Overview

The Dambulla Rock Temple had first been constructed during the rein of King Vattagamini Abhaya ( 103 BC and 89-77 BC ). The Sinhalese often call him as King Valagamba. During a South Indian invasion the king had to abandon his Anuradhapura Kingdom . For 12 years, King Valagamba was in hiding and had frequented these caves for his safety. After regaining the kingdom of Anuradhapura and becoming the King, to show his gratefulness for his safe place, he converted those caves into Buddhist Temples by constructing walled partitions under the rock overhang which spans the entire area as a single large cave. He got drip ledges made along this large cave and made it suitable to withstand rainy weather and avoided water seeping inside the caved areas. The three cave temples named as Devarajalena, Maharajalena and the Paccimalena were constructed by him.

Sigiriya as a Kingdom was abandoned in around 1150 AD and was almost forgotten for the next seven centuries Though King Kashyapa is not regarded in high esteem in Sri Lankan history due to his dubious conduct, he is credited as a ruler with unsurpassed imagination put into reality to create a Sri Lankan style marvel of high calibre art and engineering skills that could even challange the outer world structures at that time, which definitely is amazing even in the 21st century with whatever is remaining as ruins of Sigiriya. The most renowned is the Sigiriya Rock Paintings or Frescoes of Sigiri Damsels locally called as ' Sigiri Apsaras' painted on a Western Rock face cavity about 100 meters high from the rock base .There now remains around 21 paintings of Sigiriya Damsels but there had been around five hundred paintings during King Kassapa's' time along several other places of the same Western Rock face. Another interesting construction is the Mirror Wall, which is covered with graffiti from the 7th to the 10th centuries AD. These were written by the people came to see Sigiriya during those long years. Coming along the path of the mirror wall, one find the Lion Paw Terrace or Platform. Only two huge Lion's paws are remaining now but earlier there had been an enormous Lion figure or statue at the entrance. Through the Lion's paw stairway, the summit can be reached taking the iron stairway built on to the rock face. On the summit are the remains of the Palace building foundations and few ponds on a area of about 3 acres of rock summit. The largest pond was made by cutting out the rock and it is assumed that utilizing the great wind force occurring on the summit, water was brought up to fill this tank by a hydraulic system using wind power from the ground level.

Tour Map