Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c31.29

c31.29

The sum of the conclusions so far drawn then is, that there exists in Sinhalese art an early stratum of indispensable barbaric decorative motives, such as are found in savage countries still, and survive everywhere in the art of civilised lands; then a main stream of North Indian Buddhist influence; and thereafter the influence of continued reliance upon and intercourse with India, especially Southern India, accounting at every period for the strong admixture of purely Hindu with Buddhist motifs. The independent influence of China may have been considerable at certain periods, and was also exerted at second hand through India. Malayan influence is suggested in the elongated triangles described on p. 106. Muhammadan influence on Sinhalese art has been of the slightest,‡ and on this account Sinhalese art is of particular value as preserving Early Hindu feeling which in most parts of the mainland has been obscured by Muhammadan or later Hindu motifs. Sinhalese decorative art is thus in a sense both freer and wider than that of Northern India in later times, and gentler, less grotesque, more akin to mediæval European, than the Dravidian art of Southern India, to which it is, nevertheless, so closely related.