Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c32.23

c32.23

in Ceylon—the wax images of Rīrī yaka used in huniyan ceremonies; and the mud images, sometimes with a wicker foundation, used in bali and yak ceremonies. An instance of the use of precious metal and impermanent material combined is afforded by the gold-plated clay images from an old dāgaba near Kurunēgala, now in the Colombo Museum. Thus we are able to trace in Sinhalese art as known to us, a survival of the Early Asiatic use of impermanent materials (wood, clay, or brick), or of metal, but not stone, for making images; we trace it not only in the present use of those materials to construct entire images, but also in the fact that even stone images are covered with plaster and painted. Similar survivals, such as colossal mud images, floor diagrams, etc., can be traced in India also. It becomes, therefore, unreasonable to say, as Grünwedel does,* that all Early Buddhist sculpture was colossal and in stone, and only in the Middle Ages became “a miniature manufacture in different materials—wood and clay in place of stone, and later in metal casts.” It would be much truer to say that just as wooden building preceded stone construction, so also the use of wood and brick and clay for figure sculpture must in general have preceded that of stone; and even in the case of images of Buddha, these materials must have been made use of from the beginning, and also, as at present, contemporaneously with the use of stone. The absence of stone statues is no more evidence of the absence of statues of wood or clay, than the absence of stone buildings is evidence of the absence of buildings of wood or mud.