Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c7.51

c7.51

The villages were to a great degree isolated and self-contained, dependent on the outside world for little but salt. A small external trade in Indian cloth and such things may have been carried on by the Muhammedan ‘tavalam merchants’ who carried goods on pack bulls along the steep and narrow jungle paths that led from village to village. No doubt Hindu and Muhammedan traders resided in Kandy. South Indian printed cottons and gold woven cloths and brocades were purchased by the well-to-do for use as ladies’ robes and for jackets for the chiefs; good specimens of such Indian textiles are even now to be found in the possession of old families. For the dēvāle, printed ceiling cloths with scenes from the purāṇas were needed; these must have come from S. India, or at least from Jaffna, which has still a small trade in printed cotton with the Sinhalese provinces. Trade with the Dutch was a Royal monopoly. Cinnamon, elephants, areca nut, other spices and arrack were the chief items of the trade; money, metals (copper, lead, brass, iron and steel), Indian piece goods, china-ware (sent as presents to the King and his officers of distinction) were the corresponding imports.