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| Sunday, 1 February 2004 |
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Their hearts are hewn of granite by Padma Edirisinghe
Anyway my mind flew back to these excerpts in a place very distant from Sigiri, far down in the South, in the Dutch Fort in Galle. As the setting sun did a lovely dance above the Indian ocean before its final dip, my friends and I sat around a Watch tower of vintage taking us back along a corridor of time about 400 years ago. But alas around us on the strewn slabs was an appalling aura of mediocrity, that is in the chalked scribblings on strewn slabs of stone. The scribblers, needless to say, had been visitors like us, but much younger and imbued with a vandal mentality of desecrating a historically sanctified place. Hearts were drawn in many places with that "I love you" slogan that has come down from the fountain days of human civilization. Strangely not only lovers in Hindi films but our own boys and girls seem to express their love today in English via this pithy statement. That transcends the global sweep or the mysterious attraction of the English Language. That is by the way. Of course the continuity of human civilization rests on what follows that utterance but in that massive site with its moats and ramparts, looming walls musing over the past and watch towers and the whole complex aspiring to an almost landmark of timelessness, the mundane scribblings appeared so trite and mean. There were even ribald remarks that are almost unprintable, which we see today displayed in railway compartments and on public walls and sometimes on public buildings. The latest that transforms the plummeting of human living standards to canine standards is "Urination and throwing of garbage here limited only to dogs." Dogs with permits indeed must be having the last laugh, while both activities continue undeterred. Scribbling seems to run in the blood of humans, scribbling of a high or low standard. It was the urge for scribbling that even led to the invention of writing. The theme of this piece is however the astounding difference between the Sigiri scribblings and the present day scribblings. The Sigiri scribblings belonged roughly to the Anuradhapura period of our history and perhaps a barometer of the decadence of our civilization could be the plummeting down of the standards of these scribblings on Sigiri rock to the present day bawdy scribblings. The Sigiri scribblings or graffiti as they are popularly known etched on the rocks by local sightseers are highly stylized and pithy and express the emotions triggered off by what they came to feast their eyes on. Of course there were non - conformists. Here is one, Budalmi. He introduces himself very tersely. "I am Budal." "Siyova ami" - Came alone but with intent. "Sihigiri baleemi" - Saw sigiri. And in the next two short lines goes on to say, "Since everybody who came here has written on Sigiri, I care not to ape them." These visitors of yore, mostly males, seem to have been captivated by the maddening beauty of the damsels on the Sigiri Mirror Wall, on whom speculations range much as to their identity. To H. C. P. Bell, they were celestial goddesses and to Paranavithana they were symbols of lightening and thunder (Vjjulatha represented by fair damsels and Meghalatha represented by dark damsels) and to other scholars, drawings of the queens of King Kasyapa or simply female pilgrims on their way to pay homage to the Buddha. Who ever these world famed women represented, the male visitors had fallen headlong in love with them and drawn from them no bawdy remarks but very emotive yet refined sentiments. Their imaginations have gone amok at the mere sight generating many a rich poetic piece. "I feast my eyes on them," My eyes and mind are trapped, Sigiri gee 695 - (Here the scribbler or the poet creates an amorous setting by mentioning indications of a bursting spring...) "Breezes waft, Sigiri gee 357 - (The scribblers's riotous imagination infuses life into the Sigiri beauty who takes his fancy) "I feasted my eyes on her (to my heart's content), Sigiri gee 579 - Who imprisons me in Sigiri, Most of the Sigiri gee are of this genre, odes to the celestial or earthly beauties, resonant of love and lust and longing for the inanimate females who have stood on the Rock wall for centuries transforming onlookers to poets with their ravishing charm. But there are some who stray into other themes. For example Sigiri gee 500 has been written by a visitor who finds all this gushing over the place rather amusing. "To the bird whose wings are clipped His little world is such a magnificent place." Perhaps he is a widely travelled local tourist who has probably been to places like Ajantha and Ellora caves of Bharatha Desha and finds Sigiri of comparatively little significance. Even today such species who belittle their own heritage are not uncommon and are very much akin to the wicked clan who is intent on crushing their own species like that peculiar brand of tarantula who eats itself... Incidentally, K. Jayatileka who has authored the book "Sigiri gee nirmana" has put out his latest book charting the course by which the Sinhala nation at present is eating itself. A gloomy future is unfolded if preventive steps are not mooted. And, (this my remark) if that catastrophe just cannot be averted we can at least take solace in the fact that at one distant phase of our saga the race stood high up on the Sigiri rock, mentally and physically as the graffiti reflects. |
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The monumental work titled "Sigiri graffiti' compiled by that
great doyen of archaeology in our island, is certainly an invaluable asset
to one's library but frankly its sheer vast dimensions involve almost
formidable reading. That feat, I have never ventured on. So keeping it as
a showpiece and revering it by mere sight I browsed through Sigiri
excerpts some time back, in two works by K. Jayatileka, a veteran writer
of ours who in turn may have used the above work as a reference.
