The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

CEYLON 363
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originally covered with chunam plaster painted
white, and this technique has been recreated in
the restoration of many of them, such as the
Thuparama and Ruvanveli.
Singhalese Buddhist temples, known as
vi haras, 11 such as those attached to all the great
dagabas at Anuradhapura, have a characteristic
rectangular plan, generally with a single entrance
on the long side of the building [290].
The walls were originally of brick, and, together
with the rows of pillars inside, supported
a roof of wood and metal. The pillars, seen on
the platform of the Thuparama and the 'vihares'
of Anuradhapura, belong to an order that is
peculiar to Ceylon. The columns have square or
octagonal shafts ; at the top, below a constricted
neck, is a carving of garlands held by lion heads,
and, above, a lotus capital, square or eightsided,
crowned by a band of beast-forms or
yaksha caryatids.
Among the most ancient and famous monuments
at Anuradhapura is the Lohapasada or
'Brazen Palace', built by King Duttha Gamani.
Unfortunately all that survives is the foundation,
consisting of a forest of some sixteen
hundred granite pillars standing in an area two
hundred and fifty feet square. The account of
this building in the Mahavamsa 12 enables us to
reconstruct this royal monastery as a ninestoreyed
structure in which the monks were
accommodated hieratically on the different
floors according to their level of enlightenment.
The entire superstructure was built of wood and
precious fittings of jewels and ivory and roofed
with sheets of copper. Destroyed by fire in the
fourth century, the building was reconstructed
in five storeys. As has been suggested above
(p. 299), it seems possible to see a reflexion of
this type of terraced building or prasada in the
Dharmaraja rath at Mamallapuram.
Although the Buddhism of Ceylon can in
general be designated as Hinayana in character,
there were certain periods of Mahayana penetration.
The buildings erected during these
times differ from the usual types of Hinayana
structures. A monument that can positively be
identified as Mahayanist is the Indikatusaya
dagaba in the jungle-clad hills at Mihintale
above Anuradhapura. Excavated copper plates,
inscribed with invocations of Prajnaparamita,
the Supreme Wisdom, by the nature of the
epigraphy confirm this affiliation and the date
in the eighth century. 13 The stupa proper at
Mihintale rests on a raised quadrangular basement
faced with stone. During the course of
excavations it became apparent that the brick
dome of the monument was originally of the
elongated type, possibly with a high drum,
found, for example, in the Dhamekh stupa at
Sarnath.
Something has already been said of the connexions
between the earliest Singhalese architecture
and the Later Andhra foundations at
Amaravati. This relationship is even more
apparent in the fragments of sculpture dating
from the second and third centuries a.d. Chief
among these examples of Singhalese carving are
a number of Buddha statues originally arranged//
around the base of the Ruvanveli dagaba. Two^
14
of these dolomite images are standing Buddhas,
and a third, traditionally identified as a likeness
of Duttha Gamani, is perhaps more likely the
Bodhisattva Siddhartha.
The Buddha figures
have an awe-inspiring hieratic quality induced
by their massive scale of proportions and the
rather archaic rigidity of pose [291]. It needs
but a glance to see in them a Singhalese adaptation
of the type of Buddha image fashioned at
Amaravati under the Later Andhra Dynasty.
To an even greater degree than the Andhra
prototypes these statues have a heaviness and
grandeur immediately suggestive of the very
earliest Indian Buddha effigies made under the
Kushans at Mathura. The treatment of the
drapery of the sanghati, with the folds represented
in a combination of incised lines and
raised ridges, follows the style of the Amaravati
workshops, and another characteristic trade