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

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37© CEYLON AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
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interesting from both the stylistic and iconographic
points of view. The decoration consists
of concentric zones of ornament, comprising
the four beasts of the cardinal points - horse,
lion, ox, and elephant - exactly as figured on
the Asokan column at Sarnath, together with a
row of harhsa enclosing a central lotus boss.
Although these carvings are presumably no
earlier than the third or fourth century a.d., the
style is strangely reminiscent of the Mauryan
originals. Iconographically there can be little
doubt that the same cosmic symbolism implicit
in the pillar at Sarnath is intended here, with
the beasts standing at once for the points of the
compass, the great rivers of India, and possibly
the seasons as well; the hamsa, represented on
the Maurya pillar at Sanchi, were the symbols
298. Anuradhapura, Isurumuniya Vihara,
Parjanya and Agni
of the fifth direction or zenith, so that the whole
forms a complete cosmic diagram. 20
The unbroken cultural relationship between
Ceylon and south-eastern India is revealed by a
number of sculptures at the Isurumuniya
Vihara, near Anuradhapura. There, carved on
the face of a low cliff of granulitic boulders overhanging
a partly artificial tank, we may see
carvings in a pure Pallava style. Isolated in a
kind of niche is a relief of Parjanya and Agni,/*-|-y
personifications of the rain cloud and the
warmth that brings seeds to blossom 21 [298].
Not only are the proportions of the figure of the
holy man remarkably close to the work at
Mamallapuram, but the suggestion of the
form's emergence from the matrix of the rock is
in the same technique that we have analysed in
the account of the styles of the Hindu Renaissance.
Presumably these works date from the
period immediately before the final retreat from
Anuradhapura in the eighth century.
Although no actual examples earlier than the
sixth century survive, it may be assumed that
the tradition of painting in Ceylon is just as
ancient as that of sculpture and architecture
fragments of decorative painting were discovered
on some of the early structures at
Anuradhapura, and the Mahdvamsa describes
lost cycles of wall-painting ornamenting the
stupas and viharas.
The only considerable cycle of early painting
in Ceylon is the decoration in the hill of
Sigiriya. These paintings are located in a pocket
of the great rock at Sigiriya ('Lion Rock') that
was the fortress of the parricide, King Kassapa,
from 511 to 529; at that time this now isolated
cave must have formed part of a system of apartments
and galleries which completely clothed
the face of the cliff. The subject of the frieze of
wall-painting is a parade of opulent celestial
females, apsaras or devatas, advancing singly
and in pairs [299]. The divinity of these almost
oppressively sensuous queens is indicated only
by the clouds that veil them below the waist and