Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c31.23

c31.23

The history of Sinhalese art in post-Aśokan and in mediæval times is mainly one of continual action and interaction with India. During the whole of this period, and until the close of the period of mediæval conditions, the relations between Southern India and Ceylon were similar to those obtaining in the Middle Ages between France and England; continually fluctuating intimate intercourse, now friendly, now hostile, migration of craftsmen to centres of civic activity, or to abandoned sites rebuilt by victorious kings, sometimes with the capture of craftsmen amongst other prisoners; sometimes their importation. Throughout this intercourse, India remained the exhaustless reservoir from which Ceylon was able to draw, whenever it became necessary to renew the traditions which fell into decay in Ceylon, as was from time to time the case. This process of renewal is well brought out in the Janavaṃsa accounts of the history of the crafts in Ceylon. Its results are equally evident in the community of motifs in Sinhalese and Dravidian art. The system of teaching drawing (pp. 64—69, above) is Dravidian, and many common elements of design have been noticed in Chapter IV. A striking instance is afforded by the tree of life in a garlanded frame, Pl. XIV., 4, which is identical in design with the decoration of South Indian *palampores*. The forms of jewellery, as well as the ‘gold leaf’ technique (*tahaḍu kola bemma*) are of South Indian origin. It is by no means easy always to say whether a given piece of jewellery is of South Indian or Sinhalese manufacture.