Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c24.59

c24.59

The most beautiful decoration is put on with wooden stamps (accu), which are of varied form. The simplest are merely blunt wooden chisels with which simple various arrangements of lines are formed, as in Fig. 138, A, B, taken from two pots from Koḷonnāva; in one of these a small triangular stamp is also used. Fig. 138, C, is from another Koḷonnā kaḷageḍiya which is shown in full on Pl. XXV., 3; we have here an elaborate rosette beside some other simpler forms. Fig. 138, D, from the muṭṭiya of Pl. XXV., 5 (from Kuṇḍasāle), and Fig. 139, from Pl. XXV., 1 (from near Balaṅgoḍa), show a still more excellent type of stamped decoration with conventionalized bō-leaf forms in addition to simple lines and rosettes. The kotalaya of Pl. XXV., 8, is also ornamented with bō-leaves and rosettes. The constant application of the bō-leaf decoration in all sorts of Kandyan work is very remarkable; its outline can be recognized sometimes only with difficulty; at other times it is exceedingly obvious. We have already seen certain hanging tiles of this form, and now find it again as a stamp.