The title translates as "Sigiri folklore", and that is the subject: the body of traditional story and oral lore attached to Sigiriya, the rock fortress in the Matale District that remains one of the best-known sites in Sri Lanka. The National Library of Sri Lanka catalogues the book under folklore.
The text is in Sinhala throughout. There is no English translation within the volume, so readers who do not read Sinhala will not be able to use it. For anyone who does — students of Sri Lankan oral tradition, collectors of Sinhala scholarly writing, or readers with a particular interest in Sigiriya — it sits in a recognisable tradition of Sinhala folklore studies published for a local readership rather than written for export.
The author, Professor Ananda Tissa Kumara, spent the greater part of his academic career at the University of Colombo. His published work includes Vanni Rajavaliya and Ravana Rajavaliya saha Upath Katha, both of which, like this title, deal with Sinhala chronicle and legendary material. That body of work gives some indication of his interests: the written and spoken traditions that carry Sri Lankan dynastic and local history outside the formal chronicles.
The publisher is S. Godage and Brothers, the Colombo house that issues a wide range of Sinhala-language scholarship, fiction and general non-fiction, and whose imprint appears on a great many of the academic and popular titles produced in Sinhala. Books of this kind are printed for the domestic market and are not always easy to find outside Sri Lanka, which is the main reason to order a copy rather than wait to come across one.
This is a slim volume rather than a reference work, plainly produced in the manner usual for Sinhala academic publishing. Buyers outside Sri Lanka should be clear on the language point before ordering; those who read Sinhala will find a focused treatment of the folklore of a single, much-studied place by a scholar who has written repeatedly on related material.
- Author: Prof Ananda Thissa Kumara
- Publisher: Godage International Publishers
- Language: Sinhala
- Pages: 104
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