Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c31.15

c31.15

It is perhaps hardly possible to say more than that there survive in Sinhalese art a large number of decorative motifs of archaic character. The most striking group of these occurs on the decorated pottery made at Keḷaniya, Mātara, etc. The most characteristic of these forms are shown in Fig. 137, B-E. With these may be associated the lac-work design of Fig. 133 and the archaic motifs of the woven belt of Pl. XXIX., 7. Of similarly archaic character are the simple forms of spiral and vine or branch (Fig. 150, C); affrontment (Fig. 150, D); lotus derivatives like Fig. 150, E and F, directly comparable with Egyptian and Mediterranean equivalents; the alternation of elements in ‘knop and flower’ motifs (Fig. 150, B); and the cross-hatched ‘daisy’ or ‘pine-apple’ (Fig. 150, A). These motifs have a common origin in an art which we may call Early Asiatic or Indo-European; they are the decorative analogues of the community of primitive religious conceptions in East and West, and of the fundamental common motifs in Aryan folklore. The subject of their origin is again referred to in the Appendix to this chapter.