Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c21.11

c21.11

We sometimes find that the ivory plaques of door jambs represent not dēvas, but dancing-girls, animals or other subjects. Thus at Riḍi Vihāra, the figures at the dēvāle store-room door are those of dancing-girls (Pl. XXXVIII., 2), those at the side entrance to the lower vihāra verandah are gaja-siṁhayo. Probably such secular subjects are only represented in the case of decorated doors, which are not the actual doors of a sanctuary; for the guardian dēvas are for the protection of the spiritual atmosphere of the sanctuary, and this kind of guardianship is not needed for verandah or store-room doors, where a good lock and key suffice for more worldly guardianship. But it is mainly sanctuary doors on which decoration is lavished without stint; and so magnificent a secular door as that of the dēvāle store-room at Riḍi Vihāra is not to be seen elsewhere. It is shown on Pl. XXXVIII. in Figs. 1 and 2, and represents an extraordinarily high level of attainment in the application of ivory carving to architectural decoration. The contrast of the comparatively plain door, with its ivory and ebony-covered frame, with the once gaily painted wall could not be better conceived; it will be many a long day ere anything so fine is done in Ceylon again. Not all the efforts of the Department of Public Instruction, aided by all the technical schools and Public Works Department's draughtsmen can do what Kīrti Śrī and the royal craftsmen did so easily a hundred and fifty years ago. Indeed, they do not want to do the same thing, and hardly know that they could not. If we consider a capacity for producing and understanding literature and art to be any test of ‘civilisation,’ then, even though we know that Sinhalese art in the eighteenth century is no more than a great and beautiful scheme of peasant decoration, we are driven to feel that in the possession of such skilled craftsmen and in their organic relation to the life of the people, a higher and more beautiful life is indicated than that of which the railway goods-yard and the Governors’ Residences are visible evidence. The purchase of xylonite combs made in Birmingham does not indicate any real advance upon the days when the local craftsmen spent days and weeks on the elaboration of ever varied and beautiful design. It is difficult sometimes to see where the advantage of the modern conditions lies, either economically or ethically.