Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c32.19

c32.19

The use of impermanent materials is probably the true explanation of the difficulty. It can be specially illustrated by survival in Ceylon. The Sāriputra states that images may be made from “gold, copper, clay, stone, wood, burnt clay* (brick) or lime.” And, in fact, we find that a majority of images in mediæval and modern vihāras are of brick, metal, or clay, very few of stone. Even when of stone they are always covered with plaster and painted, so that one cannot tell by inspection, of what material the image is really made; only metal images are, as it were, naked. How thoroughly this idea was associated with images is suggested by the description of one of the 32 Maha-purusha-lakshana or superior beauties or teches of the Buddha: “His skin was soft and smooth, as an image polished by the tooth of a tiger.”† One does not polish stone images with tigers' teeth; the comparison, moreover, has an air of antiquity; an early Chinese artist would have understood it. No doubt the early stone statues of Ceylon (Anurādhapura, Kalaveva, Polonnaruva) were also once under cover, plastered and painted. Contrast with their appearance, that of stone sculpture intended to stand as it were naked out of doors, like the elaborately carved dvarpals at Anurādhapura; or of statues executed in marble (like that of ‘Duṭṭha Gāmaṇi’ on the Ruvanvęli Dāgaba platform), which certainly were not intended to be covered by plaster, but only to be painted; in both of these cases the detail and finish of the work is very different and very much finer.