Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c7.60

c7.60

There is great charm as one walks along the narrow village paths, in coming suddenly upon some hillside clearing where twenty or thirty men are at work, singing in chorus with an old man leading them; or a party of women weeding and singing as they work across a field with stooping backs in the hot sun. They say that the singing makes the labour less arduous and irksome; no doubt it does. There is a verse in the Makhā Dēva Jātaka, a Sinhalese poem of the thirteenth century, referring to such scenes— "Hundreds of girls he saw, tending the earladen fields of hill-rice, singing sweet songs without fault, wherein his own life was praised." Of agricultural songs I give a few specimens. "In Rayigam Kōrale renowned there grew a famous *tala*-palm, fairer than speech can tell, with various beauty crowned, from village unto village known; fair of hue this palm flower bloomed, as it were lotus petals expanded on the tree." This is part of a reaping song in praise of a *tala* tree (talipot, *Corypha umbraculifera*), a tall and beautiful flowering palm. A sowing song begins as follows: "When the fields are well prepared, which lie round Balagala hill, right quickly then the seed is sown by the four Regents of the Earth." A threshing song contains the following verses: "O bull-king leader of the team, O Vēriya going next him, and Kalāta the bull-calf, make haste to get the threshing ended; I will get your twin horns gilt, deck your pair of ears with pearls, your dew-claws likewise; thus I shall adorn you. Ye bulls that wander by the hillside, yoked together by a woodbine, wearing pearls and coral beads, and eating tender leaves, draw the grain into this threshing floor"; and in another version, "This is not our threshing floor, 'tis the Moon-god's threshing floor; this is not our threshing floor, 'tis the Sun-god's threshing floor . . . etc." The semi-religious character of many of the agricultural songs is very noteworthy. Some, like the last quoted, are associated with elaborate and often beautiful ceremonies, intended to avert disaster, and to secure the growth and successful ingathering of the crop, others belong to that 'pagan' conception of all life as a sacrament, which gives so much beauty and dignity to common things.