Jun 16th, 2001
Sigirya
Sigirya was built by King Kasyapa sometime during the late 5th Century AD. Although there are several renditions of how Sigirya came to be, most versions agree that Kasyapa was in some way responsible for the death of his Father, King Dhatusena. Shortly after the death of his Father, Kasyapa set about building a palace on the summit of Sigirya.
When I asked Asala why anyone would want to build a palace so difficult to get to, he responded that “Kasyapa had a lot of enemies.”
I thought to myself what a curse, to be so powerful that you could have a palace build on top of a mountain but have so many enemies that you had to isolate yourself there. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad.
There is no consensus as to the identity of the women depicted in the Sigiriya frescoes. The Sri Lankan art historian Ananda K. Coomeraswamy postulated that they may have been “asparas,” similar to angels, because the figures were cut off at their waists by clouds, conversely, the British colonial educationist E.B. Havell believed them to be royal ladies, Kasyapa’s hand-maidens and queens.
Personally, I like the theory espoused by the Sri Lankan historian Martin Wickeramasinghe, who believed that they were royal women playing water sports and that the clouds were actually sea waves. In any debate about the meaning of art, I like the idea that the truth somehow involves topless women playing sports.
