Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c18.13

c18.13

I do not give the text and translation of the Sāriputra in full, as they deserve separate publication elsewhere. The parts of the translation omitted are the astrological details, some of the more minute measurements, and some of the verses of which the exact meaning is not clear. The second part of the work (as found in the Colombo Museum ms.) treating in particular of standing, seated, and reclining images of Buddha, is here first dealt with; afterwards the first or general part and a further gloss accompanying it. The work is not now well known either by imagers and painters or by the priesthood in the low-country, but is familiar to the best craftsmen in the Kandyan districts. The diagram (Pl. XXVII. and Fig. 95) of a seated image is drawn by D. S. Muhandiram to illustrate the use of plumb lines, and to show the appearance of a correctly measured image. The chief point to be comprehended is the use of the lines: a framework, of which a plan appears in the top left hand corner of the figure, and another (Fig. 94), taken from an actual example given to me by the same artist and now in my possession, in the text, is fixed horizontally over the place where the image is to be made, and the plummets suspended from it. The plumb lines so hung serve as axes of reference, determining the position of the chief parts of the body. They act as a simple ‘pointing machine.’ The lines shown in the diagram are those generally relied upon by Kandyan workmen, but others are available if still more exact work is required, or if the size of the image is so great as to make their use advisable. The ‘karṇa sūtra’ of the diagram is the ‘pārśva sūtra’ of the text, which latter is probably correct. The height is reckoned at 5 ‘faces’ from top of forehead to throne, i.e. 67½ inches, an approximation used, it is said, in small work instead of the 62 inches of the canon.