Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c21.1

c21.1

IT is remarkable that nowhere in India has ivory in mediæval or modern times held a really prominent place amongst the arts and crafts, although its use must date back to a remote antiquity, and where practised, was so well understood. No collection of strictly Indian ivories can compare with that in the Colombo Museum, although individually finer pieces of work are to be found on the mainland. An explanation of this may be found in the Hindu reluctance to make use of animal products, and their view of bones, leather, and other remains of the dead body as unclean. The worship of the tooth-relic, for example, would be quite impossible to a Hindu. With the rarest exceptions, ivory has not been used in India for the fabrication of Hindu images; and even for domestic purposes ivory has not been used as extensively as might have been expected. The Buddhists had no such scruples; we know that they were willing to eat even the flesh of animals slain by others, and in the same way to use animal products. Ivory has always been a comparatively rare and costly material. That ivory was valued very long ago by Buddhists is suggested by Chadanta Jātaka, where a great elephant was robbed of its tusks, and died from the suffering; but this was regarded as a great sin, and held up to execration in the story. In the ordinary way no elephant would have been killed for the sake of its ivory; indeed, the elephant alive would be of greater value.