Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c19.54.2

c19.54.2

He caused also the great sleeping image to be made with fine brick and mortar and clay, and many other images of Buddha also, sitting and upright. And on the inner wall he caused about a thousand beautiful pictures of the Supreme Buddha to be painted with exquisite art. At the foot of the great sleeping image he caused to be made, in due order, beautiful images of Ānanda, the constant attendant of Buddha and the preserver of the Law, and of Maitri Bodhisatva, of the excellent Nātha Dēva and of the king Duṭṭhagāmanī. And he gilded with gold the five large images of Buddha, and completed the other works that had to be done inside. On the outside wall also, he caused to be painted a beautiful row of figures of Dēvas and Brahmas carrying flowers in their hands, as if they had come to worship. He caused also to be made a large arch, beautiful and pleasant to the sight, and two figures of lions on the two sides of the door, and figures of demons on the spaces between them, in the walls. He also had pictures made of the sixteen principal shrines consisting of Mahiyaṅgana and the rest, and a likeness of the excellent footprint (of Buddha) on the Sacca-baddha Pabbata, and many scenes also, painted with exquisite art from many Jātakas, showing the ten-fold Pārami, the three-fold Cariyā, the five great self-denying sacrifices, and other virtues of the Bodhisatta). And in the hall he caused many pictures to be painted : lions, elephants, and swans, in rows;