Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c19.38

c19.38

∗ *This impulse in its extremest art form produces such hieroglyphs as many of the magul lakunu, as shown in Fig. 69. In religion it results in a corresponding asceticism. We feel that the hieroglyphs or symbols are scarcely any longer to be classed as art, so slight is their intrinsic manifestation, and so entirely does the emotional value depend on association. We get a glimpse here again of the nature of the antipathy between religion and art. The former must in the end transcend the latter. Of the golden crowns which must be offered at the throne of truth, before the truth itself is known, art like all else related to time and space, is one. But for most of us, the time is not yet arrived, when we are prepared not merely to refine, but to transcend this life.*