Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c18.s2.23

c18.s2.23

A certain parallel may be drawn between the writing down of the materials of the Silpa Sastras, and those composing the epics of the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the Mahāvamsa. There seems to have been a tendency at this time to put into permanent form, traditions and accumulated learning previously transmitted orally in memory verses.† There is a close correspondence between the literary and the artistic phenomena. Compare, for example, a memory verse from the Rūpāvaliya (e.g. vv. 3 and 4, p. 112, above) with this verse from the Dipavamsa, in which the history of the satsatiya is summarised: “The throne, the Animisa (sanctuary), the cloisters, the Gem-court, the Ajapala (tree), and the Mucalinda (tree) together with the Khirapala grove as the seventh.” In both cases we have mnemonic verses of great brevity, evidently adapted to oral transmission; the artist in each case had to fill in the meagre details, and make the story or the image live.