The Anuradhapura Kingdom - XIX

The Anuradhapura Kingdom - XIX

Contiued with part eighteen   here to go previous one

Some of the standing Buddha images are of colossal proportions and consequently awe-inspiring. The most remarkable and famous of these is the 42 feet high Buddha image at Avukana. The group of colossal images carved on the face of a rock at Buduruvagala near Vallavaya comprises a Buddha image in the center, attended by a bodhisattva on either side. These figures at Vallavaya may be dated to the ninth and tenth centuries, to which period may also be attributed the stylistically interesting bodhisattva figure at Valigama on the south coast. Buddha images in the recumbent position, of similar proportions, are found at Ajahara and Tantrimalai. At Maligavala in the Buttala area, a Buddha image nearly 40 feet high has been fashioned completely in the round, probably brought from the quarry to the site, and set up in position in the shrine. This colossus has fallen from its pedestal and lies on the ground badly mutilated. Images of similar size and bulk carved on rock faces have not been found in India. However, there are figures of larger dimensions carved on rock faces by Buddhists in what is now Afghanistan, of which the group at Bamiyan is the most spectacular.

The Indian influence is prominent in other features of the sculptural achievements of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The dvarapalas or guardians of the Four Directions usually in the form of a Naga king in innermost bands are all inspired by the lotus plant and culminating in stylised lotus petals of great delicacy. The vitality of the carving is matched by an extraordinary restraint. human form attended by a grotesque potbellied dwarf, the guard stones at Buddhist shrines bear the distinct mark of the Amaravati! school. The rock-cut Isurumuniya vihdra below the bund of the Tissavava at Anuradhapura is renowned for its sculptural embellishments, the most celebrated of which are two reliefs carved on rock outcrops: the lovers a young warrior on a stone seat with a young woman on his lap and the man seated in the pose called royal ease with the head of a horse behind him. The first of these, the lovers, has characteristics of the Gupta school in India of the fourth and fifth centuries, while the second is in the Pallava style of the seventh century.

There is also that most astounding monument of them all, Slgiri, a complex of buildings, the part royal palace with the superbly designed ornamental gardens part fortified town, which together constitutes a magnificent and unique architectural tour de force. Sigiri is remembered today for the exquisite frescoes in a rock pocket some 40 feet above the access pathway. Who these female figures have always been a matter of debate among scholars. H. C. P. Bell argued that they were the wives of King Kassapa, but a more recent theory propounded by Paranavitana is that Slgiri was devised less as a fortified town than as a symbolic representation of the palace of Kuvera, the god of riches, who dwelt on the summit of Mount Kailasa, and that the females are 'Lightning Princesses' attended by 'Cloud Damsels'. The paintings at Slgiri are the earliest surviving specimens of the pictorial art of Sri Lanka that can be dated; they are approximately the same age as those of Ajanta in India with which they bear comparison. Though no paintings of an earlier era than those at Slgiri have survived, the inscriptions and literature of the early Anuradhapura period show that painting as an art form had as long a history as sculpture and architecture and was as extensively practiced. Its techniques and artistic theory are likely to have been based on Indian traditions modified to suit the local milieu. Thus the Slgiri paintings would represent a sophisticated court art with centuries of experience behind it.

Fragments of paintings datable to the seventh or eighth centuries have been discovered in the lower relic chamber of the stupa to the east of the K.antaka.cetiya at Mihintale. They comprise figures in outline, of divine beings rising from clouds in four directions. Paintings have also been noticed in the eastern vahalkada of the Ruvanvalisaya; the eastern vahalkada of the Jetavana; at a site named Gonapola in the Digamadulla District (Gal-Oya) and in some caves at Slgiri. A seven-headed cobra forms a halo above the rich tiara of the naga king and in his upraised hand he holds a vase of plenty sprouting forth prosperity and abundance.