The wealthier classes indulged in flowing robes, and Bujas Dasa the king, who in the fourth century devoted himself to the study of medicine and the cure of the sick, was accustomed, when seeking objects for his compassion, to appear as a common person, simply "disguising himself by gathering his cloth up between his legs."[1] Robes with flowers[2], and a turban of silk, constituted the dress of state bestowed on men whom the king delighted to honour.[3] Cloth of gold is spoken of in the fifth century, but the allusion is probably made to the kinbaub of India.[4]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p.245.
2: By the ordinances of Buddhism it was forbidden to the priesthood "to adorn the body with flowers," thus showing it to have been a practice of the laity. HARDY'S Eastern Monachism, ch. iv. p.24; ch. xiii p.128.
3: Mahawanso, ch. xxiii. p.139.
4: Ibid., ch. xxxviii. p.258.
MANUAL AND MECHANICAL ARTS. Weaving.—The aborigines practised the art of weaving before the arrival of Wijayo. Kuweni, when the adventurer approached her, was "seated at the foot of a tree, spinning thread;"[1] cotton was the ordinary material, but "linen cloth" is mentioned in the second century before Christ.[2] White cloths are spoken of as having been employed, in the earliest times, in every ceremony for covering chairs on which persons of rank were expected to be seated; whole "webs of cloth" were used to wrap the carandua in which the sacred relics were enclosed[3], and one of the kings, on the occasion of consecrating a dagoba at Mihintala, covered with "white cloth" the road taken by the procession between the mountain and capital, a distance of more than seven miles.[4]
1: Mahawanso, ch. vii. p.48; Rajavali, p.173.
2: Mahawanso, ch, xxv. p.152.
3: Rajaratnacari, p.72.
4: A.D. 8. Rajavali, p. 227; Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 213.