Inside a 1,500-Year-Old ‘Pleasure Palace’ ｜ BBC Timestamp

The city of Sigiriya was created by King Kashyapa in the years around 470-480 AD. It is an amazing place, huge in scale covering about 130 hectares, with the street organized in the most regular way. But most amazing, at the heart of the city is a colossal rock which was perched, the fortress and palace. What's immediately clear from the ruins of the city and the remains of the irrigation system is just how sophisticated Sigiriya was. Kashyapa was a Macbeth-type character with the blood of his father on his hands and with a powerful and scheming wife. He built his formidable palace to protect himself from his vengeful brother. This looks like the foundation of a bastion built out of brick, beautiful brick, incredibly hard. This is over 1500 years old and in terms of structure, as good as it was made, incredible stuff. Sigiriya is portrayed as the place of sinful lust and orgiastic delights, a playboy's palace of pleasure in the clouds. It soon becomes clear why Sigiriya has a reputation for being the palace of a sensualist. This is called the cave of heavenly maidens. It's more of a overhang and a cliff face because they're way above ground. There are these beautiful women on the wall painted over 1500 years ago and they're incredibly fresh in their colors and very lively. I would say realistic except maybe a little bit exaggerated in certain departments. Very narrow waists and large cleavage. There were once over 500 of these maidens along this cliff face stretching about 150 meters and 40 meters high. The biggest picture gallery in the But these are the few that survive among the great works of ancient art. Each one is different, each one is powerful, each one carries his own little message but all of them are casting these longing looks which, I tell you what, carry power over the centuries. Look at these girls too long and strange things start to happen. Phew! These delightful females are apsaras, the celestial maidens of Hindu theology. I'm coming around to the idea that King Kasyapa was pursuing some kind of spiritual quest. Halfway up the rock is something quite extraordinary. A pair of lion's feet but a gigantic beast. There they are with massive claws. All that remain of a huge lion rising up there. It had a huge open mouth. Its jaw was the entrance to the palace. People coming here walked into the lion's mouth, literally. Sigiriya means lion's jaw. Significantly, the lion is sacred to Hindus and Buddhists. I'm on the top of the rock and this is the site of the royal palace, enjoying tremendous prospects and wonderful refreshing breeze. Here my theory is confirmed. Sigiriya is laid out in a series of squares. This is divine planning used in the creation of temples to represent the realm of the gods. Kasyapa created a model of a sacred world with himself at its peak. The pool is further evidence of the engineering skills of Sigiriya and is not just the place where the king and his naked nymphs cavorted. It too is holy. Sigiriya remains an enigma. Is it simply a hedonistic pleasure palace or a sacred complex? It depends on how one interprets the evidence. It also raises another intriguing, rather difficult subject, sex and religion. Here we see in those lovely celestial ladies, the apsaras, the epitome of sex and religion in one form. They are celestial maidens that inspire, that lead to great understanding and insights. It's incredible, beautiful they are, but they are celestial. The West may see them simply as titillating, but that's not the point. They are of course titillating, but as a means to an end. Here in the East, it's not really a question of sacred or profane, but sacred and profane. Sex and religion are one thing. Sexual energy is a great, powerful, potent force.