the Early Historical period. Stone relief sculptures from stelae of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, associated with the early stupas, anticipate the art of Sigiriya and the paintings of the Middle Historical period, and give us some idea of the stylistic continuity that must have prevailed between the two epochs. It is in the transitional period of the 5th century at Sigiriya that the Sri Lankan pictorial tradition actually comes into view. By this time — keeping well in step with the most advanced developments on the subcontinent — there has already evolved in Sri Lanka a fully articulated and mature school of painting displaying what we may call a classic style. Judging by the affinities this has with the sculptural representations of an earlier phase and with the related history of architecture, the genesis of this style must date to at least the early centuries of the present era. Characteristic of this classic style are compositions in which the human figure is dominant and in which both the male and female form is rendered in a highly refined, sensitive but idealized naturalism. Each figure is invested with an individual character, while idealized notions of the perfection of the human form dominate the individual ‘portrait’. Personal ornament and decorative motifs are important but always relegated to a subordinate and supportive role, whilst repetition, when it occurs, is usually mitigated by the individualized treatment of each subject or motif. Due as much to a freak of nature as of history, the well-known paintings of celestial nymphs in a depression in the great central rock of the 5th-century palace-city of Sigiriya are not only the most outstanding but also the best-preserved and earliest datable examples of the classic style. What we see here are several ideal female figures, which are at the same time portraits depicting individuals of different ages, physical types and personalities. After Sigiriya we can trace this style, and variations and developments of it, through a period of nearly eight hundred years by studying fragments and traces of paintings at nearly thirty archaeologial sites distributed throughout the country. The paucity of remains at most of these sites does not allow us to make anything more than broad generalizations about the ‘schools’ or ‘ateliers’ that seem to constitute the spectrum of the Sri Lankan tradition. Significant patterns of similarity and differentiation are noticeable, however, between the fairly well-defined characteristics of the school of Sigiriya — which seems to have continued here beyond the 5th century — and the ateliers represented, if only marginally, at other sites not so far removed in date from the 5th century, such as Kandalama16 (Pl.19) and Gonagolla17 (Pls.20, 21). Both these sites, like most others of this period, are rock-shelter residences or shrines. The limited nature of the examples that have survived does not allow us to speculate whether the stylistic variations we observe are a result of differences in painterly treatment, subject matter and mood or regional and chronological factors. Again, from a somewhat later period, the paintings at Pulligoda18 (Pls.23-25) and the elaborate composition at Hindagala19 (Pl.26) show stylistic developments which are not only different from each other but are also intermediate between Sigiriya and the later paintings of Polonnaruva. Fig. 9 Torso of female deity. Provenance unknown. 5th-7th century AD. Now in the Archaeological Museum. Anuradhapura. This dolomite sculpture has been assigned to the Middle Historical period but represents a treatment of the female form that goes back to at least the 2nd-4th century AD. Fig. 10 Brahmas and devas in a celestial palace. Fragmentary painting. Vijjadhara Guha, Uttararama (Gal Vihara), Polonnaruva. Last quarter of the 12th century. (After Dhanapala 1957.) The culmination of this development is the late classic style of Polonnaruva. The 12th-century Polonnaruva murals are in a high style of great elegance and richness of treatment. Descended from Pulligoda and Hindagala in their treatment of form and volume and their complexity of composition, they are executed in a much more controlled and deliberate manner than the paintings at Sigiriya. Badly faded or extremely fragmentary though most of them are, we can see that the direct and sturdier style of Sigiriya has now been replaced by a much softer and more dissolved sense of form. Also, unlike the pre-12th-century epoch, which is almost entirely restricted to rock paintings, vestigial remains and traces of murals are found in a number of brick-built shrines at Polonnaruva, most of them dating from the latter half of the 12th century. The most extensive of these remains are those at the Tivanka temple (Pls.33, 35-42,45); while some of the most eloquent expressions of the Polonnaruva school are from an excavated rock-shrine, the Gal Vihara (Pls.43,44). The Tivanka murals are important in many respects. Although in a bad state of preservation, they are the only surviving examples of an at least partially complete cycle of paintings from the early period. Moreover, the Tivanka itself is the only painted temple or image-house of that epoch in which we may observe the organization and disposition of the murals and the utilization of wall space. What is most significant is that the arrangement of the wall paintings in large panel compositions or long successive bands or ‘registers’ and the choice of subject matter — such as stories from the life of the historical Buddha or the Jataka or ‘Birth' stories — are similar to what we find in the late-period murals of the 18th and 19th centuries. Moreover, the Tivanka paintings display several stylistic variations, including the grand manner of the late classic style of the 12th century and. at the opposite end of the spectrum, a sub-classic and a post-classic style, probably dating from the 13th century. In considering the entire body of Sri Lankan painting, from the classic style of the 5th century to the post-classic styles of the 13th, we encounter an astonishing range of stylistic variation,as well as clear genealogical relationships. Thus we move from the hieratic geometry of Kandalama and the fresh exuberance of Sigiriya to the elegance and complexity of the Gal Vihara and the illustrational directness of the narrative registers of the Tivanka temple. At the same time, tenuous but clearly discernible links exist between these fragmentary images of a tradition which — within the parameters of the surviving examples alone — has a chronological range of nearly eight hundred years, and a previous history which is probably just as long. The Gampola and Kotte Periods The 13th century marks a watershed in Sri Lankan history. The most visible manifestation of the changes that took place at this time was the shift in the main centres of political, economic and cultural activity from the dry zone plains of the north-central and eastern regions to the wet lowlands of the southwest and the central highlands. A significant development was the decentralization of political authority and, therefore, of patronage, resulting in the disappearance of the monumental complexes and the dissolution of the monumental style that characterized the civilization of the Early and Middle Historical periods. Conventionally viewed by historians as a period of decline, a loss of momentum affecting the entire civilization itself, recent interpretations suggest instead a transition to more complex and varied forms of polity, connected with underlying changes in social and economic organization. These early phases of the Late Historical period were times of commercial expansion, proliferation of urban and port centres, and considerable ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. They are marked in fact by major developments in literature and considerable intellectual vitality. The inevitable consequences of such deep-rooted transitions are changes in religious and cultural activity as well as in the nature of artistic production. The important, if relatively limited architectural and sculptural remains of this epoch testify to the continuity and development of the styles and motifs associated with the arts of the earlier period. The naturalism and individuality of treatment that marked the classic style in all its variations now give way to the formalization and decorative abstraction of the post-classic mode. At the same time, changes in technology and materials appear as important factors affecting, often adversely, the survival of cultural artefacts, especially in the field of architecture. As far as the survival of wall paintings is concerned there is a hiatus in the archaeological record between the late 13th and the mid-18th centuries. Apart from the few rare examples of painted manuscript boards and some traces of old murals, all described below, we have no actual remains of paintings associated with the kingdoms of the post-Polonnaruva epoch, until the 18th century. Whatever developments may have taken place during this period in both the character and context of mural painting and other manifestations of the painter’s art, the basic reason for this gap lies in the fate of the architectural monuments themselves. The survival of the paintings is intrinsically linked with the survival of the monuments. Thus, ironically, the paintings of the Early and Middle Historical periods survived as a result of the abandonment of the early monumental complexes and rock temples in the 13th century. This made possible, even to a limited extent, their subsequent recovery in the modern period. The monuments of the post-13th-century epoch, in contrast, were not only different in character and often in materials, but were also subjected to very different processes of destruction and preservation. Those that were located in what was now the wealthiest and most advanced region, the southwest maritime zone, were almost entirely destroyed during the period of European colonial occupation. Thus there are scarcely any extant monuments or ruined complexes of the 13th-18th-century period in the maritime region, other than structures of colonial origin. Meanwhile, the monuments that were in the territory of the Kandyan kingdom — including temples such as those at Gadaladeniya and the Lankatilaka temple in Udunuvara (Pls.63-66 ),20 which were architectural conceptions as grand as any at Polonnaruva — were all periodically restored and refurbished especially during the Buddhist revival of the mid-18th century when a number of early temples and rock shrines were renewed and repainted. This well- established ancient practice of overpainting or repainting is documented at a number of early and later sites, including Sigiriya, Polonnaruva and Dambulla. The overpainting at Sigiriya and Polonnaruva is often within a narrow time range of less than a hundred years. At Dambulla we have an example of small fragments of early painting surviving on the rock-face outside the Kandy-period roof-line, while the internal surfaces of the entire complex have apparently been swept clean and repainted in the 18th century. A similar situation exists at Gadaladeniya. This 14th-century temple retains its original stone fabric and carvings and traces of early painting and decoration on its ceiling, but has a complement of paintings on its walls that is entirely of the 18th century. The subject of the early ceiling painting has been identified as the episode of the gifting of the white elephant from the Vessantara Jataka.2' Literary descriptions and epigraphical records indicate considerable painterly activity during this period, not only, as Paranavitana observes, ‘on walls of buildings but also on wooden boards and cloth.’22 While Sri Lanka has no illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts in any way comparable with those of Nepal or eastern or western India — the only examples being manuscripts with 19th-century line­ drawings in a provincial style — at least three important, illustrated wooden manuscript covers exist, dating from the late 13th and 14th centuries. The earliest of these is the Cullavagga, a manuscript in the National Museum, Colombo, from the reign of Parakramabahu 11 (1230- 70) at Dambadeniya, with polychrome illustrations in a late Polonnaruva-period style (Fig. 12).23 The other two are the covers of the Saratthadipani manuscripts, in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris24 (which has floral designs), and the British Library in London, discussed below (Fig.l I).25 The only way in which we may recover at least some aspects of the pictorial style of this period is by referring to the manuscript-cover illustrations, the relief sculptures of the 14th century and the ivory carvings of Kotte and its successors in the 15th-18th- century period.-* The decorative ano narrative p.iicN of the sculptural friezes preserve the format of the narrative registers in the wall paintings at Polonnaruva. Similarly, the formalized treatment of the human figure derives from the later styles of t e Tivanka murals and anticipates the developments of the 18th and 19th centuries. There is no doubt, though we cannot easily document it, that the transition from the classic to the post-classic style took place during this epoch.27 The Kandyan and Southern Schools Whatever the lost art of Gampola and Kotte might have been, correspondences in style and composition between the later, narrative paintings in the Tivanka temple and the murals of the 18th and 19th centuries, allow us not only to bridge a gap of five hundred years but also to conclude that there was a continuity of tradition, between the earlier and the later period. The stylistic connections between the two traditions are immediately apparent in their treatment of similar subjects. The organization and disposition of the Tivanka paintings and the choice of subject matter — Jataka stories in the antechambers, the life of the Buddha and representations of divine beings at the entrance to the sanctum or in the sanctum itself — are again similar to the general pattern followed in the later work. At the same time, echoes of the late classic style appear from time to time in Kandyan painting. In short, there can be little doubt that the paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries are the continuation of a tradition which has its genesis in at least the 12th or 13th century. The late-period murals belong to two distinct but related schools: the Kandyan paintings of the central highlands and contiguous north-central plains, i.e. the area constituting the territory of the kingdom of Kandy in the 18th and early 19th centuries; and the Southern school of the lowland, southwest littoral. Both schools date back to at least the 18th century, with the Kandyan tradition being the earlier and, at least partially, ancestral to that of the maritime region. The best and earliest examples of Kandyan art date from the period of the revival of Buddhism and the renaissance of Buddhist art and literature that took place in the reign of Kirti Sri Rajasinha (1747-81). Though no paintings clearly identifiable as belonging to a period before the mid-18th century can be found in the Kandyan tradition, it is entirely reasonable to assume that the renewal of the tradition during this time was not a new beginning but a continuation — at most after a brief interruption — of the prevailing style of the 17th and early 18th centuries. As we shall see, there is both material and literary evidence for the existence of mural paintings during the reigns of Kirti Sri Rajasinha’s predecessors. Moreover, in more senses than one, the kings of Kandy were the heirs to the traditions of Gampola and Kotte. Gampola is only a few miles away from Kandy and one of its kings built a palace in Kandy in the 14th century. Some of the earliest rulers of Kandy were feudatories of the kings of Kotte in the 16th century. There is no fundamental historical break between the earlier and later kingdoms of the Late Historical period. Temples constructed in the 14th century continued to be in use during Kandyan times. The Southern temples, on the other hand, are mostly from the 19th century, the most mature expression of Figs, lla-f (L to R) Dancers and musicians. Details from painted wooden covers of the Saratthadipani manuscript. 13th-14th century. British Library, Or. 6676. Fig. 12 Dancing dwarfs. Details from painted wooden covers of the Cullavagga manuscript. 12th-13th century. National Museum, Colombo, 17/69. this tradition being essentially a mid-19th-century phenomenon. The genesis of the Southern school, however, dates back to the early 19th or even late 18th century. This period saw the extension of the Buddhist revival to the southern territories, with the weakening of Dutch colonial authority in the maritime provinces and the arrival of the British. Temples such as Mulkirigala, which preserve some of the finest expressions of the Southern school, seem to have played a major role in the formation of this tradition. Located in a border area, at the southernmost extremity of both the maritime region and the Kandyan kingdom, Mulkirigala is associated with some of the earliest evidence for the existence of late-period murals from a time pre-dating the mid-18th-century revival. A European engraving of the 1730s shows the murals in one of the rock temples at this site (Fig.13).28 Subsequently, the temple is also mentioned in connection with the transmission or re-introduction of the mural tradition from Kandy to the southern region in the latter half of the 18th century.29 Fig. 13 Mulkirigala cave-temple. Detail from an engraving published in 1744 (Heydt 1952) and probably based on a sketch made by Arent Jansen between 1734 and 1737. The two schools were closely related, but whether one was a branch or derivative of the other, or whether they were relatively independent developments, responding to similar needs, galvanized by the Buddhist revival, is a matter that cannot be easily decided. It is possible that the maritime tradition drew on vestigial survivals of the Kotte tradition as well as the prevailing art of Kandy. What the two schools have in common and the extent to which they differ from each other can be seen at a glance, even from examples chosen at random, such as Pls.54, 55 and 72; and 143, 146 and 147. The chief characteristics of the Kandyan style are its heavy dependence on linework, not merely to define a figure but also to create visual interest and to generate pictorial activity in its own right; its use of a restricted range of colours, usually limited to yellow and red in the principal narrative registers; and the deployment of a relatively uncrowded picture space, using the red or yellow background and isolated figures to heighten narrative interest and visual drama. In some of its best examples, such as at Suriyagoda, the figures are almost expressions of pure line and form, each figure or group separated and suspended, so to speak, in monochromatic background space (Pl.55). The Southern school, in general, while using similar techniques is far more elaborate, depending on a multiplicity of figures sometimes heavily crowded-in on each other, and a wealth of decorative detail. There is a much greater range and variety of colours and ornamentation, and the tonal modelling of faces and limbs creates a very different sense of liveliness and volume. The extremes of the spectrum, encompassing the stylistic range of the two schools, are represented by portraits from the Suriyagoda temple near Kandy and from two Southern temples (Pls.54, 145, 147). The paintings are separated by a hundred years or more — Suriyagoda dating from the latter half of the 18th century and the Southern murals from the late 19th century. The contrasts between the pictures also point to the fact that while the Kandyan school remained very broadly within the parameters of its traditional 18th-century mode — this applies, for instance, to Kandyan murals painted as late as 1915, in the Alut Vihara at Dambulla — the Southern tradition was subjected to significant processes of development and change throughout the 19th century. Transitional Styles of the Modern Period The closing decades of the 19th century saw an acceleration in these processes of change and a critical turning point in the evolution of the Southern school, which ultimately brought about its demise. The collapse and disintegration of traditional mural paintings, from about the 1910s or 1920s onwards, and their replacement by contemporary renderings of traditional subject matter, belong as much — or more — to the history of modern painting in Sri Lanka, as to that of traditional art. A discussion of this lies beyond the scope of the present book. But our survey of historical painting would be incomplete without some reference to the transitional styles that emerged just before the turn of the century and which continued to influence post-traditional mural painting till the 1940s, and even to the present day. Contemporary mural painting is generally considered to be a debasement of the artistic heritage of the late- period murals. To a great extent this is true. Much of the present work is a poor imitation or lifeless rendering of the compositional formulas and subject matter of the late- period murals, or is unskilfully derivative of the transitional styles of the early 20th century. It often exhibits poor artistic sensibility and bad craftsmanship, and is marred by the generalized use of industrial paints and varnishes. However, as a manifestation of contemporary ‘popular’ art, it operates within its own artistic and social context and has to be judged on its own terms. At its best, it displays the creative inconsistencies and awkward appeal of spontaneous, popular expression; at its worst, it reflects the impoverishment of both ‘popular’ and ‘formal’ culture in a transitional era. These paintings betray the meagreness of resources available today to a tradition which, in the not so distant past, was able to command a much greater wealth of imaginative and artistic experience. As far as stylistic development itself is concerned, the origins of the present situation lie in the period between the 1890s and the 1930s. During these four or five decades, the art of the Kandyan school, or whatever strands of that tradition remained alive at the end of the 19th century, went into complete eclipse although a few families of painter-craftsmen still retained — as they do today — their skills and tools of trade. At the same time, the derivatives of the Southern style became fashionable and widespread throughout the country, often resulting in the overpainting of 18th- or 19th-century work, even in temples belonging to the Kandyan tradition. There are several stages, still poorly documented and imperfectly understood, in the evolution of the Fig. 14 Scenes from the Vessantara (above) and Dahamsonda (below) Jatakas. Gothabhaya Rajamahavihara, Botale. Early 1930s. transitional style and of related styles and sub-styles. One of its earliest manifestations can be seen at the Karagampitiya temple at Dehiwela, to the south of Colombo. Here we have three sets of paintings, executed in the 1890s. The earliest of these, dated 1894, on the central wooden enclosure of the preaching hall, and a sequence of about the same date on the walls of the same building, show slight deviations from the normative style of the mid- to late 19th century, but remain within the broad conventions of that style. The Ummagga Jataka frieze in the ambulatory of the image-house, on the other hand, shows a definite break with tradition, a clear stylistic deviation from it (Fig. 94). Dating from 1897, these murals can be considered one of the earliest examples we have of paintings in a transitional style. At the end of the transitional period, several decades later, the Vessantara Jataka sequence at Botale represents a much more modern rendering of the same basic mode. The essence of this stylistic mode lies in the use of geometrical perspective, an exaggerated and rather theatrical naturalism, and the mixture of stylistic and compositional elements derived, on the one hand, from traditional painting, and on the other, from European 19th-century illustration. Costumes, decorative motifs and ‘architectural scenery’ evoke a theatrical milieu, which we may identify specifically with the popular Nurti theatre of the late 19th century and its successor, the ‘Tower Hall’ traditions of the early 20th. The mixture of European and Indian conventions which marked both Nurti and the Tower Hall tradition is apparent in the paintings too. It is significant that there were some actual connections between the mural painters and the painters of theatrical scenery. Two of the most famous scene painters, the brothers George and Richard Henricus, were commissioned to paint murals in a temple at Dematagoda, a Colombo suburb, and their apprentice, M. Sarlis, went on to become one of the best-known illustrators of religious compositions. Sarlis’ scenes from the life of the Buddha and from the Jataka stories were brought out in coloured lithographs, printed in Germany in the 1930s (Fig.15). The popularity of these prints and their wide distribution and the consequent adoption of this style in many temple paintings of that time, are often held to have brought about the demise of traditional painting. But we can now see that, while the Sarlis prints may have had a profound effect on the formation of popular taste and painterly practice, the transition from the stylistic conventions of the 19th century had begun much earlier. Moreover, a comparison of these Sri Lankan developments with similar trends in the mural and miniature painting traditions of South and Southeast Asia, shows that the appearance of eclectic, transitional styles, influenced by the academic realism of 19th- Fig. 15 Prince Siddhartha displays his skill at archery. Lithographic print of a painting by M. Sarlis. 1930s. Fig. 16 The Bringing of the Tooth-Relic to Sri Lanka (detail). From a mural by Solias Mendis. Kelaniya Rajamahavihara. Between 1932 and 1946. century European art, was a general tendency in late 19th- and early 20th-century Asian art and not a phenomenon restricted to Sri Lanka. One of the most interesting products of this transition, and one that goes beyond the boundaries of the transitional style itself, is the work of Solias Mendis (Fig. 16; Pls. 168,169)?° Starting as a traditional artist in the transitional style, Mendis executed new murals at Kelaniya, between 1932 and 1946. These are a remarkable achievement of contemporary painting, in the spirit and context of the traditional temple murals, but in a style which is entirely a product of the 20th century. This style owes a great deal to the school of Ravi Varma and the painters of the ‘Bengali renaissance’, but displays a vigorous naturalism and strength of realization lacking in the Victorian sentimentality that often characterizes the Bengali work. The furthest development of this process is reached when contemporary artists, working in an entirely different social and artistic context and trained in the modern European traditions of easel painting, turn their attention to temple murals. George Keyt’s work at the Gotami Vihara and Albert Dharmasiri’s paintings at Veheragodalla fall into this category (Figs.17,18). It is indeed the mark of a transitional society that while in the village of Nilagama descendants of the Dambulla painters of the 18th century still retain, if only vestigially, their traditional craft skills, artists nurtured in the conventions of the Ecole de Paris are inspired by the ancient mural traditions to decorate the walls of modern temples with contemporary interpretations of traditional subjects. Fig. 17 The Buddha on his first alms-round, in the presence of King Bimbisara (detail). From a mural by George Keyt. Gotami Vihara, Borella, Colombo. 1939-40. Fig. 18 The Birth of Prince Siddhartha (detail). From a mural by AlbertDharmasiri. Veheragodalla Vihara, Sedavatta.Kollonava. 1968/9. Context and Method The wall paintings in ancient shrines or modern temples remind us that there is a considerable degree of continuity, not only in the mural tradition itself but also in the contexts in which we find the murals, and in their organization, disposition and subject matter. We know from historical records and from archaeological finds that some of the earliest paintings were associated with stupas and monastic residences. Minute traces of plaster and pigment on architectural or sculptural remains at many ancient sites clearly indicate that buildings and sculpture were vividly and brightly painted and far more colourful, both internally and externally than is apparent from the bare brick and stone masonry that we encounter today. Nothing illustrates this better than the sections of painted architectural decoration still visible in the Tivanka temple at Polonnaruva (Pl.33). Surviving traditional practice and the monuments of the 18th and 19th centuries amply bear out this contention, except for the fact that in the later period, paintings and painted sculpture and decoration are usually restricted to image-houses and, more rarely, to preaching halls and are generally absent in stupas or monastic residences. With the exception of the relic-chamber paintings from Mahiyangana and Mihintale and traces of decoration on the dagabas at Anuradhapura, the surviving examples of ancient painting are restricted to rockshelter residences or image-houses and the Tivanka temple at Polonnaruva. The image-house, therefore, occupies a special position in the study of murals in both the earlier and later periods. A typical Sri Lankan Buddhist temple — or strictly speaking, temple-monastery — of the 19th or 20th century contains at least three major ritual monuments as well as a preaching hall (dharmasalava), one or more monastic residences (avasa) and sometimes, a chapterhouse (poyage) and a library. The ritual monuments are a stupa or dagaba containing relics, a bodhi tree surrounded by a terrace and one or more small image-chapels, and a central image-house. Though all three major monuments have more or less the same ritual status and equally complex architectural forms, the most intricate of these structures is the image-house, where the paintings are to be found. The basic plan of the image-house, whether it is an ancient rock shelter, a temple of the 12th century, or a structure of more recent times, consists of an inner chamber, preceded by a vestibule, or surrounded by an ambulatory corridor, with a pillared veranda in front. Of course there are an infinite number of variations on this basic plan. The rock temples follow the natural configuration of the rock and of the original cave or rock shelter, but usually consist of a large internal chamber and a fronting vestibule and veranda (Figs.64,66). The Tivanka temple has a succession of antechambers leading to the inner shrine (Fig.42). Many of the free-standing Kandyan temples of the 18th century, such as Suriyagoda and Madavala (Fig. 62), are elevated on stone columns and have an open veranda forming an ambulatory around the inner chamber. In the Southern temples, at least three of the four major elements — inner chamber, vestibule, ambulatory and porch or veranda — are invariably present, as the accompanying plans show (Figs.84, 93). Again, the disposition of the paintings and sculpture varies considerably from one temple to the other, but certain basic principles are adhered to everywhere. The inner chamber which forms the ritual centre of the building contains the principal icon, a seated, standing or recumbent Buddha, accompanied by other two- or three-dimensional representations of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas (‘Buddhas- to-be’), arhats (‘enlightened beings’), disciples and gods of the Buddhist pantheon. This chamber is rarely entered directly, but from an antechamber or ambulatory, while the doorway or doorways giving access to it are usually elaborately decorated and guarded by divine beings and attendants. The doorway is often surmounted by a makara torana or dragon arch. Thus, with its statues, paintings and elaborate entrances, the inner chamber is at least implicitly the recreation of a cosmic or ‘other-worldly* realm or palatial residence, presided over by the Buddha, who is accompanied by an appropriate retinue, Even if, in practice, this iconographic complexity and symbolism is not operative in any precise or schematic manner, it provides a dramatic and devotional setting and a broad semiology of cosmic authority and power. The walls of the outer chambers, on the other hand — i.e. the vestibule and the ambulatory — have a more didactic or instructive purpose, and usually constitute the largest area of wall space available for paintings. These walls are divided into long strips or registers, which contain narrative paintings whose subjects are drawn from Buddhist texts. The most popular items are those which are connected, in one way or another, with the life and antecedents of the Buddha. They include, therefore, the representations of the ‘Twenty-four Previous Buddhas’ (the suvisi vivarana, or ‘Twenty-four Annunciations’) with their distinguishing iconography; the principal events associated in the Theravada tradition with the life of the historical Buddha (the Buddha Carita)\ the Jataka stories, illustrating the life of the Buddha in his previous births as a Bodhisattva; and other stories taken from Buddhist literature and based on events or personalities associated with the Buddha during his lifetime. The narrative registers, which extend horizontally along each wall, vary in Kandyan and Southern temples from about 40 to 75 centimetres in width. Narrower decorative strips with lotus medallions or flower garlands are often found at the top and the bottom, while in many instances the lowermost register is also divided vertically into panels depicting the various hells and underworlds of Buddhist cosmology. The wooden ceilings and, wherever they exist, the masonry vaults or arches, are decorated with floral and vegetal motifs, often resembling painted textile and cloth awnings. Some ceilings contain central panels or large, circular medallions depicting the planets, the zodiac, the guardian gods of the four or the eight directions and other cosmic or astral realms. There is an attempt, therefore, to cover the entire internal wall surfaces and ceilings with colours and images which evoke, in both a two- and three-dimensional form, the world of the Buddha and of his disciples and followers; a world which is both historical and eternal; terrestrial and yet cosmic, of earthly inhabitants and of supernatural beings. It was clearly the intention of the designers of these temples to use sculpture and painting to create an exclusive, internal environment that was totally different from the world outside, to immerse the worshipper in a world of religious ideas, information and sentiment. The contrast between the external environment of white painted buildings and neatly swept sand courtyards, on the one hand, and the brightly painted interiors illuminated by windows in the ambulatories and with oil lamps in the inner shrines, on the other, helped to heighten, in a very dramatic manner, the sense of entering a special realm of existence. Using relatively modest architectural and sculptural resources and making extensive use of murals, the temples of the 18th and 19th centuries display a complex organisation of internal space. The spatial divisions of the temple, symbolically recreate a kind of cosmic geography, representing, in a highly complex way, the whole universe and both past and present time. The wall paintings constitute one of the most important aspects of this complexity. In fact, we might say that the critical role in the transformation of the architectural interior into an ‘other-worldly’ environment is performed by the paintings and the painted sculpture which change a relatively familiar and dominantly anthropomorphic world into a supernatural or historical landscape, peopled by superior and ancient beings. There is a noticeable sequence and hierarchy in the disposition of the various subjects represented in the paintings, based on alternating horizontal and vertical concepts of space and ritual importance. As each temple differs in significant details from the other and as no single temple displays the entire range of subjects, we can only present this hierarchy as a general scheme or normative pattern, in this way : HORIZONTAL SEQUENCE Inner Chamber Central and subsidiary Buddha images Bodhisattvas, arhats, disciples; gods (sequence interchangeable) Context and Method Inner or Middle Chamber The 24 previous Buddhas (suvisi vivarana) Major events in the life of the Buddha (Buddha Carita) The 8 or 16 great places of pilgrimage (atamasthana or solosmasthana) Middle or Outer Chamber Jataka stories Major events in the life of the Buddha Other events or personalities associated with the life of the Buddha The locations associated with the Buddha's 45 annual rainy season retreats Hells and underworlds VERTICAL SEQUENCE Upper Registers (or entire wall space of Inner Chamber) Bodhisattvas, arhats, disciples, gods (sequence interchangeable) Ceilings Cosmic or astral realms, planets, zodiac, guardian gods of the 4 or 8 directions, divine residences Upper Registers (of Middle or Outer Chamber) The 24 previous Buddhas The locations associated with the Buddha’s 45 annual rainy season retreats The 8 or 16 great places of pilgrimage Middle Registers (or entire wall space of Middle or Outer Chamber Jataka stories Major events in the life of the Buddha Other events or personalities associated with the life of the Buddha Lower Register (Rarely, in inner chamber) the 8 or 16 great places of pilgrimage Hells and underworlds The murals (and painted sculpture) usually cover the entire wall space and use two basic forms of arrangement: either, large rectangular panels sometimes covering an entire wall, or — especially in rock temples — a large, well- defined area of ceiling space; or the familiar division into narrow horizontal strips or registers containing narrative paintings. A third form is a combination of these two, where the registers are vertically sub-divided into small regular panels, each representing a particular event, personality or place — as in the suvisi vivarana representations or in the depiction of the rainy season retreats, of the Eight or Sixteen Great Places of Pilgrimage and of hells and underworlds. The compositional methods also vary in keeping with the different arrangements. The panels often use a centralized composition technique, where the principal subject occupies and dominates the centre of the panel — or, where the panel is one of a pair placed on either side of a central sculpture, the composition within the panel is directed towards the central image. The narrative registers, in contrast, most commonly use the method of continuous narration, where the entire length of one or more registers is used to illustrate a story. Each part or incident in the story is depicted in sequence, one scene following the other without interruption. The ‘pictorial drama' in each register takes place against a continuous backdrop, usually a monochromatic red or black background, which unifies the narrative action and maintains its continuity both in space and time. At the same time, the different parts of the narrative do not flow into or overlap each other, as they do in some pictorial traditions, but exist contiguously and on the same picture plane. Although there are vertical demarcations within each story, a change of action or of architectural or natural setting provides an indentifiable separation between ‘scenes’ and ‘episodes’. A smooth transition from episode to episode is ensured not only by the continuous background but also by the fact that the central character or characters in the story appear repeatedly in the same strip and sometimes twice or thrice in the same scene. We see this, for instance, in a sequence from the Kataluva temple depicting the story of Patacara, a tale of human tragedy and pious devotion based on an incident associated with the life of the Buddha (Figs.87,89). Patacara is a tragic figure, who is driven out of her mind by the loss, in quick succession, of her husband, her children and her parents. Oblivious to the world, she wanders around naked. The Buddha alone, in his supreme compassion, understands her plight; and she finds solace and relief — in his preaching. Figure 89 shows her appearing four times within a single scene; she arrives from the right; passes a palm tree —which, in a kind of cross-action, is being climbed by a man picking nuts — ; she approaches a crowd which has gathered to hear the Buddha preach, and then she sits down to listen to him. All this action takes place, so to speak, in a flash. The technique is essentially theatrical or cinematic — or, in fact, closest to the method of the modern comic strip. Although the figures do not speak, except by action and gesture, a written commentary on the story — briefly identifying the principal incident in a given section of a register — is often provided on the narrow white bands which separate one horizontal register from another. There is considerable variation in the way in which the episodic sequence of each story is chosen and presented. Much depends on the amount of space and the wall divisions available to the artist, as well as on his compositional preferences and the varying degrees of importance attached to the stories in the planning of the pictorial layout of each temple. The complexity of this layout and its infinite variations from temple to temple can only be appreciated in a schematic and comparative analysis, as we shall see later. In some examples each of the major episodes of the story is presented, while in others only a few, arbitrarily chosen episodes are shown. Sometimes a story is compressed into a small area by using a few familiar episodes, or even by the representation of a single event or scene; at other times the painter may use a great deal of space for one episode, while allocating much less to others. In general, however, the extended strip narrative, involving a regular pattern or rhythm of episodic sequence, is the norm. The direction in which the story moves also depends entirely on location and spatial constraints, but the convention of a zigzag pattern, moving usually from upper to lower registers, is generally adhered to. Thus, the narrative action moves horizontally along a register from left to right or right to left and then, at the end of that register, continues in the register below, moving in the opposite direction. The artist, therefore, makes effective use of the fourth dimension, time. The observer moves up and down the room following the zigzag of the story as it unfolds from episode to episode and register to register. Despite the familiarity of the stories and their remarkable Fig. 19 Frieze of painted lions. Eastern vahalkada, Kantaka Cetiya, Mihintale. 12th century (?). (Drawing by Dayananda Binaragama,1985.)

THE ROCK AND WALL IPAINTINGS OF SRI LANKA EARLY AND MIDDLE PERIOD PAINTING 25 The Art of Sigiriya 26 The Boulder-Garden Paintings 31 Cave-Shrines of the Anuradhapura Period 34 Relic-Chamber Paintings 73 Polonnaruva Murals 79 The paintings of the Early and Middle Historical periods — unlike sculpture or architecture — come into view not only fully formed but at the peak of their development, in the classic art of Sigiriya at the end of the 5th century. However, these paintings and other remains of comparable date and style are clearly the product of a mature tradition of pictorial art with several centuries of development behind it. The existence of such a tradition from about the beginnings of the Early Historical period is borne out by literary evidence. The great chronicle, the Mahavamsa — itself written in the 6th century AD but based on earlier records — refers to representations of the Jataka stories, including the Vessantara Jataka, and of events from the life of the Buddha, the Buddha Carita, on the central throne of the Lohapasada, the chapter-house of the Mahavihara at Anuradhapura,1 and in the relic-chamber of the Ruvanvali dagaba, as early as the 2nd century BC.2 These two subjects, the Jataka and the Buddha Carita, remain the principal themes of Sri Lankan painting until the 18th and 19th centuries and even today. The Mahavamsa description refers specifically to the sat sati, the ‘Seven Weeks following the Buddha’s Enlightenment’, and the ‘Descent from the Tavatimsa Heaven’, subjects which recur frequently in later painting. The use of architectural representation, and especially of royal or celestial palaces and mansions, is a traditional feature that is anticipated in an equally early reference to an architectural drawing of a celestial palace, which provides a model for the Lohapasada: When the theras, going to the heaven of the thirty-three (gods), saw that (palace) they made a drawing of it with red arsenic upon a linen cloth, and they returned, and being arrived they showed the linen to the brotherhood. The brotherhood ... sent it to the king. When the king full of joy saw it he went to the splendid arama and caused the noble Lohapasada to be built after the drawing.3 The contexts referred to in these early literary records are significant as they are the very same contexts in which we find the paintings of the early and later periods. Thus, excavations have revealed the relic-chambers of stupas decorated with both narrative and iconic paintings, while a few painted preaching halls or dharmasalavas of the later period, each with its painted, central pavilion or dais, give us a fair impression of what a chapter-house with an elaborately decorated central throne and enclosure might have looked like (Pls.157, 160; Fig. 81).4 The use of cloth as a base for paintings is best known today in the petikcidas, the painted cloth hangings and scrolls of Kandyan times.5 The existence of painting in monastic residences is virtually unknown in the later period.6 As far as many of the early painted rock shelters are concerned, we are unable to say without further archaeological investigation whether these were monastic residences or cave-temples at the time the existing paintings were executed. Literary references, however, make it clear that residential caves and other monastic dwellings were decorated with paintings from ancient times. One of the earliest records of paintings in a cave residence comes from the Visuddhimagga story of Thera Cittagutta whose ‘restraint of the sense faculties’ was so exemplary that he lived for more than sixty years without seeing the paintings decorating his cave dwelling: In the Great Cave of Kurandaka ... there was a lovely painting of the Renunciation of the Seven Buddhas. A number of Bhikkhus wandering about among the dwellings saw the painting and said ‘What a lovely painting, venerable sir!’. The Elder said ‘For more than sixty years, friends, I have lived in the cave, and I did not know whether there was any painting there or not. Now, today, I know it through those who have eyes’. The Elder, it seems, though he had lived there for so long, had never raised his eyes and looked up at the cave.7 Cittagutta is thought to have lived near Mahagama in southern Sri Lanka during the reign of Saddhatissa (137- 119 BC). The Kurandaka cave has been identified with Karambagala, a rock shelter of the early period, containing fragments of paintings from a later time.8 These literary references, which became quite extensive in later times, clearly substantiate the view that the Sigiriya paintings are the product of an ancient tradition of Sri Lankan rock and wall painting. This is further supported by a study of the earliest examples of Sri Lankan art, the sculptured reliefs associated with the vahalkadas, the masonry frontispieces of the early dagabas? and other early figure sculptures. These sculptures date from about the 2nd to the 4th century AD. In their treatment of the human figure — and especially of the female torso — they show a clear line of development from stylization to classic realism, and in their finally evolved form they closely approximate to the classic style of the Sigiriya paintings. The two well-known limestone torsos of full-breasted female figures in the Archaeological Museum at Anuradhapura (Fig.9), dating from the 5th-7th century,10 are clearly the sculptural equivalents of the ladies of Sigiriya and the female deities of Gonagolla and Vessagiriya. On the basis of this evidence, and the patterns of development seen in the art of the middle period, we may well speculate that the paintings of the Early Historical epoch had an evolutionary history very similar to that of sculpture. The 5th-century rock paintings at Sigiriya — which, as we have seen, are the earliest extant Sri Lankan paintings that can be dated with any degree of certainty — are the culmination of these early developments. They stand at a point of transition between the Early and the Middle Historical period. Fig. 20 Sites with paintings of the Early and Middle Historical periods. (Anuradhapura includes Vessagiriya; Dimbulagala includes Pulligoda and Maravidiya; Polonnaruva includes the Tivanka temple and the Gal Vihara.) The Art of Sigiriya Sigiriya is an ancient rock-shelter monastery site, converted in the last quarter of the 5th century into a fortified palace and city by Kasyapa I (AD 477-95). The entire complex, with its outlying fortifications, walled and moated precincts and elaborate landscaped gardens, covers an area of more than a hundred hectares. It has as its central feature a massive, precipitous rock, 200 metres high, with a relatively flat plateau on its summit, nearly 1.5 hectares in extent, on which was erected the royal palace. Access to the palace is by a series of staircases and an elevated gallery or walk built against the nearly vertical west face of the rock. Just above this walk and extending across the entire west facade was a broad area of prepared rock-face, protected by drip­ ledges and originally plastered, on which were located the paintings. Judging by the drip-ledges and prepared rock surface, this broad ‘tapestry’ was continued along the north face too, on either side of the great lion staircase. The lion formed the sculptured gateway to another gallery, now destroyed, leading to the palace on the summit. The painted band seems to have extended to the northeastern corner of the rock, covering thereby an area nearly 140 metres long and, at its widest, about 40 metres high. As John Still observed, ‘The whole face of the hill appears to have been a gigantic picture gallery ... the largest picture in the world, perhaps.’11 What survive of this great painted backdrop are the female figures preserved in two adjacent depressions in the rock-face, known as ‘Fresco Pocket A’ and ‘Fresco Pocket B’ (Pls.2, 5; Fig.21), reached today by a spiral staircase fixed above the gallery. Three other depressions — ‘Fresco Pockets C, D, and E’ — higher up the rock-face, also contain patches of plaster and pigment and, in at least one instance, fragments of a painted figure. Traces of plaster and pigment elsewhere on the rock-face provide further evidence of the extent of the painted band. The Sigiriya paintings have preoccupied visitors to the site over many centuries. After the abandonment of the palace in the 5th or 6th century and the establishment of a monastery in the boulder- and water-garden area to the west of the rock, Sigiriya became a place of pilgrimage for visitors from all over the country, who came to see the paintings, the palace and the lion staircase. Greatly inspired by the paintings, they composed poems addressed mostly to the ladies depicted in them and inscribed their verses on the polished surface of the gallery wall. Known as the ‘Sigiri graffiti’ and dating from about the 6th to the 13th century, hundreds of these scribbled verses cover the surface of the gallery wall and also some of the plastered surfaces in the caves below. Nearly seven hundred of them have been deciphered by Paranavitana. A selection shows that the poems are not only revealing comments on the paintings themselves but also an insight into the cultivated sensibilities of the time and its appreciation of art and beauty: Their bodies’ radiance Like the moon Wanders in the cool wind. I am Lord Sangapala I wrote this song We spoke But they did not answer Those ladies of the Mountain They did not give us The twitch of an eye-lid. The song of Lord Kit al Sweet girl Standing on the Mountain Your teeth are like jewels Lighting the lotus of your eyes Talk to me gently of your heart. Ladies like you Make men pour out their hearts And you also have thrilled the body Making its hair Stiffen with desire. 12 Fig. 21 ‘Fresco Pockets A and B.’ Sigiriya. AD 477-95. (Drawing by D.L.G. Perera in PPAR 1896.) Twenty-two numbered figures are indicated, 5 in ‘Pocket A’ and 17 in ‘Pocket B’. These include the fragmentary figures mentioned on p.28 and in Chapter 2, Note 23. The recently observed figure B2a lies between B2 and B3. For the location of the ‘fresco’ pocket see Pl.2. The term ‘fresco’ is still retained in this context although it is no longer believed that the Sigiriya paintings really utilised the true ‘fresco’ technique. With the growth of modern antiquarian interest in the 19th century, Sigiriya came to the attention of contemporary visitors. A British military officer, Jonathan Forbes, leaves us the first modern description of the rock and the fortifications, which he visited twice in the 1830s. He climbed as far as the ‘Mirror Wall’ gallery, and refers to the paintings in the following manner: On my second visit I remarked that the projecting rock above the gallery, at least so much of it as is within reach, had been painted in bright colours, fragments of which may still be perceived in those places most sheltered from the heavy rains.13 Forbes leaves us in little doubt that the site was well known to the people living in the villages around Sigiriya and records local reports of ‘a tank ... on the inaccessible summit of this fortress’.14 Sirr, in 1850, reproduces Forbes’ earlier description, while an anonymous and obviously inaccurate account of 1851 refers to the gallery and the rock-face above it as being ‘covered all over with fresco painting chiefly of lions’.15 These early notices remain purely allusive. It is only in the 1870s that we have actual, if rather brief, descriptions of paintings in papers published by Blakesley and Rhys Davids, both based on the examination of the paintings by telescope.16 Rhys Early and Middle Period Painting Davids remarks on ‘the clearness of their outline and freshness of colour’ and notes the absence of green17 in the painters’ choice of colours, while Blakesley observes their ‘Mongolian cast of features’ and proposes a Chinese connection. Murray, of the Public Works Department, seems to have been the first person to find his way into the fresco pocket and come face to face with the paintings. He made tracings of them, copied some in pastels and published a paper on them in 1891.18 The first real study of the paintings, however, begins with the commencement of Bell’s archaeological operations at Sigiriya from 1893 onwards and the facsimile copies in oils made by Muhandiram D.A.L. Perera in 1896-7.19 Bell’s descriptions of the paintings are comprehensive and worth reproducing: The paintings consist of twenty-one half-figure portraits, all female, and a hand of one more figure. Of these, five are in pocket A, seventeen in the larger chamber B.2" It is almost certain that there once existed three rows of such half-figures in “pocket” ‘A’ and four in ‘B’ painted on the rock walls and projecting roof. Highest up in the first line remain the single hand (No. 17) and a very worn pair of figures (Nos.15,16); of the second row only faint traces here and there; to the third line belong frescoes Nos.3 and 4 of ‘A’, and Nos.5, 6, 9, 10, 11,12, and 14 of B; whilst the fourth, or lowest, row is made up of Nos. 1, 2, and 5 of ‘A’, and Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 13 of B’. The figures in “pocket” ‘B’ are above life-size; those of ‘A’ smaller than the ordinary human from a divergence due to the proprtionate wall space available The predilection for the three-quarter face is conspicuous • • • Of the score of faces left in pockets A and B...only three are in profile. The figures are not in full length, but cut off at the waist by cloud effects—no doubt to economize space. (The conformation of the rock left the artists no option but to “dock” the ladies of their lower limbs to avoid the comical effect extremities distorted by concavity must necessarily induce. Equally undesirable would have been the compression of full length figures into the limited space available in as much as details could not be distinguished from the terraces below the Rock. No small ingenuity was exercised in putting to full use the peculiar, badly adapted surface (wall and roof) of the chambers, so as to exhibit to the best advantage a series of half figure portraits ranged in possibly three to four rows originally.) The scene intended to be pourtrayed would seem to be a procession of the queens and princesses of King Kasyapa’s Court, with their attendants, on the way to worship at the Buddhist Vihare of Piduragala, the hill about a mile north of Sigiri-gala. The figures are manifestly all walking in that direction, and the flowers held in their hands by the ladies, and carried for them by servant-maids, can hardly bear any other signification. The frescoes in pocket A may have no connection with those of the larger cave; though both seem to represent the same scene, painted by different artists. Grouping in pairs is chiefly favoured throughout: usually queen, or princess, attended by a lady-in-waiting ... every court­ lady depicted is in reality fully clothed; in coloured kamhaya from the waist downwards, and above in short-sleeved jacket of finest material — so thin, indeed, that the painter has occasionally contented himself by indicating it by a mere line of deeper colour. A redundancy of ornament is affected equally by queen or serving­ woman. Coronets, tiaras, aigrettes crown the head; flowers and ribbons adorn the hair; and ears, neck, breast, arms, and wrists are loaded with a plethora of the heaviest ornaments and jewelled gauds. The portraits are all painted in brilliant colours and with the broad “dabbiness” characteristic of scene painting, which renders them so clear, yet soft, from a distance. The paintings appear to have been first outlined in red or black — perhaps by artists different from the finishers of the pictures, who did not slavishly follow the original outlines .... • • • • Only three pigments were used, yellow, red and green, though black seems to have been given a trial as background to one figure, No.14 in pocket B. The entire omission of blue is very remarkable... two layers of painting exist. These paintings were doubtless for the most part “portraits”. Conventionalism rules the stiff disposition of arms and hands; yet each figure is imbued with divergent traits in face, form, pose, and dress, which seem to stamp it as an individual likeness.22 Bell records a total of twenty-two figures, including two that are badly worn and a third represented by a hand fragment. In fact, careful scrutiny reveals the existence of one more fragmentary figure (No. 2a in ‘Pocket B’).23 Bell’s suggestion that the figures are clothed in diaphanous material has also been questioned recently.24 The existence of two layers of painting, referred to by Bell, may be either the result of an original painting technique, in which a primary layer of pigment was put down and subsequently added to and worked on, or the product of overpainting or repainting during the eighteen-year period in which the rock and the palace were occupied. Two of Bell’s most important observations relate to the composition of the paintings and their interpretation. Despite the obvious validity of his argument that the figures are cut off by clouds at the waist due to the awkward configuration of the rock surface, this is only applicable to some figures, not all. There is no doubt that if the Sigiri painters had wished to add lower limbs to any of their figures, they would have done so — as is in fact the case in some of the paintings in the rock shelters at the foot of the Sigiriya rock. The use of clouds is not only a compositional device but a well-established symbolic motif in the representation of celestial regions and celestial beings. An even more important and largely unanswerable question is how the present figures related to the entire composition of the painted band extending across the rock-face. While it will never be possible to answer this question, the matter does not rest entirely in the realm of speculation. Bell’s suggestion that the figures were in rows is significant. The arrangement of celestial beings or any other massed gathering of figures, either in the air or on the ground, is often presented in spaced-out or densely-packed rows — as we see in the representation of divine beings in the Tivanka temple (Pls.35, 36), or in the ceiling panels or wall paintings of the later period (e.g. Pls.89, 90). As in the case of the Ajanta murals, or, for that matter, the late-period Sri Lankan wall paintings, the painted band at Sigiriya may have consisted of a series of connected, successive scenes, or taken the form of a colossal decorative band or frieze without any narrative function. Whatever the original arrangement may have been, we have to understand the Sigiriya figures as part of a larger composition with symbolic, narrative or decorative functions, rather than as individual portraits or particular representations. This compositional factor has to be borne in mind in the interpretation of the paintings. Their fragmentary nature and unusual dramatic location have led to the Sigiriya paintings being interpreted in a number of ways, sometimes quite fancifully. Of the proposals that deserve scholarly consideration the three most important ones are those of Bell, Coomaraswamy and Paranavitana. Bell’s idea that they portray the ladies of Kasyapa’s court in a devotional procession to the shrine at Pidurangala is a purely imaginative reconstruction and has no precedent in the artistic and social traditions of the region or the period. It seems quite likely, however, that the court ladies and their costumes and ornaments provided models for the Sigiriya artists and that, as such, the paintings reflect the life and atmosphere, the ideals of beauty and the attitude to women, of the elite society of the time. Very much like the scholars and visitors of our time, the ancient writers of the Sigiri graffiti exercise their poetic licence to interpret the paintings in subjective and imaginative ways. Most of the poems have the paintings as their principal subject and treat the ladies as actual people or as expressions of feminine beauty, mixing poetic feeling and emotion with the projection of similar sentiments into the ‘portraits’ themselves. Of over 650 deciphered poems that deal with the paintings, a dozen refer to them as the king’s wives or ladies, while a similar number see them as apsaras (celestial nymphs) or divine beings. Paranavitana’s suggestion that they represent Lightning Princesses (vijju kumari) and Cloud Damsels (meghalata) is an interpretation at once more literary and sociological. It forms part of his elaborate hypothesis, which attempts to explain Sigiriya as an expression of the cult of divine royalty, the entire palace complex being a symbolic reconstruction of the abode of the god Kuvera: Alakamanda being thus conceived as a place with clouds hovering around it, Sigiri, if it is a replica of that paradise, must have had the same characteristics .... The drawing of naturalistic clouds on the rock face would not have impressed the beholder; and, if the clouds had been fully personified, their nature would not have been evident to him at first sight. The master mind that was responsible for the designing of Sigiri therefore made a compromise between these two methods, and showed the clouds half personified and half naturalistically. The dark damsels rising from clouds thus would represent the Cloud Maidens, and their fair companions are the representations of Lightning which issues forth from the Cloud, and is golden in colour. Alakamanda (Alaka) being thus the place from which the Clouds originate, one who is symbolically its lord can claim to be able to control rain on which the life of an agricultural community ultimately depends. And this is the real political significance of the king’s assumption of the title of Alakapati. The paintings of Sigiri, thus, are not the result of individual caprice nor an expression of aesthetic feeling as understood today, but a means of applying age-old and deeply rooted beliefs to political theory designed to bend the people to an individual’s will.25 While these identifications may seem to us today an overinterpretation too specific to accept in its totality — deriving from Paranavitana’s attempt to see the Sigiriya palace and royal complex primarily as an expression of divine kingship — they do draw our attention to important sociological dimensions in the understanding of ancient works of art. They represent a level of analysis lying beyond our present considerations, which are restricted to historical and aesthetic description. There is no doubt, however, that the spatial organization and spatial symbolism of the Sigiri complex is profoundly determined by the cult of the king and the ideology of kingship. The great tapestry of paintings at Sigiriya, like the palace on the summit and the lion staircase, are all part of a complex ‘sign-language’ expressing royal power and ritual status. While such observations may be obvious at a certain level of generalization, to interpret individual details as specifically as Paranavitana tries to do is more difficult and requires more rigorous analysis than he provides. Moreover, to insist on the validity of a single interpretation is always inadequate. Coomaraswamy’s identification of the Sigiriya women as apsaras is in keeping with well-established South Asian traditions, and is not only the simplest but also the most logical and acceptable interpretation.26 Recent studies have reinforced this idea, showing that apsaras are often represented in art and literature as celestial beings who carried flowers and scattered them over kings and heroes as a celebration of victory and heroism.27 We can say almost with certainty that the Sigiriya ladies are celestial nymphs, very similar in essence to their successors thirteen hundred years later in the ‘Daughters of Mara' panel from Dambulla (Pl.86), but it is also likely that they had more than one meaning and function — as expressions of royal grandeur and status and as artistic evocations of courtly life, with aesthetic and erotic dimensions. Such an interpretation, with its varying levels of ambiguity, allows us to accommodate both Bell’s and Paranavitana’s suggestions at either end of a semiological spectrum. It also makes it possible for us to view the painted band at Sigiriya as a rare and early survival of a royal citrasala, well known in Indian literature28 and implicit in the Culavamsa account of Parakramabahu's palaces and audience halls at Polonnaruva.29 The style and authorship of the paintings have been as controversial a question as that of their identity. Early writers such as Bell, and even Coomaraswamy, saw them as extensions of the Central Indian School of Ajanta or of several related traditions such as those of Bagh or of Sittanavasal in South India. Bell even suggested that ‘artists trained in the same school—possibly the very same hands— executed both the Indian and Ceylon frescoes’,30 a view that seems to have been accepted by other authorities such as Archer.31 Percy Brown viewed them as manifestations of a Buddhist school of South Asian art.32 These were views expressed at a time when very little was known of the extent and character of early Sri Lankan painting. Benjamin Rowland was amongst the first, followed many years later by Philip Rawson, to observe carefully the actual painterly technique at Sigiriya and to note in what specific way it differed from Ajanta and other subcontinental traditions: The Sigiriya paintings, outside of their exciting and intrinsic beauty, are perhaps most notable for the very freedom they show at a time when the arts were tending to become more and more frozen in the mould of rigid canons of beauty. The apsaras have a rich healthy flavour that, contrast almost makes the masterpieces of Indian Art seem sallow and effete in over-refinement. Just as the drawing is more vigorous than that of the more sophisticated artists of India, so colours are bolder and more intense than the tonalities employed in the temples of the Deccan.33 Philip Rawson’s description of the artistic technique and the similarities and differences between the Sri Lankan and the Indian paintings deserves to be quoted at length: The preliminary drawing was cut into the surface of the plaster; then in light strokes of red the main plastic masses were indicated. Next, the colours of the main areas were laid on with broad strokes that are scarcely visible, but nevertheless emphasise the rotundity of the forms. Some slight modelling from the contour, like that at Ajanta, was used. The flowers the women carry, those they wear in their hair, the hair itself and their elaborate jewelled ornaments were drawn freely and directly in colour. Finally the contours were emphasised with black, and the expression of eyes, lips and hand given point and clarity. Especially interesting is the way in which it is possible to see in successive corrections of the drawing visible through the layers of paint how the artists altered the inclination of a profile, the sweep of a shoulder or the gesture of hand, as the work developed. The drawing is, like that of all Indian mural painting, based on lines. But at Sihagiri the lines are sweeping and deeply curved, so that their embraced content of rounded form can almost be felt in the hand. And yet the firm extension of these lines across the surface of the plaster forbids the eye to take the figures as merely solid. There is a deliberate conflict or tension between the two aspects of the drawing, the plastic and the linear, each of which is developed to a very high degree to produce an overwhelming aesthetic effect. The mouths are drawn with the large and beautiful petal-like lower lips so much admired in India, and the glance of the eyes is given direction by a downward undulation in the arch of the eyelid. The hands especially are deeply and elegantly expressive, somewhat affected in their gestures but with fingers alive like serpents. Beneath their heavy breasts the stomachs of the women show the two or three creases that are canonical attributes of feminine beauty. Their hair is piled up in elaborate and fantastic chignons woven in with flowers, with jewelled tiaras, strings of pearls and threads of gold. On their necks and arms they wear a great variety of jewellery. All these characteristics emphasise the decorative and sensuous idealism.34 Fig. 22 Artist’s impression of a painting of an apsara discovered in 1983 on a boulder archway (Cave 5) at Sigiriya. 6th-7th century. (Drawing by Dayananda Binaragama, 1985.) These insights have been pursued and reinforced by contemporary Sri Lankan scholars such as Wijesekera, Gunasinghe and Dharmasiri.35 They rightly argue that, while the Sri Lankan paintings belong to the same broad traditions of South Asian art as the various subcontinental schools of the time, the specific character and historical continuity of the Sri Lankan tradition give it its own distinctive place in the art of the region. There is, in fact, a considerable distance between the art of Ajanta and that of Sigiriya. The Sigiriya paintings represent the earliest surviving examples of a Sri Lankan school of classical realism, already fully evolved when we first encounter it in the 5th century. The Boulder-Garden Paintings The art of Sigiriya is not, of course, confined to the paintings on the great rock itself. Of equal archaeological, and even aesthetic interest — though less well-preserved — are a number of paintings found in the rock shelters at the foot of the rock, in the area which formed the boulder gardens in the time of Kasyapa.36 This was also the centre of both the ancient and the post-Kasyapan monasteries. Nearly thirty rock shelters and boulder arches (i.e.archways formed of natural boulders) have been found at Sigiriya. Fig. 23 Sketch of plastered area with fragments of apsaras from Cave 7, boulder garden, Sigiriya. The foliage seen in the lower left­ hand corner of the plaster represents the earliest, 5th-century, layer of paintings. The figures date from subsequent phases, 6th-7th century onwards. (Drawing by R.U. Wickremaratne, after Deraniyagala 1948.) Significant fragments of paintings can be seen in at least five of these. Many of the others contain traces of plaster and pigment, indicating an extensive complex of painted caves and pavilions in the whole of the boulder garden area. The existence of several layers of plaster and of paintings which belong to different historical phases is clearly apparent in these shelters. The most important remains are those in Cave 7, popularly known as the ‘Deraniyagala Cave’ after P.E.P. Deraniyagala who discovered the traces of several female figures here; in the so-called ‘Cobrahood Cave' (Cave 9), which has a rare survival of a vivid and dramatic ceiling painting; and in the ‘Asana Guha' or ‘Throne Cave' (Cave 1) with its many layers of plaster and painting. The most ambitious composition can be found on a large area of plaster in Cave 7 where there are faint traces of several female figures carrying flowers and moving amidst clouds, again in a northerly direction, very much like the apsaras on the main rock above (Fig.23). Even in ornamentation and general figural treatment, these women are broadly similar to those in the famous paintings, except for the fact that at least three of them are not cut off at the waist by clouds but are full­ figure representations, with legs bent in a conventional flying posture. Altogether there are less than half a dozen distinct forms here, barely discernible in traces of body colour and linework. Many others are reduced to faint lines or patches of colour. One figure alone (Pl.18) retains enough of its pigment for us to have a fair idea of its original form. The face is destroyed, but the golden-yellow body colour and much of the torso are well preserved together with parts of an ornate head-dress with blue pigment. A recent discovery in a boulder archway nearby (Cave 5) preserves the complete outline and some details of a face (Fig.22). This portrait is similar in scale and style to the pigmented figure in Cave 7; and the two paintings are complementary, the missing parts of the one, so to speak, being supplied by the surviving sections of the other. Most of the remaining paintings in Cave 7, as elsewhere in this boulder-garden area, have to be studied in line-drawings. The line-drawings have the advantage of separating the surviving traces of linework from the visual distractions of the weathered plaster, enabling us to see the figures themselves more clearly, without any addition or reconstruction beyond a slight strengthening of the line itself where it actually exists. Several layers of painting can be distinguished in the remains in Cave 7. Deraniyagala himself speaks of ‘four or five superimposed layers’.37 Today, at least three distinct phases of painting are visible. The earliest layer is a thin strip showing representations of leaves and flowers (Pl. 16), observable at the lower end of the plaster area and also at certain places well below the paint layer bearing the female figures. The next is an underlay or a lower layer of pigment beneath the present figures, probably representing an earlier version of the same subject, while the final phase is what is visible on the surface today. It has also been suggested that some portions of these figures which Fig. 24 Details of tree and other floral elements. Cave 1 (‘Asana Guha’), boulder garden, Sigiriya. 5th or early 6th century. (Drawing by Dayananda Binaragama, 1985.) Figs. 25,26 Male figures, probably deities. Cave 1 (‘Asana Guha'), boulder garden, Sigiriya. These figures are depicted on the uppermost layer of plaster in this cave and represent the final phase of painting in the boulder garden. They cannot as yet be assigned to any specific date but may well be as late as the 12th-13th century. figures themselves more clearly, without any addition or reconstruction beyond a slight strengthening of the line itself where it actually exists. Several layers of painting can be distinguished in the remains in Cave 7. Deraniyagala himself speaks of ‘four or five superimposed layers’.37 Today, at least three distinct phases of painting are visible. The earliest layer is a thin strip showing representations of leaves and flowers (Pl. 16), observable at the lower end of the plaster area and also at certain places well below the paint layer bearing the female figures. The next is an underlay or a lower layer of pigment beneath the present figures, probably representing an earlier version of the same subject, while the final phase is what is visible on the surface today. It has also been suggested that some portions of these figures which Fig. 24 Details of tree and other floral elements. Cave 1 (‘Asana Guha’), boulder garden, Sigiriya. 5th or early 6th century. (Drawing by Dayananda Binaragama, 1985.) Figs. 25,26 Male figures, probably deities. Cave 1 (‘Asana Guha'), boulder garden, Sigiriya. These figures are depicted on the uppermost layer of plaster in this cave and represent the final phase of painting in the boulder garden. They cannot as yet be assigned to any specific date but may well be as late as the 12th-13th century. virtuosity in a way not seen elsewhere in the surviving paintings of the Sri Lankan tradition. The characteristic brushwork, style and tonal qualities of the Sigiriya school are immediately noticeable here. There is little doubt that this awning is coeval with the paintings on the main rock. There are indications of animal or bird forms in the centre of the large diamond or circular panels, but these are merged with stylized or abstract volutes similar in essence to the 'katurumala or ‘tiringitala' design of the Kandy period. 9 This motif is also seen in sculptural and architectural details of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva times, especially in connection with lion and makara sculpture and in floral volutes. Considered in their totality, the paintings in the boulder­ garden area at Sigiriya, though vestigial, provide important evidence of the continuation of the Sigiriya school over a fair period of time. Excavations have shown several post- 5th-century phases of occupation in the rock shelters in this area, continuing until perhaps as late as the 12th or 13th century.40 This situation is paralleled by the layers of plaster and painting which provide evidence of several successive phases of painterly activity. We may summarize these phases in the following way: Phase I: To this phase belong the leaf and flower paintings in Cave 7, the representation of a tree in the ‘Asana Guha' and the ceiling paintings in the ‘Cobrahood Cave'. These have stylistic affiliations with the paintings on the main rock and in at least one instance can be dated to the late 5th or early 6th century by the superimposed 6th-century graffiti found on the tree in the ‘Asana Guha’. The female figures and cloud motifs visible on the upper reaches of the plaster in the same cave may belong to this phase too or to a slightly later period of activity. Phase IIA: This is represented by the lower layer of pigmentation of the figures in Cave 7. There is no way in which we may date this phase precisely, but it is possible to speculate that it represents a continuation of the school of Sigiriya in the immediate post-Kasyapan period i.e. the closing years of the 5th century or the early 6th century. Phase IIB: The presently visible figure representations in Cave 7 denote the overpainting or repainting of figures from the previous phase. Phase II A/B: Coeval with the figure paintings in Cave 7 is the recently discovered painting in the boulder archway nearby, Cave 5. Phase II A/B or Phase III: The thin limewash with faint traces of black line-drawing, observable in the ‘Asana Guha’, belong to a later period than the figure representations and cloud motifs visible on the upper reaches of the plaster here. Traces of a similar limewash are also noticeable in Cave 7. Phase Ill/rV: The uppermost layer of paintings and black line-drawings in the ‘Asana Guha’ certainly belong to a period much later than any of the previous phases. They constitute a rather impoverished expression of the Sigiriya tradition, perhaps belonging to the last phase of occupation at Sigiriya during the Middle Historical period, possibly dating from a time between the 10th and the 13th century. Further excavation in the caves of the boulder garden and detailed investigation of plaster layers and pigments will give us a much clearer idea of the successive phases of artistic activity at Sigiriya. Fig. 27 Female figure, probably an apsara or nagini. Cave-shrine, Vessagiriya. 5th/6th century (?). (Drawing by Dayananda Binaragama,1985.) Cave-Shrines of the Anuradhapura Period In spite of the paucity and relatively limited scope of the paintings and the absence of a single unified composition, the fragmentary masterpieces of Sigiriya constitute a source book for the study of early Sri Lankan painting. They provide information in a number of different spheres — artistic, iconographical and chronological. Our knowledge of this tradition is supplemented by even more fragmentary remains from several Buddhist cave-temple sites of the Anuradhapura period. Gonagolla, Kandalama, Karambagala, Kotiyagala, Kudagala, Vessagiriya and Situlpahuva are all sites where nearly complete figures Fig. 28 Flying male figure. (Cave­ shrine. Vessagiriya. 5th-6th century (?). (Drawing by Senarat Bandara Disanayaka, 1985.) or discernible portions of figures have survived, while in a number of other places (e.g.Budugalge, Dambulla, Kudimbigala and Nuvaragalkanda) we have traces of paintings which show no discernible forms or, at most, only fragments of decorative or floral motifs. More important remains have been found at the Pulligodagalge and the Maravidiya cave-shrine at Dimbulagala and at the Hindagala temple near Kandy (Pls.23-26). Of these only the Pulligoda paintings remain, the others having been destroyed since their discovery and documentation. To this list we may add the cave paintings of the Polonnaruva period at Pidurangala near Sigiriya and at the Gal Vihara (Uttararama) in Polonnaruva itself (Figs.35, 10; Pls.43,44). The painting at Kandalama is faded and much damaged but still quite discernible (Pl .19).41 Fragmentary outlines and patches of pigment show a seated female figure, identified as a representation of the Goddess Tara, in a highly formal and hieratic pose, holding a lotus stalk in her right hand. Appearing today almost a line-drawing, in a faded Indian red, with touches of yellow ochre, orange and turquoise­ blue, it is unlike any other painting of the early period. The or discernible portions of figures have survived, while in a number of other places (e.g.Budugalge, Dambulla, Kudimbigala and Nuvaragalkanda) we have traces of paintings which show no discernible forms or, at most, only fragments of decorative or floral motifs. More important remains have been found at the Pulligodagalge and the Maravidiya cave-shrine at Dimbulagala and at the Hindagala temple near Kandy (Pls.23-26). Of these only the Pulligoda paintings remain, the others having been destroyed since their discovery and documentation. To this list we may add the cave paintings of the Polonnaruva period at Pidurangala near Sigiriya and at the Gal Vihara (Uttararama) in Polonnaruva itself (Figs.35, 10; Pls.43,44). The painting at Kandalama is faded and much damaged but still quite discernible (Pl .19).41 Fragmentary outlines and patches of pigment show a seated female figure, identified as a representation of the Goddess Tara, in a highly formal and hieratic pose, holding a lotus stalk in her right hand. Appearing today almost a line-drawing, in a faded Indian red, with touches of yellow ochre, orange and turquoise­ blue, it is unlike any other painting of the early period. both in India and Sri Lanka.'43 The paintings with the closest relationship in style and coloration to Sigiriya are those at Vessagiriya.44 The female figure here, though very badly weathered and scarcely discernible, still retains — as careful examination reveals — an almost complete outline and photographable areas of pigment (Fig.27). The other identifiable figure, of the several fragmentary forms that can be distinguished here, exists as traces of line and colour. It is a divinity, or supernatural being (Fig,28), complete sections of whose body, face and head-dress have now been obliterated. Bell has recorded what he could see of these figures in 1907: On the rock wall of Cave No.9 may yet be seen, though very greatly weathered, the outline of a female figure, measuring 3 ft.by 2 ft., painted in yellow with dashes of red here and there and a leg crossed horizontally, the lady has her left leg raised and knee bent, and is emphasising an animated discourse by left arm half­ outstretched and hand with open palm — a favourite attitude in Indian sculpture and painting. , A smaller figure — a prince with jewelled headdress, armlets, etc. — is just distinguishable on the worn plaster of Cave No. 10. This figure measures 2ft. by 1 ft. 6 in., and is coloured in red and yellow.45 The head-dress or coiffure of the female figure seems to have had a cobrahood surmounting it as in the Gonagolla example. Historical links exist between Sigiriya and Vessagiriya as the latter site is thought to have been the location of a monastery established by Kasyapa 1. Recent studies of architectural details, such as the moonstones, at these two sites, confirm the close relationship between them. As in other paintings of this nature, the figures here must have formed part of a larger composition of gods and other celestial beings ‘worshipping the Buddha or a Bodhisattva’.46 The Karambagala painting (Fig.30), though much more fragmentary, clearly indicates a similar theme — an apsara with her head bent in supplication apparently scattering flowers on a Bodhisattva.47 It has been suggested that the Karambagala fragment is the earliest extant Sri Lankan painting from the historical period, on the basis that Karambagala can be identified with the Kurandakalena referred to in the Visuddhimagga. Style, technique and the nature of the plaster ground on which it is painted indicate, however, that the Karambagala picture is probably coeval with or somewhat later than Sigiriya and of a similar character to the paintings at Gonagolla and Vessagiriya, all of which form a distinct group or school. Somewhat more elaborate and developing in the direction of the late classic style are the paintings of Kudagala and Dimbulagala, the one as little known as the other is well documented. The Kudagala paintings (Figs.31, 32) were first reported in 1968 and dated by Paranavitana to around the 8th century, although an alternative Polonnaruva-period date has been suggested.48 Two layers of painting exist, the better-preserved and more visible upper layer being executed mostly in black on an off- white background, with areas of white body pigment. They include a masterly Bodhisattva figure with an exquisitely painted jewelled head-dress, attended by an beautifully drawn female figure; and a much-weathered, enthroned Buddha, not dissimilar to that at the Maravidiya caves, with Fig. 29 Bodhisattva and attendant female figure. Cave-shrine, Gonagolla, 5th-7th century (?). (From a drawing in ASCAR 1956.) Fig. 30 Male and attendant female figures. Cave-shrine, Karambagala. 5th-7th century. (Drawing by L.T.P. Manjusri in Dhanapala 1957.)Probably a Bodhisattva and an apsara scattering flowers. Fig. 31 Bodhisattva and attendant female figures (detail). Cave- shrine, Kudagala. 8th-l 2th century. attendant haloed deities An interesting composition of a man astride an elaborately saddled and bridled horse, can also be seen here. The Dimbulagala paintings (Pls.23-25; Fig.33) include the now vandalized and badly damaged pictures at Maravidiya, of late Anuradhapura or Polonnaruva vintage, and the well-preserved and protected group of deities at Pulligoda, dated to the 7th or Sth century.49 The latter, at least, constitute a stage of stylistic evolution somewhat less than midway between the classic style of Sigiriya and the paintings of the Polonnaruva epoch. The paintings in a large cave-shrine at Kotiyagala (Fig.34) were first recorded in 1967, and appear to have as their subject events from the life of the Buddha. At least two exceptional styles are in evidence here: one, rather stiff and schematic; the other, somewhat sketchy and fluid. Essentially illustrative or decorative in character, they may sometimes lack the elegant formality associated with the classic mode, but are no less interesting as examples of the range and virtuosity of early painting. The Archaeological Survey Report on these paintings runs as follows: The ceiling of the cave appears to have been once covered with paintings the remains of which are still quite extensive. Above the head of the (recumbent Buddha) statue there are paintings in white on a red background of a floral motif and an elephant depicted within a circle. To the north of this there is painted a rectangular framework of creepers, sacred geese and a design of alternating rectangles and ovals, identical with that found in the painting on the ceiling of the Cobra Hood cave in Sigiriya. Within the framework there are depicted numerous scenes including animal and human figures. Among the animals shown are elephants disporting in the water among lotus and water lily, sacred geese, snakes, cattle, horses, the hare, parrot and bull. There are figures of females similar to the Sigiriya figures, and personalities shown as making obeisance to a dagoba of a very early type. These paintings are attributable to a very early period of painting in Ceylon. Fig. 32 Horse and rider. Cave-shrine, Kudagala. Date uncertain. These paintings can be compared with those at Maravidiya, ‘the frail and unsteady character" of whose linework has been counterposed to ‘the masterly quality’ of the paintings at Gonagolla and Vessagiriya?1 The varied treatment of elephant figures in the respective examples clearly demonstrates the two stylistic approaches. This is also apparent in the decorative awning designs, of which there are at least five different examples at Kotiyagala. The remains of paintings just below the drip-ledge of the main cave-temple at Situlpahuva, in the deep south, are extremely fragmentary but still partly ‘readable’ (Pl.22).52 They show parts of a narrative composition, including a robed figure in an architectural setting, one or, perhaps, two antlered stags and an elegantly gesturing hand. If the Kotiyagala paintings represent an illustrative mode that is moving away from the expressive and vigorous realism and evocative formality of the Sigiriya style, the great panel at Hindagala (Pl.26), dated tentatively to the 7th century, represents a development in an opposite direction.53 It displays an illustrative naturalism and an explicitness which — though anticipated in some of the Sigiriya ladies (e.g. Pls.3, 6) — are rarely observable in any other extant paintings of the period. The sophistry of the composition, with its multiple planes and fragmented interposition of successive subjects, and the remoteness — as far as the Anuradhapura period is concerned — of its location in a mountain village above Kandy, render it historically one of the most significant pictorial remains of the Middle Historical era. Having been one of the best-preserved panels of this period — ironically now almost completely destroyed by an accidental fire and known to us only from photographs and an excellent facsimile copy in the National Museum in Colombo — it adds an entirely new dimension to our knowledge of the Sri Lankan tradition. It has features that are not seen in the Sigiriya paintings, and only very partially in the fragmentary panel compositions of the Anuradhapura period or the Polonnaruva murals. The Hindagala painting displays a particular version of the technique of ‘episodic repetition’ where various events or incidents involving the same central personage or personages — in this case two incidents from the life of the Buddha — are placed next to each other in an uninterrupted pictorial succession. This is best represented in the Asian tradition in the great cycles of painting at Ajanta or Dun-huang, and also in a somewhat different way in the 'continuous narration’ technique of the later-period murals of Sri Lanka or Thailand, where the sequence of events is projected on a single picture plane. In the Hindagala painting, as in the classic Indian or Chinese murals, there is a complex juxtaposition of planes, levels and figures. The foreground, represented by the lowest section of the painting, is occupied by the dramatic figure of Indra, whose turning head and torso mark and at the same time conceal the separation between one incident and the other. Beyond him, on a different plane and on a reduced scale indicating lesser status, but still in the lower reaches of the composition, Fig. 33 Elephant (detail). Cave-shrine, Maravidiya, Dimbulagala. 8th-l2th century. (From a copy by D.J. Lokuge, 1933, in the National Museum, Colombo.) Possibly from an incident in the life of the Buddha where an elephant, offered to the Bodhisattva, is subsequently killed by his cousin Devadatta. Fig. 34 Detail showing elephant surrounded by stylized lotuses. Cave-shrine, Kotiyagala. 5th-7th century (?). Possibly depicting an incident from "Queen Mahamaya’s Dream' predicting the birth of the Bodhisattva. Early and Middle Period Painting Pl. 2 Sigiriya rock and water-gardens from west. The Mirror Wall appears as a horizontal, light-coloured band along the west face of the rock, just above the trees. Above it is the area originally occupied by the paintings and still protected by a drip-ledge. The large dark patch in the centre of this prepared rock surface is the ’fresco pocket. Pl. 3 Apsaras. Figures Bll and B12. Sigiriya. AD 477-95. Details of Pl. 5. is a group of attendant figures. In the middle ground, on a plane slightly behind that occupied by Indra, are the two repeated representations of the Buddha, dominating in each case the most prominent central area of the two respective episodes. Behind the Buddha, on an appropriately reduced scale and occupying a third and receding plane, are the background figures. One of these, on the extreme left, enters the same picture plane as the Buddha himself, traversing the second and the third planes. The separation of the two scenes and the complex spatial qualities of the picture are heightened by the slightly different angles expressed in the seats or thrones on which the Buddha sits, on either side of the half-kneeling figure of the god. The use of both vertical and three-dimensional perspective as well as tonal modelling is seen elsewhere in Sri Lankan paintings, but it is best observed and most dramatically manifested in the Hindagala composition. The compositional sophistication of the picture is matched by its other artistic qualities. Siri Gunasinghe has written at length on its unusual psychological dimensions: Fig. 35 Fragmentary wall painting. Cave-shrine, I’idurangala. 12th century (?). ( Drawing by Senarat Bandara Disanayaka,1985.j The ladders and the figure with halo and unusual head- dress suggest the ‘Descent from the Tavatimsa Heaven ’he Hindagala mural has shown itself capable of expressing emotions by suggesting psychological relationships between the protagonists of the story. For instance, in one of the episodes, the Buddha receiving an offering has been represented not as an impassive super-human but as a being capable of displaying human emotions and acting as a person familiar with simple human behaviour. He is depicted not in the hieratic majesty of the padmasana pose but in a relaxed posture with his head slightly inclined in the direction of the personage making the offering. The relationship between the two characters is clearly stated by this simple pictorial device. However, the most obvious expression of tthehe B Buddha uddha’’ss a attttiittude ude i in t n thi hiss e epi pissode ode i iss i in t n thehe de depi piccttiion ot on ot hi hiss ha hands nds with the cupped palms cordially held up to receive the offering. his hands in the dhyana or some other mudra would have been the normal mode here, with his visage showing intense concentration unaffected by the event itself. The Hindagala painter, however, had other ideas and happily also the freedom to express them. Equally expressive of emotion is the personage seated beside the Buddha in the other scene, and identified as Indra of the famous Indasala guha episode. It would appear, however, that the eyes and the mouth of the personage tend to exhibit a frightened submission rather than a friendly veneration that would have been proper as the attitude of Indra in this particular situation. The body shown turning away from the Buddha is certainly not the vehicle for intimacy and veneration; it betrays, on the contrary, an uneasy avoidance of contact. This is not the psychological relationship one would expect to have observed between the Buddha and Indra. It is more likely that what we have here is some other popular theme involving a divine being — maybe Indra himself — submitting to the majesty of the Buddha or soliciting his favour. Despite the absence of the usual iconography this scene can be viewed as a version of the submission of Mara, shown as a god (which he was) by means of heroic proportions. In any event, in the untraditional iconography and the sense of freedom shown in the depiction of the Buddha himself, one must recognize the individualistic approach of an artist who lived beyond the reach of orthodoxy.54 If, in the extant art of the painted rock surfaces and rock shelters, Sigiriya represents the finest and purest expression of early Sri Lankan painting, the Hindagala panel is certainly its most complex statement. PL 2 Pl. 4 Apsara. Detail of Pl. 6. Pl. 5 View of‘Fresco Pocket B’looking south. Sigiriya. AD 477-95. Figures B9-B13 (L to R Pl. 6 Apsara. Figure B9. Detail of Pl. 5. Pl. 7 Apsara. Figure BIO. Detail of Pl. 5. P1 8 Apsaras. Figures B3 and B4. Sigiriya. AD 477-95. Pl. 9 Apsara. Figure B13. Detail of Pl. 5. P1 10 Apsara. Figure BI4. Sigiriya. AD 477-95. Pl. 11 Apsara. Figure Al. Sigiriya. AD 477-95. Pl. 13 Apsara. Figure Bl. Sigiriya. AD 477-95. Pl. 14 Apsara. Figure A5 (detail). Sigiriya. AD 47795 Pl. 15 Ceiling painting from Cave 9 ("Cobrahood Cave’ i. Boulder garden, Sigiriya. Late 5th century (?) Pl. 16 Detail of foliage painting from Cave 7. Boulder garden, Sigiriya. 6th-7th century (?) Pl. 18 Detail of apsara from Cave 7. Boulder garden, Sigiriya. 6th-7th century (?). Though not seen in the detail, this is one of the rare figures at Sigiriya where the entire body, including the lower limbs, was depicted P1.19 Female goddess, probably Tara. Cave painting, Kotgalkanda, Kandalama. 5th-7th century (?). (From a copy by R.U. Wickremaratne, 1985. Pl. 20 Female figure in attitude of worship. Cave painting, Gonagolla. 5th-7th century (?). (See also Fig. 29, p. 35.) Pl.21 Bodhisattva. Cave painting, Gonagolla. 5th-7th century (?). (See also Fig. 29, p. 35.) Pl. 22 Robed figures and deer in an architectural setting.Fragmentary painting, Situlpahuva. Late Anuradhapura period. Pl. 23 A group of divine beings. Pulligoda cave-temple,Dimbulagala. 7th-8th century oror Late Anuradhapura period. Pls. 24,25 Details of Pl. 23. Pls. 24,25 Details of Pl. 23. Pl. 26 Episodes from the life of the Buddha (?). Cave painting. Hindagala temple. c.7th century AD (?). (From a copy by W.M. Fernando, 1918, in the National Museum, Colombo.) The scene on the right is often identified as Indra’s Visit to the Buddha in the Indasala Cave. Pl. 27 The Buddha seated under the Bodhi tree attended by brahmas. Relic-chamber painting, Mahiyangana. 9thl 1th century. Now in the Archaeological Museum, Anuradhapura. The scene is thought to represent the Enlightenment or the first week of the sat sati. Pl. 28 Robed figures and flying male figure bearing a sword, identified as Mara. Relic­ chamber painting, Mahiyangana. 9th-l 1th century. Now in the Archaeological Museum, Anuradhapura. Pl. 29 Visnu bearing a tray of flowers. Relic-chamber painting, Mahiyangana. 9th-l 1th century. Now in the Archaeological Museum, Anuradhapura. Pl. 30 A divine being. Relic-chamber painting, Mahiyangana. 9th-11 th century. Now in the Archaeological Museum Anuradhapura. Pl. 31 Siva. Relic-chamber painting, Mahiyangana. 9th-l 1th century. Now in the Archaeological Museum, Anuradhapura. Pl. 32 Robed figures in postures of adoration. Relic-chamber painting, Mahiyangana. 9th-l 1th century. Now in the Archaeological Museum. Anuradhapura. Pl. 33 Painted pilasters and Jataka registers (detail). North wall of vestibule, Tivanka temple, Polonnaruva. 12th-13th century. The panel between the pilasters is the second panel from the west with the Mahasudassana Jataka (see Fig. 45, pp. 82-3).

Seven years ago, we began what we described as the study of the settlement archaeology and palaeoenvironment of a diagnostic micro-region of the Sri Lankan Dry Zone’. The project is now usually referred to as the SARCP (the Settlement Archaeology Project). Our initial objectives were, at one and the same time, modest and extremely ambitious. On the one hand, we were embarking on an exploratory probe into the little-known archaeological terrain surrounding the major urban center at Sigiriya and the ancient royal monastery complex at Dambulla; on the other, we were undertaking the investigation of the total archaeological landscape’ of an area. of about one thousand square kilometers, the scope of our study extending from the prehistory and palaeo-ecology of the area to its contemporary ethnography. The present report - together with its precursor, The Settle­ ment Archaeology of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region - brings together the preliminary results of that undertaking. As one might have predicted, these results lie somewhere in between the two extremes of our objectives. As the illustration on the opposite page and other plans show, we now have from the Sigiriya-Dambulla region one of the best-documented archaeological landscapes in Sri Lanka. At the same time, we realize that we have only scratched the surface of this landscape and retrieved some fragments of the data it has to offer. Many of the major - and minor - research problems underlying our investigations remain unresolved. However, we have now co­ me to know at first hand the nature of the terrain, its research Figure 1:1 SARCP archaeological sites and irrigation sites in the Sigiriya-Dambulla region. The Sigiriya-Dambulla region: between the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva systems and a gateway to the central mountains Figure 1:3 The river basins of the Sigiriya-Dambulla region potential, and the capabilities and limits of our investigative techniques and resources. In place of a relatively blank sheet in our understanding of the settlement network of the Sigiriya- Dambulla area through the various phases of its long history (Bandaranayake 1990), we now have a fairly complex picture of what there is, what there could be and also an acute sense of how little we know. As Mogren observes (see "Objectives, Methods, Constraints and Perspectives" this volume) in his overview of the project, emphasizing one of the laws of archaeological research: "...an interpretation of a site or a pattern, that is published or presented...in some form should always be seen as a mere take-off for further research, never as an ab­ solute fact, or termination of study. It must be under­ stood, therefore, that no matter how many times one returns to a given site, its does not represent a truly complete understanding of a past reality." Our surveys have documented so far a total of 195 archaeological sites and 203 irrigation tanks within the demarcated zone. This forms a complex, diachronic palimpsest, a superimposition, often one upon the other, of the remains of the human occupation of the area through several millennia. The project is contained within an area of about 40km from north to south and 30km from east to west, in the uppermost reaches of the Kiri Oya, Sigiri Oya, Mirisgoni Oya and Dambulu Oya basins. For a variety of reasons, such as the prevailing conditions in 1988 and 1989, the relative inaccessibility of certain sectors such as the northern half of the Kiri Oya basin, the constant presence of wild elephants in the more heavily-forested tracts, human and transport resource constraints and the concentration on other research interests, various sectors of the target area have been surveyed in different degrees of intensity. The Kiri Oya basin Thus, research in the Kiri Oya basin was more or less re­ stricted to a brief preliminary survey of its southern half in 1988 (Manatunga 1990); the excavations of the major iron production site at Alakolavava - Dehigaha-ala-kanda (KO. 14) in 1990 and 1991 (see Forenius and Solangaarachchi this volume); and the survey and trial excavations of the Vavala- Sigiriya canal and dam network in 1992 (see Myrdal-Runeb- « jer: "The Archaeology of Irrigated Agriculture" this volume) Figure 1:4 Prehistoric sites. and 1993. Rich in spring water resources, limestone quarries and, presumably, in high-quality ironore, the area seems to have formed an important industrial zone and a well-settled communications corridor between the Sigiriya and Dambulla area to the south and west and the Minneriya-Giritale and Parakrama Samudra ’sub-systems’ to the east. Further re­ search in the Kiri Oya basin lies outside the present program of the SARCP, but must remain an important unfinished task to be accomplished at some future date. The Upper Sigiri Oya basin The Sigiri Oya originates in the bed of the Sigiri Mahavava, as a small stream flowing northwards out of the breached bund of this once massive, man-made lake. Well beyond the greater Sigiriya area it ultimately joins the northeastward­ flowing Yan Oya, the country’s fifth longest river, and a major settlement zone of the protohistoric and Early and Mid­ dle Historic Periods in Sri Lanka. Limited surveys of the Sigiri Oya basin between 1988 and 1990 have revealed not only a typical tank village and tank cascade landscape (see Wickremesekara 1990a:95-101; 1990b:163-166), but also a series of riverside settlements of EHP-1 which have had to remain uninvestigated. It is only the Talkote complex (Mo- gren this volume), Tammannagala (Somadeva and Kasth- urisinghe this volume) and the prehistoric sites of Aligala and Potana (Adikari: "Approaches to the Prehistory of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region" this volume; Karunaratne and Ad­ ikari: "Excavations at Aligala" this volume; Adikari: "Excavations at the Sigiri-Potana Cave Complex" this vo­ lume) that have been the subjects of trial excavations. The Sigiriya-Mapagala-Ramakale-Pidurangala complex and the Sigiriya hinterland briefly discussed below, dominate this ba- sin and remain the best-researched section of the entire study area. Figure 1:5 Protohistoric - Early Historic (EHP 1) sites. The Mirisgoni Oya and Dambulu Oya basins The documentation and survey work in the Mirisgoni Oya and Dambulu Oya basins has not been as extensive as in the Sigiriya hinterland, not so much for reasons of inaccessibility or the difficulty of the terrain as in the Kiri Oya area, but rather for those of time and resource allocation. The early work on the study of the irrigation network (Wickremesekera) could not be pursued, greater emphasis being laid on and resources allocated to the excavations of the important prehistoric site at Potana (which was in danger of being des­ troyed by modern construction work), the substantial settle­ ment site at Ibbankatuva, and the survey of iron production sites in the southern sector of the Mirisgoni Oya basin (Ka- runaratne and Mogren, to be published in Forenius and Sol- angaarachchi (eds.) in preparation). The Potana excavations, briefly described below (Adikari this volume) have produced a wealth of data, especially of faunal remains - nearly 300 kilograms - and human skeletal material from a prehistoric horizon. This rock shelter has also become a test site for our first steps in palaeobotanical studies (by T.R. Prematilake), and the experimental application of chemical analysis to soil as a prelude or complement to excavation (by A. Tantillage). The Sigiriya Hinterland The most intensively surveyed area is the immediate hinter­ land of the urban and palace complex at Sigiriya (fig. 1:8), including the great monasteries at Ramakale and Pidurangala (figs. 1:12 and 1:13), each covering an area of about one square kilometre, the irrigation network of the Sigiri Mahavava and the Sigiri-Vavala canal (Myrdal-Runebjer: "The Archaeology of Irrigated Agriculture" this volume; see also fig. 1:8), and the complex of archaeological sites around the ancient settlements at Talkote (Mogren this volume: "The Archaeology of Talkote"). From Prehistory to the Early Historic Period A much more varied and intricate picture than was hitherto imagined has now emerged. We are now aware of the prehis­ toric occupation of the Sigiriya area, with nearly five prehis­ toric sites available within a 6km radius of Sigiriya itself. A substantial body of data relating to prehistoric habitat, tech­ nology, subsistence and lifeways, and even ritual practices has been gathered and will be the subject of on-going ana­ lysis and research (Adikari this volume: "Approaches to the Prehistory of the Sigiriya-Dambulla region"; Karunaratne and Adikari this volume: "Excavations at Aligala"; Adikari this volume: "Excavations at the Sigiri-Potana Cave Complex"). Aligala, within the eastern sector of the citadel area at Si­ giriya, is a site of primary importance, where we have a rare instance of an immediate succession from the prehistoric thr­ ough the protohistoric to the Early Historic Period. Figure 1:7 ‘Potana Man’ - skeleton No. 2 from cave 1, context 10, Sigiri-Potana (MO. 14). Three ,4C dates for this context have a 5000 - 4500 BC range. There is no indication whether the skeleton is intrusive. Photo: CCF - Sigiriya Project. Figure 1:8 Sigiriya Hinterland Figure 1:9 The Aligala-Potana sequence. This site became doubly important when the protohistoric settlement horizon here provided one of the earliest radio- metric dates for an Iron Age site in the country. The Aligala sequence is complemented by that from the rescue excavations at Potana. Irrigation Another important focus of research (see Myrdal-Runebjer: "The Archaeology of Irrigated Agriculture" this volume) has been the hitherto little-understood canal system lying to the south and east of the Sigiri Mahavava, the great relict man­ made lake, whose earth dam has now been found to have extended for a distance of 7km from the southern foot of the Sigiriya rock and the Mapagala fortress to Nikavatavana and beyond (Adikari 1993). This canal system seems to have its origins as far away as Vavala, 9.6km to the south of Sigiriya. It forms, therefore, an early example of a trans-basin canal, whose complex technology, function, chronology and man­ power inputs are continuing subjects of investigation. The Sigiri Mahavava seems to have been supplemented at its southernmost point by another canal which seems to have connected the Kuda Gona Oya to the great lake from a point 11km away. The urban form Equally significant has been the discovery of the full extent of the urban area of Sigiriya, now appearing as a walled city nearly 3km in length, with a series of suburban settlements (figs. 1:10 and 1:11; see also Karunaratne: "The Eastern Pr­ ecinct of the Sigiriya Complex" this volume). Judging by the pottery from these sites and the 14C dates from the large suburban ’village’ of Tammannagala (see Somadeva and Ka- sthurisinghe this volume), these settlements seem to date fr­ om the major urban period in the late 5th century AD, but at least some of them continued - as the city itself seems to have done - for some centuries after its abandonment as a royal capital. Sigiriya is one of the best-preserved urban forms of the first millennium in Asia, exemplifying the grand scale and vision of Sri Lankan city planning. We can now add to the discussion of this in the previous volume (Bandaranayake 19- 90.24-26). The city can now be seen as having an elongated rectangular form, nearly 3km from east to west and 1km from north to south, based on a square module of circa 170m and a concentric-cum-axial design. This gemometrical conception also accomodates organic and assymmetrical elements such as the Sigiriya rock itself, the terraced hill around the base of the rock, the Mapagala fortress, the partly man-made, partly natural topography of the lake, and the ’borrowed scenery’ of the Figure 1:10 Suburban settlements of the 5th-7th century. The black dots indicate the existence of BRW utility EHP 1 settlements. Figure 1:11 Schematic Plan of the Urban Center Kandalama mountains and the Matale ranges. The urban plan presents itself in at least five, hierarchically organized zonal divisions: Level 5: the palace on the summit; Level 4: the inner citadel or raj angaria', Level 3: the ’inner city’ or ceremonial precinct to the east, and the royal pleasure gardens to the west; Level 2: the outer city and the Mapagala fortress; Level 1: the suburbs and villages beyond the outer city ramparts and the lake, the Sigiri Mahavava. Buddhist monasteries Immediately contiguous to this urban landscape and extending beyond it are the remains of a large number of Buddhist monasteries belonging to various categories and from different periods of history. These monastery sites form the most visible and expressive aspects of premodem settlement in the Sigiriya-Dambulla region, as almost everywhere else in the Dry Zone. They occupy a dramatic and central position in an elaborate mosaic of multi-period village settlements, irriga­tion features, iron production centres, cemeteries, and fortifications. The monasteries were clearly principal foci of social organization in the countryside. Their role as centres of religion, as well as their socio-political and socioeconomic functions are well known and have been extensively researched but as yet mostly from literary and epigraphical sources. Figure 1:12 Ramakale Figure 1:13 pidurangala. The ’pre-Kasyapa’ and ’post-Kasyapa’ history of Sigiriya, first as a rock-shelter monastery of the earliest phase of the Early Historical Period (EHP 1 - 3rd to 1st century BC) and then the establishment and development of the post-Kasyapan monastery of the Middle Historical Period (6th to 13th century AD) is complemented by the continuation and expansion of the grand monastery complexes at Pidurangala and Ramakale. Our surveys have also indicated a number of equally important and other less substantial monastic centres, many of which were previously unknown. These monastic sites are set amidst a large number of multi-period village settlements, the best-surveyed and most complex example being that of the Talkote complex described at some length below (Mogren thisvolume). Detailed investigations of selected monastic complexes, including field surveys and test excavations have been completed and will form the subject of a separate volume (in preparation - by Prishantha Gunawardena and the present au­ thor) and more than one dissertation. Particular attention has been focussed on the network of rock-shelter monasteries of the earliest phase of the Historical Period, which form an important component of the monastery sites in the area, and which were discussed in a preliminary way in the earlier report (Bandaranayake 1990:22-23). A general survey of the area indicates a clear hierarchy of sites and site catchment systems. In particular, excavations and detailed surveys have been carried out in rock-shelters at Sigiriya, Pidurangala and Dambulla. The underlying research objectives were: Figure 1:15 Early Buddhist rock shelter complexes. (a) the depositional and habitational sequence; (b) the study of rock-shelter architecture; (c) the extent and use of space within a rock shelter and its maximum number of occupants in a cave; (d) the relationship between the cave itself and the sur­ rounding area; (e) the population parameters of monastic settlement. The analysis of the results of these studies is still on-going and will be completed and published in the forthcoming monograph. Figure 1:14 Buddhist monasteries of the EHP 1 and Early Middle Historic Period. Figure 1:16 Development of monumental structures. Thematic studies Period-based and thematic interests - such as prehistory, the early settlement period, iron production, irrigation systems, central place studies (particularly of the monastic centres in the area), the ethnoarchaeology of food production - have replaced the general field surveys of the first two seasons of the project. The major research problems that are being addressed include: 1. The descriptive reconstruction of the human settle­ ment in the area from prehistoric times onwards and an understanding of the major changes and transformations that took place; 2. The indications if any in the study area, of the beginnings of agriculture and settlement and of the development of major rural and urban settlements in the Protohistoric Period and in Phase I of the Early Historic Period. 3. The character and function of the monastery as a central place, its population, development history and material and other evidence of the exact nature of its relationship with the society around it. 4.The urban form at Sigiriya in the wider context of urbanization in Sri Lanka. * 5. The major changes that took place and the charac­ ter, chronology and causative factors of the gra­ dually decline of central places and of population in the period after about the 13th century. 6. The role played by iron production in the economy of the region and the chronology of this develop­ ment. 7. The character, chronology and technology of va­ rious types of irrigation systems and the manpower inputs involved in the construction of irrigation w- orks. 8. The usefulness of specific contemporary ethnog­ raphic studies in the interpretation of archaeologi cal remains, especially the ethno-archaeology of food production. The archaeological scope of such questions, and the inves­ tigative resources required in addressing them, in the context of the study area itself and in terms of the level of development of Sri Lankan archaeology, defines the intellectual and institu­ tional horizons of the project. The present volume reflects the multi-disciplinary approach and the broad thematic and chronological range that has been achieved in SARCP. It dis­ plays the new perspectives and insights the project has brought to the study of this country’s rich and multi-faceted history, undertaken principally by a new generation of Sri Lankan archaeologists, with the collaboration and assistance of our Swedish colleagues. Future Perspectives The program continues to maintain, in a number of different ways, the momentum generated during the last seven years. Several research dissertations based on or deriving from SARCP fieldwork are in progress. They are scheduled to be completed in 1994-95 and to be published as project monographs. These descriptive and analytical studies will form the project’s most substantial research product. Theoretical syntheses relating the composite and diachronic data generated to broader patterns and long range processes of historical development, on a national, regional and global scale, are also being attempted - without losing the close focus on micro and macro-level fieldwork. In this con­ text, comparative studies in irrigation, palaeo-ecology, ur­ banization, iron production, and the social history of fortifications are underway, at least in an incipient or program­ matic form, and constitute some of the important areas of ongoing and future SARCP research, considerably expanding the project’s intellectual terrain. The potential for such re­ search in two areas of study was assessed recently in a field visit (led by the palaeo-ecologist, Prof. Urwe Miller, of the University of Stockholm) and in a paper read before the Sri Lanka Historical Association (Bandaranayake 1993). The lat­ ter discussed the possibilities of using data concerning irriga­ tion works and monumental remains, on a local or national scale, as useful indicators of cycles of economic development, which could at the same time be related to long-range global processes. The type of projection that might be obtained from the study of monumental remains in the study area were presented in the form of a diagram (Fig.1.16), generated from the combined and partly "guesstimated’ evaluation of three factors - (a) site area; (b) estimated quantities of material and/or labour input; (c) level of technology. In all the technical complexities of SARCP research the human dimensions of archaeology have not been forgotten. While settlement and landscape studies, like all other branches of the discipline, are primarily concerned with the tech­ nicalities involved in the retrieval and analysis of material residues, as well as wider interpretative and theoretical con­ cerns, they are ultimately concerned with people - in the past and in the present. The primary objectives of the program, such as the ’archaeology of the village’, of the neglected base of the social pyramid, the development of national research capabilities and the collegial relationship between Sri Lankan and Swedish archaeologists, have remained in the forefront of day-to-day work. We may use as an elegant and symbolic expression of this concern Maya Upananda’s evocative photograph of a terracotta souvenir sculpture from Sigiriya (Fig. 1.17) in which he has captured for us an intensely per­ sonal glance from the past. Fashioned out of clay, the simplest and most basic of materials taken from the homeground of both the farmer and the archaeologist, this figure expresses the imaginative and individualized sensibilities of an ancient society so profoundly concerned with its art that it wrote poetry about it - the Sigiri graffiti (Priyanka, this volume) - and produced sculptured souvenirs of the well-known Sigiriya paintings. This image reminds us that archaeology is as much about ourselves as it is about trying to understand the ’objective’ societal realities of the past.­ Figure 1:17 Terracotta souvenir sculpture from the Boulder Garden at Sigiriya. 7th-9th centuries AD. These figurines depict the apsaras, the celestrial nymphs in the Sigiriya paintings. They were probably made as souvenirs to be taken away by visitors to the city who came to see the abandoned rock, its palace and the paintings. Photo: Maya Upananda. REFERENCES Adikari, G. Preliminary report on ancient irrigation. Study of the Sigiri Mahavava. PGIAR Ar chive. Cat.No. 93/14. Bandaranayake, S., M. Mogren and S. Epitawatte (eds.). 19- 90. The Settlement Archaeology of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region. Colombo: PGIAR. Bandaranayake, S. 1990. Approaches to the Settlement Ar­ chaeology of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region. In Ban­ daranayake, etaZ. 1990:14-38. Bandaranayake, S. 1993. Sri Lanka in the context of long range patterns of development in world history a note. Paper presented to Sri Lanka Historical Association Re­ search SeminarColombo. Forenius, S. and R. Solangaarachchi (eds.). (in preparation). Approaches to the Ancient Iron Production of the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region. Colombo: PGIAR. Karunaratne, P. and M. Mogren. The Spatial Aspect of Iron Production in the Sigiriya-Dambulla Region. In Forenius, S. and R. Solangaarachchi (eds.) (in preparation). Prematilake, T.R. Palaeobotanical studies in the Sigiriya Region. Paper presented at the seminar on the Archaeology °f Sigiriya. CCF - Sigiriya Project. February 1994. Thanthilage, A. Report on phosphate analysis for tracing set­ tlement patterns in the Sigiri-Potana cave complex. PGIAR Archives. Cat. No. 1992. Wickremesekera, C. 1990a. The Sigiri Oya and Misrfsgoni Oya basins. In Bandaranayake, S., et al. 1990.94-104. Wickremesekera, C. 1990b. A catalogue of villages. In Ban­ daranayake, et a/.1990:159-163.