Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c13.3

c13.3

It should be remembered that in India, stone building was not practised until a little before Aśoka’s time (third century B.C.), and no doubt a knowledge of it came to Ceylon from Northern India along with the Buddhist missionaries; but a wooden style was already well established, and while serving as the model for the work in stone, has never been itself displaced. Buddhist wooden architecture of the same general type is still to be found in Nepal; in most other parts of India it has been replaced by stone.