Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c18.s2.28

c18.s2.28

It is clear that the artistic canons and memory verses cannot have been formulated at a very early period, for they imply the development of Hinduism from and through Buddhism, such as could hardly have taken place before the close of the second century A.D. They appear to be in the main independent of Buddhism; we cannot suppose that any vital tradition, or one concerned mainly with Hindu representations could have been formulated in connection with the weak and effeminate sculpture of the Gandhāra school, perhaps the least truly Indian and artistically least important of all sculpture in India. There is some indication that the Silpa Śastras date from a time subsequent to the decline of Buddhism as the complete expression of national religion. Thus in the Rūpāvaliya, Buddha appears only as one of the ten avatārs of Viṣṇu; and as Rām Rāz suggests,* there is evidence in other works to show that the worship of the Jainas and Buddhists, though still tolerated and provided for in these works, occupied a position of very minor importance in them. But a purely Buddhist canon like the Sāriputra would not have been preserved in India at all after the complete extinction of Buddhism as a separate cult; and it is not likely to have been composed in Ceylon; so that by this line of reasoning also we are thrown back to the fifth century. Another piece of evidence is afforded by the Sukranītisāra,† or ‘Elements of Polity,’ by Sukrācārya, which was translated into Tibetan in the seventh century A.D., and must therefore have been well known in India for a considerable time previous to this. This work contains important chapters on the measurements of images, summarised in part in the table given above, and also a clear presentation of the artistic ideal of the imager himself.