Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c31.22

c31.22

In architectural matters the relation of Sinhalese art to the Early Buddhist art of Northern India is too obvious to need a detailed commentary. The tasselled ornament of the Meḍagoḍa pillar in the Colombo Museum, goes back to the tasselled *chakra* of Barāhat; and the *makara toraṇa* arch, to the *chaitiya* windows of the Early Buddhist cave temples of India. Again, the wooden *toraṇa*, ‘triumphal arches,’ characteristic of street and gateway decoration for festival occasions, afford one out of many instances of a survival of the use of wood in architectural details; in the gaily ornamented *toraṇa* at the gateway of a *dēvāle* procession path at *perahera* time, we see the prototype of the stone gateways of Sāñchi. The national style of architecture has remained in Ceylon an architecture of wooden construction. Instances of similar survivals of wood construction could be multiplied. This fact, contrasting with the universally stone architecture of Southern India, and of what may fairly be called Hindu buildings in Ceylon (Bereṇḍi Kovil, etc.) again illustrates the survival of Early Hindu culture in Ceylon, better preserved than on the mainland. The influence of later Dravidian architecture is also everywhere apparent.