Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c8.s1.1

c8.s1.1

In times past the education of boys was carried on by Buddhist priests at the village pansala, the home of the incumbent of the nearest vihāra, just as the village priest taught at the church door in mediæval England. This system has been already referred to, on p. 45 above. At about the age of six the boy was taken to the pansala with an offering for the teacher. At an auspicious hour the teacher took his seat and recited the first line of vowels, beginning with the words *svasti siddham*, ‘let prosperity attend’; the alphabet continues, *ayanu, ayanu*, etc., . . . ending with the words *iti siddhi astu*, ‘so let there be success!’ The alphabet first given to the pupil was written in large characters, in three lines on an ola leaf; afterwards a book was given containing the complete alphabet, including combinations of letters. The letters were learnt by loud repetition in a singsong tone; the pupil stood before the teacher holding the closed book to his forehead and so repeated his lesson. Nothing else was taught until the alphabet could be repeated without fault or hesitation. The form of the letters had next to be systematically learnt, the teacher pointed to the letters and read; ‘the letter ‘a’ is read *ayanu*,” and so on. Writing was only taught after this descriptive repetition was perfectly mastered. Writing was learnt on a narrow board, called *veḷipiḷa*, spread with sand; it stood on four legs, which were sometimes turned and lacquered; the teacher had a carved ivory style (*veḷipiḷa*) with which he traced the sign *sva*, after which he guided the boy’s hand in copying: the boy wrote with his middle finger, supported by the fore-finger and thumb: in this way, little by little, the boy learnt to write the whole alphabet, and by that time he could read short sentences: this might take six months or a year. Ola writing was taught afterwards. The boy was given a long strip of ola, untrimmed, and the teacher wrote large letters on this: the boy was given an *ulkaṭuva*, i.e., a blunt writing style, and with this he traced the letters over and over again till the leaf was cut through; this was called *saṭahan kẹpima*; the boy learnt in this way to exercise a very even pressure. Afterwards he used *karakola* (talipot leaf) not tracing but copying the *guru akuru* (letters written by the teacher) as in a copybook, writing smaller and smaller by degrees: finally he was allowed to use a sharp style (*panhinda*) and to write on *puskola* (prepared talipot leaf).