Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c13.6

c13.6

The house itself was built on a stone and mud foundation raised above the ground level; this foundation, smoothly plastered and cowdunged, formed the floor and inner verandah, and projected outside the walls as a narrow ledge or outer verandah (*pila*), used to sleep or sit on. The houses of great persons only differed from those of lesser men by having more rooms and courtyards, better timber, the beam ends and verandah pillars and their brackets sometimes carved, and in a very few cases only, a tiled roof. Fig. 70 shows the house of a small cultivator or yeoman, having two rooms besides the inner verandah, and granary (atuva) on stone pillars; such a house may have been built in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century; few if any houses older than the eighteenth century survive. One of the most notable of old valavvas is that of Maḍuvanvela, a chieftain of ancient family and still powerful; the house has been somewhat altered and added to, but retains many old features including the massive doors showing the marks of Dutch bullets. Almost the only old house in Kandy itself is the Girihāgama valavva, but even that is much altered and spoilt.*