A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c9.s2.134

c9.s2.134

The ‘moonstone’, a semicircular slab placed at the foot of a staircase and carved elaborately in low relief, is specially characteristic of, although not absolutely peculiar to, Ceylonese art. The design is always based on the open lotus flower, the pattern being arranged in concentric circles. At Anurādhapura, where some specimens may be very ancient, the standard arrangement is that of an outermost circle with the ‘cobra pattern’, resembling acanthus leaves in effect; then a procession of quadrupeds in a fixed order moving from left to right—horse, elephant, humped bull, and lion; next, a belt of graceful foliage, which is followed by a row of sacred geese, while the central circles represent the lotus in bud, leaf, and flower. The animal symbolism is the same as that of the Asoka pillars, explained above (*ante*, p. 59).³ In later ages the pattern was modified.