Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c34.7

c34.7

P. 63. *Former greatness and continuity of Indian art and craft.* “Too little effort has been spent in reconstructing the idea of that great splendour and activity which must have existed, in order to leave such wreckage as it has to a later age.” These words of Okakura (‘Ideals of the East, 2nd ed., p. 76), though written originally in a slightly different connection, hold good here also, for the surviving arts and crafts in India are indeed but the wreckage of a former magnificence.