Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c10.s1.5

c10.s1.5

The first copy was the *vaka deka*, or double curve of Fig. 5; the boy had first to trace over and over again the teacher’s copy on the *yaṭi-poruva*. After some control of the hand had thus been acquired, and the form was deeply impressed on the pupil’s mind, he had to draw the same from memory, particular care being taken to show the right feeling in drawing the subtle curve. When he had attained some proficiency the figure was complicated by the addition of ‘wedges’ (*paturu*); then a ‘flower’ (*sina mala*) was added at one end (these are seen in Fig. 6), and finally the *vaka deka* by means of internal divisions and external additions, was made into the designs known as *katuru mala* (Fig. 7), *moṭṭak karuppuva* and *tiringi tale* (talaya or talai*) (Figs. 4 and 8, and Pl. XVII). These are successive complications all based on the original *vaka deka*. The ornament of which the *tiringi tale* is built up is called *liya pata* or *liya pota* (q.v. in Chapter IV). The *tiringi tale* itself is not a form used in decoration, but is rather a ‘tour de force’ or test of skill; when the pupil was able to draw a good example, not from a copy, of course, he was considered to be proficient at this sort of work. A few specially good specimens have been handed down in craftsmen’s families from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; these, like some working drawings for royal jewellery which I have seen, were executed on Dutch paper, which was also used for the very rare illuminated manuscripts. Pattern or copy books (‘*padimakada*’ pot) were regularly used, and I have seen both modern examples, and an early one (Pl. XIV, 1) on Dutch paper. Old copies were often set also on loose sheets of Dutch or other paper, and not in regular books. Sinhalese paper was coarse and ill adapted to fine brush drawing such as that of Fig. 8. English paper came into use later.