SACRED ISLAND

Tradition says that Avalokitesvara has 108 names, one of which is Natha and it is under this name that the bodhisattva is still worshipped in Sri Lanka. Though accessible through prayer and supplication to anyone anywhere, Avalokitesvara was believed to abide on a mountain in a remote part of India where, from its lofty and cloud-decked heights, he could be as his name suggests, ‘the regarder of the cries of the world’. This mountain was called Potala.

Hiuen Tsiang traveled through south India in the 7th century and although he was unable to visit Potala himself he left this description of it based on what others had told him. ‘To the east of the Malaya Mountains is Mount Potala. The passes on the mountain are very dangerous; its sides are precipitous and its valleys rugged. On the top of the mountain is a lake; its waters are as clear as a mirror. From a grotto precedes a great river which encircles the mountain twenty times as it flows down to the southern sea. By the side of the lake is a rock palace of the gods. Here Avalokitesvara in coming and going takes his abode. Those who strongly desire to see the bodhisattva do not regard their lives, but fording the streams, climb the mountain forgetful of its difficulties and dangers. Of those who make the attempt there are very few who reach the summit. But even those who dwell below the mountain, if they earnestly pray and beg to behold the god, sometimes he appears as Isvara, sometimes under the form of a yogi, and addresses them with benevolent words and then they obtain their wishes according to their desires’. This description is clearly a blend of fact and fiction, a trend concerning Potala that increased as time went by. Gradually the sacred mountain came to be seen as a kind of magical fairy land, a paradise where rare medical herbs and exquisite flowers grew, where mythological animals frolicked and where those blessed enough to be reborn in Avalokitesvara’s presence abided in bliss. So strong was the desire to visit Mount Potala but so difficult was it to do so that replicas of the holy mountain began to appear. In north India there was one such to the north of Rajagaha and Chinese Buddhists have their own called Putuo Shan in Zhejiang Province. The Sri Lankans created their own replica of Avalokitesvara mountain abode at Sigiriya.

Rising 200 meters above the jungle-covered plain Sigiriya is a huge flat topped rock covered with ruins and represents one of the most astonishing Buddhist complexes ever built. F or at least a century after its rediscovery Sigiriya was thought to be the palace where the patricide King Kassapa I lived in fear of his brother. At least this is the story the Culavamsa tells. But this chronicle was written some seven hundred years after Kassapa and at a time when Mahayana Buddhism had disappeared from Sri Lanka. The chronicler either suppresses Sigiriya’s Mahayana origins, or more likely didn’t know of them. Sigiriya was very clearly a Mahayana monastery and meant to suggests Mount Potala or an imitation of it. The Culavamsa calls the place the Lion Mountain (Sihagiri) but the earlier and probably original name was the Mountain of Remembrance (Sihigiri). Sigiriya functioned as a centre of religion There are numerous caves around the main rock with 24 inscriptions dating from between the 3rd century BCE and the 2nd century CE indicating that it was inhabited by ascetic monks during that period. Later it became a branch of the Abhayagiri and continued to function as a monastery up to at least the 10th century.

Walls and Moat

The mountain, temples and gardens of Sigiriya are surrounded by a series of impressive walls and moats nearly two kilometers long. The outer wall now barely visible in parts was made out of rammed earth and next to which is a moat. Beyond this is a second moat and a wall made out of brick. The inner moat is 80 feet wide, 14 feet deep and lined with stone blocks while the inner wall is made of rubble, stone and earth dug from the moat and is 30 feet high. The main entrance is on the west and was probably approached by a draw bridge. There are other gates through both the northern and southern walls.

The Water Garden

Crossing the inner moat and passing through the inner wall the pilgrim enters what were once a series of extraordinary gardens imitating those on Mount Potala. On the right is a sunken garden, the corresponding part on the left has not yet been excavated. The whole complex is sunken and hard to make out but it seems to have consisted of flower beds and variously shaped ponds at different levels and fed by waterfalls and springs. The main path then leads to second part of the water garden which is 525 feet long, 78 feet wide and leads upward in a series of low terraces. Water stored on the lower slopes of the mountain was fed under pressure through underground pipes into fountains from where it flowed into meandering streams, over small waterfalls and into little pools and ponds. The circular limestone slabs with holes in them are the fountains and after heavy rain they still work. On both side of this garden are two islands which originally had buildings on them, four causeways could approach the outer most of these islands. Further along on the left are several large rectangular brick lined pools with stepped passages leading to them. and on the left is a large octagonal pool , one of its sides formed by a huge rock.

The Rock Garden

The path through the Water Gardens now rises in a series of terraces to the Rock Garden. If the pilgrim makes his or her way towards the south he will eventually come to an immense boulder that had cracked in half. The top side of the half that has broken off and fallen away has been cut into a level floor and has a large low throne carved out of it. Directly below this rock on the west is another throne carved out of a boulder and a cave. On the east side is a narrow paved gallery in which is a small seat facing the rock wall. Like all these seats and thrones this was probably used for meditation.