THE FINE ARTS.
MUSIC.—The science and practice of the fine arts were never very highly developed amongst a people whose domestic refinement became arrested at a very early stage; and whose efforts in that direction were almost wholly confined to the exaltation of the national faith, and the embellishment of its temples and monuments.
Their knowledge of music was derived from the Hindus, by whom its study was regarded as of equal importance with that of medicine and astronomy; and hence amongst the early Singhalese, along with the other "eighteen sciences,"[1] music was taught as an essential part of the education of a prince.[2]
1: This fact is curious, seeing that at the present day the cultivation of music belongs to one of the lowest castes in Ceylon.
2: Mahawanso, ch. lxiv.; UPHAM'S version, p. 256. An ingenious paper on Singhalese Music, by Mr. Louis Nell, is printed in the Journ. of the Ceylon branch of the Roy. Asiat. Soc. for 1856-8; p. 200.
But unlike the soft melodies of Hindustan, whose characteristic is their gentle and soothing effect, the music of the Singhalese appears to have consisted of sound rather than of harmony; modulation and expression having been at all times subordinate to volume and metrical effect.
Reverberating instruments were their earliest inventions for musical purposes, and those most frequently alluded to in their chronicles are drums, resembling the tom-toms used in the temples to the present day. The same variety of form prevailed then as now, and the Rajavali relates, in speaking of the army of Dutugaimunu, that in its march, the "rattling of the sixty-four kinds of drums made a noise resembling thunder breaking on the rock from behind which the sun rises."[1] The band of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 307, was called the talawachara, from the multitude of drums[2]: chank-shells contributed to swell the din, both in warfare[3] and in religious worship[4]; choristers added their voices[5]; and the triumph of effect consisted in "the united crash of every description, vocal as well as instrumental"[6] Although "a full band" is explained in the Mahawanso to imply a combination of "all descriptions of musicians," no flutes or wind instruments are particularised, and the incidental mention of a harp only occurs in the reign of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 161.[7] JOINVILLE says, that certain musical principles were acknowledged in Ceylon at an early period, and that pieces are to be seen in some of the old Pali books in regular notation; the gamut, which was termed septa souere, consisting of seven notes, and expressed not by signs, but in letters equivalent to their pronunciation, sa, ri, ga, me, qa, de, ni.[8] At the present day, harmony is still superseded by sound, the singing of the Singhalese being a nasal whine, not unlike that of the Arabs. Flutes, almost insusceptible of modulation, chanks, which give forth a piercing scream, and the overpowering roll of tom-toms, constitute the music of the temples; and all day long the women of a family will sit round a species of timbrel, called rabani, and produce from it the most monotonous, but to their ear, most agreeable noises, by drumming with the fingers.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND
MODERN SINGHALESE TOM-TOM BEATERS.
1: Rajavali, pp. 217, 219. At the present day, there are four or five varieties of drums in use:—the tom-tom or tam-a-tom, properly so-called, which consists of two cylinders placed side by side, and is beaten with two sticks;—the daelle, a single cylinder struck with a stick at one end, and with the hand at the other,—the oudaelle, which is held in the left hand, and struck with the right;—and the berri, which is suspended from the beater's neck, and struck with both hands, one at each end, precisely as a similar instrument is shown in some of the Egyptian monuments.
2: Mahawanso, ch. xvii, p. 104.
3: B.C. 161. Mahawanso, ch. xxv, p. 154.
4: B.C. 20. Rajavali, p. 51.
5: Mahawanso, ch. xxv. p. 157.
6: Mahawanso, ch. xxvi. 186.
7: Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 180. The following passage in UPHAM'S translation of the Mahawanso, ch. lxxii. vol. i. p. 274, would convey the idea that the Æolian harp was meant, or some arrangement of strings calculated to elicit similar sounds:—"The king Prakrama built a palace at the city of Pollanarrua; and the stone works were carved in the shape of flowers and creeping plants, with golden networks which gave harmonious sounds as if they were moved by the air."
8: JOINVILLE, Asiat. Researches, vol. vii. p. 488.
Painting.—Painting, whether historical or imaginative, is only mentioned in connection with the decoration of temples, and no examples survive of sufficient antiquity to exhibit the actual state of the art at any remote period. But enough is known of the trammels imposed upon all art, to show that from the earliest times, imagination and invention were prohibited by the priesthood; and although execution and facility may have varied at different eras, design and composition were stationary and unalterable.
Like the priesthood of Egypt, those of Ceylon regulated the mode of delineating the effigies of their divine teacher, by a rigid formulary, with which they combined corresponding directions for the drawing of the human figure in connection with sacred subjects. In the relics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, we find "that the same formal outline, the same attitudes and postures of the body, the same conventional modes of representing the different parts, were adhered to at the latest, as at the earliest periods. No improvements were admitted; no attempts to copy nature or to give an air of action to the limbs. Certain rules and certain models had been established by law, and the faulty conceptions of early times were copied and perpetuated by every succeeding artist."[1]
1: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. ch. x. p. 87, 264.
The same observations apply, almost in the same terms, to the paintings of the Singhalese. The historical delineations of the exploits of Gotama Buddha and of his disciples and attendants, which at the present day cover the walls of the temples and wiharas, follow, with rigid minuteness, pre-existing illustrations of the sacred narratives. They appear to have been copied, with a devout adherence to colour, costume, and detail, from designs which from time immemorial have represented the same subjects; and emaciated ascetics, distorted devotees, beatified simpletons, and malefactors in torment are depicted with a painful fidelity, akin to modern pre-Raphaelitism.
Owing to this discouragement of invention, one series of pictures is so servile an imitation of another, that design has never improved in Ceylon; one scene is but the facsimile of a previous one, and each may almost be regarded as an exponent of the state of the art at any preceding period.[1]
1: The Egyptians and Singhalese were not, however, the only authorities who overwhelmed invention by ecclesiastical conventionalism. The early artists of Greece were not at liberty to follow the bent of their own genius, or to depart from established regulations in representing the figures of the gods. In the middle ages, the influence of the churches, both of Rome and Byzantium, was productive of a similar result; and although the Latins early emancipated themselves, the painters of the Greek church, to the present hour, labour under the identical trammels which crippled art at Constantinople a thousand years ago. M. DIDRON, who visited the churches and monasteries of Greece in 1839, makes the remark that "ni le temps ni le lieu ne font rien à l'art Grec: au XVIIIe siècle, le peintre Moréote continue et calque le peintre Vénétien du Xe, le peintre Athonite du Ve ou VIe. Le costume des personnages est partout et en tout temps le même, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et l'épaisseur des plis. On ne saurait pousser plus loin l'exactitude traditionnelle, l'esclavage du passé." (Manuel d' Iconographie Chrétienne Grecque et Latin, p. ix.) The explanation of this fact is striking. Mount Athos is the grand manufactory of pictures for the Greek churches throughout the world; and M. DIDRON found the artists producing, with the servility and almost the rapidity of machinery, endless facsimiles of pictures in rigid conformity with a recognised code of instructions drawn up under ecclesiastical authority and entitled [Greek: Ermêneia tês Zographikês], "The Guide for Painting," a literal translation of which he has published. This very curious manuscript contains minute directions for the figures, costume, and attitude of the sacred characters, and for the preparation of many hundreds of historical subjects required for the decoration of churches. The artist, when solicited by M. Didron to sell "cette bible de son art," naively refused, on the simple ground that "s'il se dépouillait de ce livre, il ne pourrait plus rien faire; en perdaut son Guide, il perdait son art, il perdait ses yeux et ses mains" (ib. p. xxiii.). It was not till the fifteenth century that the painters of Italy shook themselves free of the authority of the Latin church in matters of art. The second council of Nice arrogates to the Roman church the authority in such matters still retained by the Greek; "non est imaginum structura pictorum inventio sed ecclesiæ catholicæ probata legislatio et traditio." In Spain, the sacro-pictorial law, under the title of Pictor Christianus, was promulgated, in 1730, by Fray Juan de Ayala, a monk of the order of Mercy; and such subjects are discussed as the shape of the true cross; whether one or two angels should sit on the stone by the sepulchre? and whether the Devil should be drawn with horns and a tail? In the National Gallery of London there is a painting of the Holy Family by Benozzo Gozzoli, and Sir Charles L. Eastlake has permitted me to see a contract between the painter and his employer A.D. 1461, in which every figure is literally "made to order," its attitude bespoke, and its place in the composition distinctly agreed for. One clause, however, contemplates progress, and binds the painter to make the piece his chef-d'oeuvre—"che detta dipentura exceda ogni buona dipintura infino aqui facto per detto Benozzo."
Hence even the most modern embellishments in the temples have an air of remote antiquity. The colours are tempered with gum; and but for their inferiority in drawing the human figure, as compared with the Egyptians, and their defiance of the laws of perspective, their inharmonious tints, coupled with the whiteness of the ground-work, would remind one of similar peculiarities in the paintings in the Thebaid, and the caves of Beni Hassan.
Fa Hian describes in the fourth century precisely the same series of subjects and designs which are delineated in the temples of the present day, and taken from the transformation of Buddha. With hundreds of these, he says, painted in appropriate colours and executed in imitation of life, the king caused both sides of the road to be decorated on the occasion of religious processions.[1]
1: Foe Koue Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.
Amongst the most renowned of the Singhalese masters, was the King Detu Tissa, A.D. 330, "a skilful carver, who executed many arduous undertakings in painting, and taught it to his subjects. He modelled a statue of Buddha so exquisitely that he seemed to have been inspired; and for it he made an altar, and gilt an edifice inlaid with ivory."[1] Among the presents sent by the King of Ceylon (A.D. 459) to the Emperor of China, the Tsih foo yuen kwei, a chronicle compiled by imperial command, particularises a picture of Buddha.[2] The colours employed in decorating their temples are mixed in tempera, as were those used in the ancient paintings in Egypt; the claim of the Singhalese to the priority of invention in the mixture of colours with oil, is adverted to elsewhere.[3]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 242.
2: B. li. p. 7.
3: See the chapter on the Fine Arts, [Vol. I. p. 490.]
Sculpture.—In style Singhalese sculpture was even more conventional and less imaginative than their painting; since the subjects to which it was confined were almost exclusively statues of Buddha[1], and its efforts were mere repetitions of the three orthodox attitudes of the great archetype—sitting, as when in deep meditation, under the sacred Bo-tree; standing, as when exhorting his multitudinous disciples; and reclining, in the enjoyment of the everlasting repose of "nirwana." In each and all of these the details are identical; the length of the ears, the proportions of the arms, fingers, and toes; the colour of the eyes, and the curls of the hair[2] being repeated with wearisome iteration. To such an extent were these multiplied, and with an adherence so rigid to the same recognised models, that the Rajavali ventures to ascribe to one king the erection of "seventy-two thousand statues of Buddha," an obvious error[3], but indicative, nevertheless, that the real amount must have been prodigious, in order to obtain credence for the exaggeration. Many other sovereigns are extolled in the national annals, who rendered their reigns illustrious by the multiplicity of statues which they placed in the temples. It was doubtless from this incessant study of one and the same figure, that the artists of Ceylon attained to a facility and superiority in producing statues of Buddha, that rendered them famous throughout the countries of Asia, in which his religion prevailed. The early historians of China speak in raptures of works of this kind, obtained from Singhalese sculptors in the fourth and fifth centuries; they were eagerly sought after by all the surrounding nations; and one peculiarity in their execution consisted in so treating the features, that "on standing at about ten paces distant they appeared truly brilliant, but the lineaments gradually disappeared on a nearer approach."[4]
1: Mention is made of a figure of an elephant (Rajavali, p. 242), and of a horse (Mahawanso, ch. xxxix. TURNOUR'S manuscript translation), and a carved bull as amongst the ruins of Anarajapoora.
2: M. ABEL REMUSAT has devoted a section of his Melanges Asiatiques, 1825; vol. i. p. 100, to combating the conjecture of Sir W. JONES in his third Dissertation on the Hindus, drawn from the curled or rather the woolly hair represented in his statues, that Buddha drew his descent from an African origin. (Works, vol. i. p, 12.) Another ground for Sir. W. JONES'S conjecture was the large ears which are usually characteristic of the statues of Buddha. But it is curious that one of the peculiar features ascribed to the Singhalese by the early Greek writers was the possession of pendulous ears, possibly occasioned by their heavy ear-rings.
3: Rajavali, p. 255. Most of these were built of terra-cotta and cement covered with chunam, preparatory to being painted. See [p. 478.]
4: Wei shoo, a "History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," written A.D. 590. B. cxiv. p. 9.
The labours of the sculptor and painter were combined in producing these images of Buddha, which are always coloured in imitation of life, each tint of his complexion and hair being in religious conformity with divine authority, and the ceremony of "painting of the eyes,"[1] is always observed by the devout Buddhists as a solemn festival.
1: Mahawanso, ch. lxxii.; UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 275.
Many of the works which were thus executed were either golden[1] or gilt, with brilliants inserted in the eyes, and the draperies enriched with jewels.[2] Fa Hian in the fourth century, speaks of a figure of Buddha upwards of twenty-three feet in height, formed out of blue jasper, and set with precious stones, that sparkled with singular splendour, and which bore in its right hand a pearl of priceless value.[3] This may possibly have been the statue of which the Mahawanso speaks in like terms of admiration: "the eye formed by a jewel from the royal head-dress, each curl of the hair by a sapphire, and the lock in the centre of the forehead by threads of gold."[4]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxx. pp. 180, 182; Rajaratnacari, pp. 47, 48; Rajavali, p. 237.
2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 258.
3: "Parmi toutes les choses précieuses qu'on y voit, il y a une image de jaspe bleu haute de deux tchang: tout son corps est formé des sept choses précieuses; elle est étincellante de splendeur et plus majestueuse qu'on ne saurait l'exprimer. Dans la main droite elle tient une perle d'un prix inestimable."—Foe Koue Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.
4: A.D. 459. Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 258. Another statue of gold, with the features and members appropriately coloured in gems, is spoken of in the second century B.C. (Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 180.)
Ivory also and sandal-wood[1], as well as copper and bronze, served as materials for statues; but granite was the substance most generally selected, except in the rare instances where the temple and the statue together were hewn out of the living rock, on which occasions gneiss was most generally selected. Such are the statues at Pollanarrua, at Mihintala, and at the Aukana Wihara, near Wijittapoora. A still more common expedient, which is employed to the present time, was to form the figures of Buddha with pieces of burnt clay joined together by cement; and coated with highly polished chunam, in order to prepare the surface for the painter. In this manner were most probably produced the "seventy-two thousand statues" ascribed to Mihindo V.
1: Rajaratnacari, p. 72.
Figures of elephants were similarly formed at an early period.[1] An image of Buddha so composed in the 12th century, is still standing at Pollanarrua[2], and every temple has one or more effigies, either sedent, erect, or recumbent, carefully modelled in cemented clay, and coloured after life.
1: A.D. 432. Rajaratnacari, p. 74.
2: Possibly the "standing figure of Buddha" mentioned in the Rajavali, p. 253.
Architecture.—In Ceylon, as in Egypt, Assyria, and India, the ruins which survive to attest the character of ancient architecture are exclusively sacred, with the exception of occasional traces of the residences of theocratic royalty; but everything has perished which could have afforded an idea of the dwellings and domestic architecture of the people. The cause of this is to be traced in the perishable nature of the sun-dried clay, of which the walls of the latter were composed. Added to this, in Ceylon there were the pride of rank and the pretensions of the priesthood, which, whilst they led to lavish expenditure of the wealth of the kingdom upon palaces and monuments, and the employment of stone in the erection of temples[1] and monasteries, forbade the people to construct their dwellings of any other material than sun-baked earth.[2] This practice continued to the latest period; and nothing struck the British army of occupation with more surprise on entering the city of Kandy, after its capture in 1815, than to find the palaces and temples alone constructed of stone, whilst the streets and private houses were formed of mud and thatch.
1: Rajaratnacari, pp. 78, 79.
2: Rajavali, p. 222.
Though stone is abundant in Ceylon, it was but sparingly used in the ancient buildings. Squared stones[1] were occasionally employed, but large slabs seldom occur, except in the foundations of dagobas. The vast quantity of material required for such structures, the cost of quarrying and carriage, and the want of mechanical aids to raise ponderous blocks into position, naturally led to the substitution of bricks for the upper portion of the superstructure.
1: Rajavali, p. 210; VALENTYN, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, ch. iii. p. 45.
There is evidence to show that wedges were employed in detaching the blocks in the quarry, and the amount of labour devoted to the preparation of those in which strength, irrespective of ornament, was essential, is shown in the remains of the sixteen hundred undressed pillars[1] which supported the Brazen Palace at Anarajapoora, and in the eighteen hundred stone steps, many of them exceeding ten feet in length, which led from the base of the mountain to the very summit of Mihintala. A single piece of granite lies at Anarajapoora hollowed into an "elephant trough," with ornamental pilasters, which measures ten feet in length by six wide and two deep; and amongst the ruins of Pollanarrua a still more remarkable slab, twenty-five feet in length by six broad and two feet thick, bears an inscription of the twelfth century, which records that it was brought from a distance of more than thirty miles.
1: The Rajavali states that these rough pillars were originally covered with copper, p. 222.
COLUMN AT
ANARAJAPOORA.
The majority of the columns at Anarajapoora are of dressed stone, octangular and of extremely graceful proportions. They were used in profusion to form circular colonnades around the principal dagobas, and the vast numbers which still remain upright, are one of the peculiar characteristics of the place, and justify the expression of Knox, when, speaking of similar groups elsewhere, he calls them a "world of hewn stone pillars."[1]
1: Knox, Relation, vol. v. pt. iv. ch. ii. p. 165.
Allusions in the Mahawanso show that extreme care was taken in the preparation of bricks for the dagobas.[1] Major SKINNER, whose official duties as engineer to the government have rendered him familiar with all parts of Ceylon, assures me that the bricks in every ruin he has seen, including the dagobas at Anarajapoora, Bintenne, and Pollanarrua, have been fired with so much skill that exposure through successive centuries has but slightly affected their sharpness and consistency.
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxviii. p. 165; ch. xxix. p. 169, &c.
The sand for mortar was "pounded, sifted, and ground on a grinding-stone;"[1] the "cloud-coloured stones,"[2] used to form the immediate receptacle in which a sacred relic was enclosed, were said to have been imported from India; and the "nawanita" clay, in which these were imbedded, was believed to have been brought from the mythical Anotattho lake in the Himalayas.[3]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 175.
2: The "cloud-coloured stone" may possibly have been marble, but no traces of marble have been found in the ruins. Diodorus, in describing some of the monuments of Egypt alludes to a "party-coloured" stone, [Greek: lithon poikilon], which likewise remains without identification.—Diodorus, l. i. c. lvii.
3: Mahawanso, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 179.
Dagobas.—The process of building the Ruanwellé dagoba is thus minutely described in the Mahawanso: "That the structure might endure for ages, a foundation was excavated to the depth of one hundred cubits, and the round stones were trampled by enormous elephants, whose feet were protected by leather cases. Over this the monarch spread the sacred clay, and on it laid the bricks, and over them a coating of astringent cement, above this a layer of sand-stones, and on all a plate of iron. Over this was a large pholika (crystallised stone), then a plate of brass, eight inches thick, embedded in a cement made of the gum of the wood-apple tree, diluted in the water of the small red coco-nut."[1]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 178. The internal structure of the Sanchi tope at Bilsah in Central India presents the arrangement here described, the bricks being laid in mud, but externally it is faced with dressed stone.
The shape of these huge mounds of masonry was originally hemispherical, being that best calculated to prevent the growth of grass or other weeds on objects so sacred. Dutugaimumi, according to the Mahawanso, when about to build the Ruanwellé dagoba, consulted a mason as to the most suitable form, who, "filling a golden dish with water, and taking some in the palm of his hand, caused a bubble in the form of a coral bead to rise on the surface; and he replied to the king, 'In this form will I construct it.'"[1]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 175. This legend as to the origin of the semicircular form of the dagoba is at variance with the conjecture of Major FORBES, that these vast structures were merely an advance on the mounds of earth similar to the barrow of Halyattes, which in the progress of the constructive arts, came to be converted into brickwork.—Eleven Years in Ceylon, v. i. p. 222.
Two dagobas at Anarajapoora, the Abay-a-giri and Jeyta-wana-rama, still retain their original outline,—the Ruanwellé, from age and decay, has partly lost it,—and the Thupa-ramaya is flattened on the top as if suddenly brought to a close, and the Lanka-ramaya is shaped like a bell.
Monasteries and Wiharas.—According to the annals of Ceylon the construction of dwellings for the devotees of Buddha preceded the erection of temples for his worship. Originally the anchorite selected a cave or some shelter in the forest as his place of repose or meditation.[1] In the Rajavali Devenipiatissa is said to have "caused caverns to be cut in the solid rock at the sacred place of Mihintala;"[2] and these are the earliest residences for the higher orders of the priesthood in Ceylon, of which a record has been preserved. A less costly substitute was found in the erection of detached huts of the rudest construction, in winch may be traced the embryo of the Buddhist monastery; and the king Walagambahu was the first, B.C. 89, to gather these scattered residences into groups and "build wiharas in unbroken ranges, conceiving that thus their repairs would be more easily effected."[3]
1: Mahawanso c. xxx. p. 174.
2: Rajavali, p. 184.
3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii. p. 207.
Simplicity and retirement were at all times the characteristics of these retreats, which rarely aspired to architectural display; and the only recorded instance of extravagance in this particular was the "Brazen Palace" at Anarajapoora, with its sixteen hundred columns; an edifice which, though nominally a dwelling for the priesthood, appears to have been in reality a vast suite of halls for their assemblies and festivals, and a sanctuary for the safe custody of their jewels and treasure.[1]
1: Mahawanso, ch, xxvii. p. 103. Like the "nine-storied" pagodas of China, the palace of "the Lowa Maya Paya" was originally nine stories in height, and Fergusson, from the analogy of Buddhist buildings in other countries, supposes that these diminished in succession as the building arose, till the outline of the whole assumed the form of a pyramid. (Handbook of Architecture, b. i. ch. iii. p. 44.) In this he is undoubtedly correct, and a building still existing, though in ruins, at Pollanarrua, and known as the Sat-mal-pasado, or the "seven-storied palace," probably built by Prakrama, about the year 1170, serves to support his conjecture. See a description of it, part x. ch. i, vol. ii.
Allusions are occasionally made to other edifices more or less fantastic in their design and structure, such as "an apartment built on a single pillar,"[1] a "house of an octangular form," built in the 12th century[2], and another of an "oval," shape[3], erected by Prakrama I.
1: B.C. 504, Mahawanso, ch. ix, p. 56; ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, p. 274.
2: Rajaratnacari, p. 105.
3: Mahawanso, ch. lxxii, UPHAM'S version, p. 274.
Palaces.—The royal residences as they were first constructed, must have consisted of very few chambers, since mention is made in the Mahawanso of the earliest, which contained "many apartments," having been built by Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437.[1] But within two centuries afterwards, Dutugaimunu conceived the magnificent idea of the Loha Pasada, with its quadrangle one hundred cubits square, and a thousand dormitories with ornamental windows.[2] This palace was in its turn surpassed by the castle of Prakrama I. at Pollanarrua, which, according to the Mahawanso, "was seven stories high, consisting of five thousand rooms, lined with hundreds of stone columns, and outer halls of an oval shape, with large and small gates, staircases, and glittering walls."[3]
1: Ibid., ch. x. p. 66.
2: Ibid., ch. xxvii, p. 163.
3: Mahawanso, ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, p. 274.
In what now remains of these buildings at Anarajapoora, there is no trace to be found of an arch, truly turned and secured by its keystone; but at Pollanarrua there are several examples of the false arch, produced by the progressive projection of the layers of brick.[1]
1: FORBES'S Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. i. ch. xvii. p. 414.
The finest specimens of ancient brickwork are to be seen amongst the ruins of the latter city, where the material is compact and smooth, and the edges sharp and unworn. The mortar shows the remains of the pearl oyster-shells from which it was burnt, and the chunam with which the walls were coated, still clings to some of the towers, and retains its angularity and polish.[1]
1: Expressions in the Mahawanso, ch. xxvii. p. 104, show that as early as the 2nd century, B.C., the Singhalese were acquainted with this beautiful cement, which is susceptible of a polish almost equal to marble.
Of the details of external and internal decoration applied to these buildings, descriptions are given which attest a perception of taste, however distorted by the exaggerations of oriental design. "Gilded tiles"[1] in their bright and sunny atmosphere, must have had a striking effect, especially when surmounting walls decorated with beaded mouldings, and festooned with "carvings in imitation of creeping plants and flowers."[2]
1: Rajavali, p. 73.
2: Mahawanso, ch. lxxii. p. 274.
Carving in stone.—Carving appears to have been practised at a very early period with singular success; but in later times it became so deteriorated, that there is little difficulty at the present day, in pronouncing on the superiority of the specimens remaining at Anarajapoora, over those which are to be found amongst the ruins of the later capitals, Pollanarrua, Yapahu, or Komegalle. The author of the Mahawanso dwells with obvious satisfaction on his descriptions of the "stones covered with flowers and creeping plants."[1] Animals are constantly introduced in the designs executed on stone, and a mythical creature, called technically makara-torana, is conspicuous, especially on doorways and balustrades, with the head of an elephant, the teeth of a crocodile, the feet of a lion, and the tail of a fish.
1: Mahawanso, ch. lxxii. p. 274, UPHAM'S version.
At the entrance to the great wihara, at Anarajapoora, there is now lying on the ground a semi-circular slab of granite, the ornaments of which are designed in excellent taste, and executed with singular skill; elephants, lions, horses, and oxen, forming the outer border; that within consisting of a row of the "hanza," or sacred goose; a bird that is equally conspicuous on the vast tablet, one of the wonders of Pollanarrua, before alluded to.[1]
1: A sketch of this stone will be seen in the engraving of the Sat-mal-prasada, in the account of Pollanarrua. Part I. ch. i. vol. ii.
FROM THE BURMESE STANDARD.
Taken in connection with the proverbial contempt for the supposed stolidity of the goose, there is something still unexplained in the extraordinary honours paid to it by the ancients, and the veneration in which it is held to the present day by some of the eastern nations. The figure that occurs so frequently on Buddhist monuments, is the Brahmanee goose (casarka rutila), which is not a native of Ceylon; but from time immemorial has been an object of veneration there and in all parts of India. Amongst the Buddhists especially, impressed as they are with the solemn obligation of solitary retirement for meditation, the hanza has attracted attention by its periodical migrations, which are supposed to be directed to the holy Lake of Manasa, in the mythical regions of the Himalaya. The poet Kalidas, in his Cloud Messenger, speaks of the hanza as "eager to set out for the Sacred Lake." Hence, according to the Rajavali, the lion was pre-eminent amongst beasts, "the hanza was king over all the feathered tribes."[1] In one of the Jatakas, which contains the legend of Buddha's apotheosis, his hair, when suspended in the sky, is described as resembling "the beautiful Kala hanza."[2] The goose is, at the present day, the national emblem emblazoned on the standard of Burmah, and the brass weights of the Burmese are generally cut in the shape of the sacred bird, just as the Egyptians formed their weights of stone after the same model.[3]
1: Rajavali, p. 149. The Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 179, also speaks of the "hanza," as amongst the decorations chased on the stem of a bo-tree, modelled in gold, which was deposited by Dutugaimunu when building the Ruanwellé dagoba at Anarajapoora in the 2nd century before Christ.
2: HARDY'S Buddhism, ch. vii p. 161.
3: See SYME'S Embassy to Ava, p. 330; YULE'S Narrative of the British Mission to Ava in 1855, p. 110. I have seen a stone in the form of a goose, found in the ruins of Nineveh, which appears to have been used as a weight.
Augustine, in his Civitas Dei, traces the respect for the goose, displayed by the Romans, to their gratitude for the safety of the capital; when the vigilance of this bird defeated the midnight attack by the Goths. The adulation of the citizens, he says, degenerated afterwards almost to Egyptian superstition, in the rites instituted in honour of their preservers on that occasion.[1] But the very fact that the geese which saved the citadel were already sacred to Juno, and domesticated in her temple, demonstrates the error of Augustine, and shows that they had acquired mythological eminence, before achieving political renown. It must be observed, too, that the birds which rendered that memorable service, were the ordinary white geese of Europe[2], and not the red goose of the Nile (the [Greek: chênalôpêx] of Herodotus), which, ages before, had been enrolled amongst the animals held sacred in Egypt, and which formed the emblem of Seb, the father of Osiris.[3] HORAPOLLO, endeavouring to account for this predilection of the Egyptians (who employed the goose hieroglyphically to denote a son), ascribes it to their appreciation of the love evinced by it for its offspring, in exposing itself to divert the attention of the fowler from its young.[4] This opinion was shared by the Greeks and the Romans. Aristotle praises its sagacity; Ælian dilates on the courage and cunning of the "vulpanser," and its singular attachment to man[5]; and Ovid ranks the goose as superior to the dog in the scale of intelligence,—
"Soliciti canes canibusve sagacior anser." OVID,
Met
. xi. 399.
1: "And hereupon did Rome fall almost into the superstition of the Ægyptians that worship birds and beasts, for they henceforth kept a holy day which they call the goose's feast."—AUGUSTINE, Civitas Dei, &c. book ii. ch. 22: Englished by F.H. Icond. 1610.
2: This appears from a line of Lucretius:
"Romulidarum arcis servator candidus anser."
De Rer. Nat. I. iv. 687.
3: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S Manners and Customs, &c., 2nd Ser. pl. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312; vol. ii. p. 227. Mr. Birch of the British Museum informs me that throughout the ritual or hermetic books of the ancient Egyptians a mystical notion is attached to the goose as one of the creatures into which the dead had to undergo a transmigration. That it was actually worshipped is attested by a sepulchral tablet of the 26th dynasty, about 700 B.C., in which it is figured standing on a small chapel over which are the hieroglyphic words, "The good goose greatly beloved;" and on the lower part of the tablet the dedicator makes an offering of fire and water to "Ammon and the Goose."—Revue Archæo., vol. ii. pl. 27.
4: HORAPOLLO, Hieroglyphica, lib. i. 23.
5: ÆLIAN, Nat. Hist., lib. v. c. 29, 30, 50. Ælian says that the Romans in recognition of the superior vigilance of the goose on the occasion of the assault on the Capitol, instituted a procession in the Forum in honour of the goose, whose watchfulness was incorruptible; but held an annual denunciation of the inferior fidelity of the dogs, which allowed themselves to be silenced by meat flung to them by the Gauls.—Nat. Hist. lib. xii. ch. xxxiii.
The feeling appears to have spread westward at an early period; the ancient Britons, according to Cæsar, held it impious to eat the flesh of the goose[1], and the followers of the first crusade which issued from England, France, and Flanders, adored a goat and a goose, which they believed to be filled by the Holy Spirit.[2]
1: "Anserem gustare fas non patant."—CÆSAR, Bell Gall., lib. v. ch xii.
2: MILL'S Hist. of the Crusades, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 75. Forster has suggested that it was a species of goose (which annually migrates from the Black Sea towards the south) that fed the Israelites in the desert of Sinai, and that the "winged fowls" meant by the word salu, which has been heretofore translated "quails," were "red geese," resembling those of Egypt and India. He renders one of the mysterious inscriptions which abound in the Wady Mokatteb (the Valley of Writings), "the red geese ascend from the sea,—lusting the people eat to repletion;" thus presenting a striking concurrence with the passage in Numb. xi. 31, "there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails (salu) from the sea."—FORSTER'S One Primeval Language, vol. i. p. 90.
It is remarkable that the same word appears to designate the goose in the most remote quarters of the globe. The Pali term "hanza" by which it was known to the Buddhists of Ceylon, is still the "henza" of the Burmese and the "gangsa" of the Malays, and is to be traced in the [Greek: "chên">[ of the Greeks, the "anser" of the Romans, the "ganso" of the Portuguese, the "ansar" of the Spaniards, the "gans" of the Germans (who, PLINY says, called the white geese ganza), the "gas" of the Swedes, and the "gander" of the English.[1]
1: HARDY observes that the ibis of the Nile is called "Abou-Hansa" by the Arabs, (Buddhism, ch. i. p. 17); but BRUCE (Trav. vol. v. p. 172) says the name is Abou Hannes or Father John, and that the bird always appears on St. John's day: he implies, however, that this is probably a corruption of an ancient name now lost.
IN THE PALACE AT KANDY
In the principal apartment of the royal palace at Kandy, now the official residence of the chief civil officer in charge of the province, the sacred bird occurs amongst the decorations, but in such shape as to resemble the dodo rather than the Brahmanee goose.
In the generality of the examples of ancient Singhalese carvings that have come down to us, the characteristic which most strongly recommends them, is their careful preservation of the outline and form of the article decorated, notwithstanding the richness and profusion of the ornaments applied. The subjects engraved are selected with so much judgment, that whilst elaborately covering the surface, they in no degree mar the configuration. Even in later times this principle has been preserved, and the chasings in silver and tortoise shell on the scabbards of the swords of state, worn by the Kandyan kings and their attendants, are not surpassed by any specimens of similar workmanship in India.
Temples.—The temples of Buddha were at first as unpretending as the residences of the priesthood. No mention is made of them during the infancy of Buddhism in Ceylon; at which period caves and natural grottoes were the only places of devotion. In the sacred books these are spoken of as "stone houses"[1] to distinguish them from the "houses of earth"[2] and other materials used in the construction of the first buildings for the worship of Buddha; such temples having been originally confined to a single chamber of the humblest dimensions, within which it became the custom at a later period to place a statue of the divine teacher reclining in dim seclusion, the gloom being increased to heighten the scenic effect of the ever-burning lamps by which the chambers are imperfectly lighted.
1: The King, Walagambahu, who in his exile had been living amongst the rocks in the wilderness, ascended the throne after defeating the Malabars (B.C. 104), and "caused the of stone or caves of the rocks in which he had taken refuge to be made more commodious."—Rajavali, p. 224.
2: Rajavali, p. 222.
The construction of both these descriptions of temples was improved in later times, but no examples remain of the ancient chaityas or built temples in Ceylon, and those of the rock temples still existing exhibit a very slight advance beyond the rudest attempts at excavation.
On examining the cave temples of continental India, they appear to exhibit three stages of progress,—first mere unadorned cells, like those formed by Dasartha, the grandson of Asoca, in the granite rocks of Behar, about B.C. 200; next oblong apartments with a verandah in front, like that of Ganesa, at Cuttack; and lastly, ample halls with colonnades separating the nave from the aisles, and embellished externally with façades and agricultural decorations, such as the caves of Karli, Ajunta, and Ellora.[1] But in Ceylon the earliest rock temples were merely hollows beneath overhanging rocks, like those still existing at Dambool, and the Aluwihara at Matelle, in both of which advantage has been taken of the accidental shelter of rounded boulders, and an entrance constructed by applying a façade of masonry, devoid of all pretensions to ornament.
1: See FERGUSSON'S Illustrations of the Rock-cut Temples of India, Lond. 1845, and Handbook of Architecture, ch. ii. p. 23.
The utmost effort at excavation never appears to have advanced beyond the second stage attained in Bengal,—a small cell with a few columns to support a verandah in front; and even of this but very few examples now exist in Ceylon, the most favourable being the Gal-wihara at Pollanarrua, which, according to the Rajavali, was executed by Prakrama I., in the 12th century.[1]
1: Mahawanso, ch. lxxvii.
Taking into consideration the enthusiasm exhibited by the kings of Ceylon, and the munificence displayed by them in the exaltation and extension of Buddhism, their failure to emulate the labours of its patrons in India, must be accounted for by the intractable nature of the rocks with which they had to contend, the gneiss and quartz of Ceylon being less favourable to such works than the sandstone of Cuttack, or the trap formations of the western ghauts.
Oil-painting.—In decorative art, carving and moulding in chunam were the principal expedients resorted to. Of this substance were also formed the "beads resplendent like gems;" the "flower-ornaments" resembling gold; and the "festoons of pearls," that are more than once mentioned in describing the interiors of the palaces.[1] Externally, painting was applied to the dagobas alone, as in the climate of Ceylon, exposure to the rains would have been fatal to the duration of the colours, if only mixed in tempera; but the Singhalese, at a very early period, were aware of the higher qualities possessed by some of the vegetable oils. The claim of Van Eyck to the invention of oil-painting in the 15th century, has been shown to be untenable. Sir Charles L. Eastlake[2] has adduced the evidence of Ætius of Diarbekir, to prove that the use of oil in connection with art[3] was known before the 6th century; and Dioscorides, who wrote in the age of Augustus, has been hitherto regarded as the most ancient authority on the drying properties of walnut, sesamum, and poppy. But the Mahawanso affords evidence of an earlier knowledge, and records that in the 2nd century before Christ, "vermilion paint mixed with tila oil,"[4] was employed in the building of the Ruanwellé dagoba. This is, therefore, the earliest testimony extant of the use of oil as a medium for painting, and till a higher claimant appears, the distinction of the discovery may be permitted to rest with the Singhalese.
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxvii, p. 163.
2: EASTLAKE'S Materials for a History of Oil Painting, ch. i. p. 18.
3: Aetius [Greek: Biblion iatrikon.]
4: Tila or tala is the Singhalese name for sesamum from which the natives express the gingeli oil. SIR CHARLES L. EASTLAKE is of opinion that "sesamum cannot be called a drying oil in the ordinary acceptation of the term," but in this passage of the Mahawanso, it is mentioned as being used as a cement. A question has been raised in favour of the claim of the Egyptians to the use of oil in the decoration of their mummy cases, but the probability is that they were coloured in tempera and their permanency afterwards secured by a varnish.
Style of Ornament.—In decorating the temporary tee, which was placed on the Ruanwellé dagoba, prior to its completion, the square base was painted with a design representing vases of flowers in the four panels, surrounded by "ornaments radiating like the five fingers."[1] This description points to the "honeysuckle border," which, according to Fergusson, was adopted and carried westward by the Greeks, and eastward by the Buddhist architects.[2] It appears upon the lat column at Allahabad, which is inscribed with one of the edicts of Asoca, issued in the 3rd century before Christ.
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii. p. 193; ch. xxxviii. p. 258.
2: FERGUSSON'S Handbook of Architecture, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 7.
FROM THE CAPITAL OF A LAT
The spire itself was "painted with red stick-lac," probably the same preparation of vermilion as is used at the present day on the lacquered ware of Burmah, Siam, and China.[1] Gaudy colours appear at all times to have been popular; yellow, from its religious associations, pre-eminently so[2]; and red lead was applied to the exterior of dagobas.[3] Bujas Raja, in the 4th century, painted the walls and roof of the Brazen Palace blue[4], and built a sacred edifice at Anarajapoora, which from the variety and brilliancy of the colours with which he ornamented the exterior, was known as the Monara Paw Periwena, or Temple of the Peacock.[5]
1: A species of lacquer painting is practised with great success at the present day in the Kandyan provinces, and especially at Matelle, the colours being mixed with a resinous exudation collected from a shrub called by the Singhalese Wæl-koep-petya (Croton lacciferum). The coloured varnish thus prepared is formed into films and threads chiefly by aid of the thumb-nail of the left hand, which is kept long and uncut for the purpose. It is then applied by heat and polished. It is chiefly employed in ornamenting the covers of books, walking-sticks, the shafts of spears, and the handles of fans for the priesthood. The Burmese artists who make the japanned ware of Ava, use the hand in laying on the lacquer—which there, too, as well as in China, is the produce of a tree, the Melanorhoea glabra of Wallich.
2: Rajaratnacari, p. 184.
3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 212.
4: Rajavali, p. 291. The blue used for this purpose was probably a preparation of indigo; the red, vermilion; the yellow, orpiment; and green was obtained by combining the first and last.
5: Rajavali, p. 73.