so reflective that the king could see himself as he walked alongside it. Made of brick masonry and covered in highly polished white plaster, the wall is now partially covered with verses scribbled by visitors, some of them dating from as early as the 8th century. Most, however, date from the 9th and 10th century. People of all walks of life, from poets to provincial governors to housewives, wrote on the wall . Even bhikkhus were not exempt; they wrote poetry on varying subjects such as love, irony, and experiences of all sorts. This is the only evidence of poetry found in the Anuradhapura period. These poems are of high literary value because of their intricate use of symbolism and word-play techniques. One such example is; This lovely couplet shows that the Sinhalese of old were great poets. They not only had a wonderful sense of rhyme and metre, but also resorted to a poetic device we call ‘play on words’ as we see in the combination of hasun (message) with hasun (geese). The poet’s eagerness to hear from his lady love is compared to the bee’s fascination for lotus blooms, whose large petals provide it an easy landing pad to drink its nectar and frolic if it wishes. Out of the 1500 plus poems, most are addressed to the ladies on the frescoes. Men praised their beauty and women shared their envy. A contemporary female, clearly less enamoured with the frescoes, records different, if equally passionate emotions: "A deer-eyed maiden of the mountain side arouses anger in my mind. In her hand she holds a string of pearls, and in her eyes she assumes rivalry with me." Further writing on the mirror wall now has been banned for the protection of the old writings. The Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon, Senarath Paranavithana, deciphered 685 verses written in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries CE on the mirror wall. One such poem from these long-past centuries, බුදල්මි සියොර ආමි සිහිගිරි බැලීමි ගි බොහො ජන ලිතූයෙන් නොලිමි Roughly translated from ancient Sinhala, is: "I am Budal [the writer's name]. Came with hundreds of people to see Sigiriya. Since all the others wrote poems, I did not!" Gardens The gardens of Sigiriya are one of the most important aspects of the site, as they are among the oldest landscaped gardens in the world. The gardens are divided into three distinct but linked forms: