Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c9.2

c9.2

A MORE particular account of the *Ācāri*, *Navandannō*, or caste or guild of artificers proper, will be necessary. The subdivisions of the caste, according to Valentyn, are eleven in number, viz., *acāri*, blacksmiths; *baḍallu*, silversmiths; *vaḍuvō*, carpenters; *liyana vaḍuvō*, turners; *riḍikeṭayankārayō*, damasceners; *eṭatkeṭayankārayō*, ivory carvers and cabinet makers; *galvaḍuvō*, stone cutters; *ratne endra karayō* (?), jewellers; *īvaḍuvō*, arrow makers (lac workers); *sittaru*, painters; *lokuruvō*, founders. But Valentyn’s divisions are rather a list of names given to men who follow particular branches of their craft, than actual caste divisions. The *Janavamsa* merely distinguishes two principal divisions of the caste, viz., (1) *kamburō*, *navandanno* or *acāri*, divided into *lokuruvō*, workers in copper, bronze and brass; *sittaru*, painters; and *svarṇakārayō*, goldsmiths; and including also turners and blacksmiths: and, (2) *vaḍuvō*, carpenters, blacksmiths and masons, including housebuilders, agricultural implement makers (who are also mentioned in the first section) and arrow makers (*īvaḍuvō*, including all lac workers). The existence of a confusion between the two classes is admitted, and appears to have been inevitable as the work of the two to some extent overlapped. It seems likely that the *kamburō* (also spoken of in the *Janavamsa* as *Kammāra Brahmans*) were strictly speaking the imported *kammālar* workmen from the coast, who did fine work as goldsmiths, painters, etc., and that the *vaḍuvō* were the indigenous artificers accustomed only to the ordinary work of building, tool making, etc. Just in the same way there were two groups of weavers, the *beravāyō* who made country cloth (home-spun, so to say) and the ‘chalias’ (*salagamayō*) who were brought over from South India to make fine and gold-woven cloths. Confusion also results from the use of terms in a particular as well as in a general sense. At the present day two main divisions, corresponding in the main with those of the *Janavamsa* form the only real caste division. Those in the higher division (architects, painters, gold and silversmiths, brass repoussers, ivory and wood carvers) called *galladdō*, do not eat or intermarry with those in the lower division, called *vaḍuvō* (ordinary carpenters and turners of wood and ivory, blacksmiths, damasceners, stone carvers and lac workers). The term *vaḍuva* now has the general meaning of ‘carpenter,’ and would hardly be used in speaking of a blacksmith, still less of a goldsmith, but is used in the *Mayamataya* in the sense of ‘architect,’ and together with *sittaruva*, ‘painter,’ refers to men of the superior division. The tailors and embroiderers (*hannali*) and leather workers (*hommarayō*), potters (*baḍahelayō*), weavers of country cloth (*beravāyō*), mat-makers (*kinnarayō*), and makers of whips, cords, and preparers of hides (*roḍiyō*) were of other and inferior caste. These last are only incidentally referred to in the present chapter.