ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a selection of some stories in order to demonstrate how the collection of local texts help elucidate what is unclear or unsaid in the Mahavamsa; and even throw a bleak glance at contemporary historical writing on Sigiriya and even more disturbingly on the practice of archaeology. It deals with the classic narration of Sigiriya in chapter 38 of the Mahavamsa entitled ‘The Ten Kings’ dealing with the reign of Dhatusena followed by the next chapter on ‘The Two Kings’ which is about Kashyapa (Kassapa) and Mugalan. According to the Mahavamsa, Kashyapa, in fear of his brother, fled to the great rock of Sigiriya. ‘He cleared the land round about, surrounded it with a wall and built a staircase in the form of a lion’. One of the key issues that emerge from the Mahavamsa history is how Kashyapa could have built Sigiriya within a period of eighteen years.
