Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c15.46

c15.46

The chief forms of architectural woodwork have now been noted. The construction is very massive, and would endure indefinitely were it not for the activity of white ants, which is such that it may be doubted if any woodwork really ancient now survives, while such as remains is so generally neglected that it cannot last very much longer. Only last year the ancient Pohoya Maḷuva Vihāra in Kandy had to be pulled down and rebuilt from this cause, as prophecied in “An Open Letter to the Kandyan Chiefs,” an appeal for the better preservation of ancient buildings in Ceylon, published in 1905; a little regular care would have prevented the necessity for this; needless to say no modern work can in any real sense replace the old (for the same reasons that modern Gothic restoration in England cannot replace Mediæval work); which if any one should doubt let him examine the modern ‘Kandyan’ ambalams built by District Engineers at Kēgalla, Ruvanvẹla and Ratnapura.