Some of the most vivid poems in the world are written on a huge rock in a remote forest in Sri Lanka. I have continued to be fascinated by them, by mankind’s endless inventiveness and imagination which yields such strange beauty. It is certainly too late for me now but if I had more than one lifetime that is a place I would want to visit.
The original of these poems were written during the 8th, 9th, and 10th Centuries on the curving wall half-way up the rock fortress of Sigiriya in the central province of Sri Lanka. The songs, incised in the polished stone, relate to mysterious “golden” women in frescoes painted on the high rock above the “mirror wall”. The women seem to be dancing in the clouds. Many are seen to be subtly smiling, full of inner delight and laughter. Twenty of these portraits have survived since the end of the 5th Century.
