Unsettling the palace narrative:Dr. Raja de Silva’s Monastic Theory of Sigiriya
by Ari Ariyaratne August 2026 marks the 102nd birth anniversary of Vidya Jyothi Dr. Raja de Silva, the pioneering scientist and former Commissioner of Archaeology (1967–1979), who radically transformed Sri Lanka’s historiographical landscape. Originally trained as a chemist, Dr. de Silva famously saved the vandalised Sigiriya frescoes in 1967 alongside Italian conservator Luciano Maranzi. Yet, […]
On the 102nd birth anniversary of Vidya Jyothi Dr. Raja de Silva, his groundbreaking work in South Asian scholarship is being revisited. Originally a chemist, Dr. de Silva is best known for his preservation efforts in 1967 when he and Italian conservator Luciano Maranzi saved the vandalized Sigiriya frescoes. However, his most significant contribution was his intellectual iconoclasm, which challenged the reliance on ancient literary texts over physical evidence in heritage management.
To fully understand Dr. de Silva's re-interpretation of Sigiriya, it's crucial to first recognize how text-based biases have historically distorted archaeological realities across South Asia. Modern anthropologists now approach monuments as "texts" that are constantly manipulated to construct state-sanctioned historical narratives while silencing minority histories (Ray 2019).
These texts are generally produced by a small, literate elite, such as scribes, priests, and monks, while the archaeological record reflects the lived reality of the broader population.
One of the most prominent examples of this bias is the erasure of the Indus Valley Civilization, which was largely omitted from ancient Indian chronicles that focused on the rural, pastoral Ganges plains. It wasn't until the 1920s that archaeologists discovered Harappa, an urban superpower that predated the Vedic texts (Singh 2008).
Similarly, within Buddhism, different sects manipulated chronicles to downplay rivals, much like the conflict between Theravada and Mahayana traditions. The southern Pali chronicle, the Mahavamsa, completely ignored Ashoka's mission to Sri Lanka, which was documented in northern Sanskrit texts (Laṅkâ).
Dr. de Silva's most iconoclastic critique was directed at the orthodox history of Sigiriya. For centuries, colonial and nationalist archaeology accepted the southern Pali chronicle, the Culara-vamsa, as the definitive account of Sigiriya as the secular royal palace of King Kassapa I. Dr. de Silva, however, used his background in chemical analysis and material conservation to expose this narrative as an ideological invention.
He demonstrated that the site lacked the structural layouts of a functional royal capital or defensive citadel, and instead featured the architecture of a massive, multi-layered Mahayana-Theravada monastic complex that existed long before and after Kassapa's reign. This work highlighted how the Mahavamsa suppressed non-orthodox Mahayana lineages in Sri Lanka, just as it had done with Ashoka's pluralistic Dhamma, which promoted tolerance for non-Buddhist groups (Strong 1983).
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