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

378 CEYLON AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
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the early stupas at Anuradhapura, for the
stone enclosure patterned after the ancient
support of the domical roof.
This level of the
stupa railing or vedika; within, on a raised
platform, rises a granite clump of columns in
the shape of curling lotus stems with capitals
in the form of opening buds. The visitor has an
immediate and curious impression of beholding
Bernini's baldacchino suddenly transported to
the jungles of Ceylon. Although these columns
may have upheld a wooden superstructure,
their primary function was purely and simply a
figuration in stone of the great symbolic flower
of Buddhism, appropriate to a shrine intended
for offerings to the deity of the same flowers
sold outside every temple today. The effect is
one of extreme chastity and Baroque fancy that
has no rival in any Indian shrine.
shrine is reached by stairways at the four
cardinal points; girdled by the pradaksina is the
inner round brick shrine enclosing a low stupa
with images of Buddhas facing the four
directions. 27 As in the adjoining Shrine of the
Tooth Relic, the beauty of the Wata-da-ge
depends on the subtlety of its proportions and
delicate contrasts of plain and ornamented surfaces.
Special attention must be called to the
loveliness of the rhythmically repeated curvature
of the mouldings and railings and central
shrine, as seen particularly well in illustrations
305 and 306.
Another unique type of Singhalese architectural
monument is also to be found in this
same quadrangle [307]. This is the Nissahka
Lata Mandapaya; it consists of a rectangular
U
307. Polonnaruwa, Nissarika Lata Mandapaya Qt> / V'
3F
Another contemporary structure is the socalled
Northern Temple from its location in
that quarter of the city of Polonnaruwa [308].