Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 87

But unlike the soft melodies of Hindustan, whose characteristic is their gentle and soothing effect, the music of the Singhalese appears to have consisted of sound rather than of harmony; modulation and expression having been at all times subordinate to volume and metrical effect.

Reverberating instruments were their earliest inventions for musical purposes, and those most frequently alluded to in their chronicles are drums, resembling the tom-toms used in the temples to the present day.

The same variety of form prevailed then as now, and the _Rajavali_ relates, in speaking of the army of Dutugaimunu, that in its march, the "rattling of the sixty-four kinds of drums made a noise resembling thunder breaking on the rock from behind which the sun rises."[1] The band of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 307, was called the _talawachara_, from the mult.i.tude of drums[2]: chank-sh.e.l.ls contributed to swell the din, both in warfare[3] and in religious wors.h.i.+p[4]; choristers added their voices[5]; and the triumph of effect consisted in "the united crash of every description, vocal as well as instrumental"[6] Although "a full band" is explained in the _Mahawanso_ to imply a combination of "all descriptions of musicians," no flutes or wind instruments are particularised, and the incidental mention of a harp only occurs in the reign of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 161.[7] JOINVILLE says, that certain musical principles were acknowledged in Ceylon at an early period, and that pieces are to be seen in some of the old Pali books in regular notation; the gamut, which was termed _septa souere_, consisting of seven notes, and expressed not by signs, but in letters equivalent to their p.r.o.nunciation, _sa, ri, ga, me, qa, de, ni._[8] At the present day, harmony is still superseded by sound, the singing of the Singhalese being a nasal whine, not unlike that of the Arabs. Flutes, almost insusceptible of modulation, chanks, which give forth a piercing scream, and the overpowering roll of tom-toms, const.i.tute the music of the temples; and all day long the women of a family will sit round a species of timbrel, called _rabani_, and produce from it the most monotonous, but to their ear, most agreeable noises, by drumming with the fingers.

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, pp. 217, 219. At the present day, there are four or five varieties of drums in use:--the tom-tom or _tam-a-tom_, properly so-called, which consists of two cylinders placed side by side, and is beaten with two sticks;--the _daelle_, a single cylinder struck with a stick at one end, and with the hand at the other,--the _oudaelle_, which is held in the left hand, and struck with the right;--and the _berri_, which is suspended from the beater's neck, and struck with both hands, one at each end, precisely as a similar instrument is shown in some of the Egyptian monuments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND MODERN SINGHALESE TOM-TOM BEATERS.]]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xvii, p. 104.]

[Footnote 3: B.C. 161. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv, p. 154.]

[Footnote 4: B.C. 20. _Rajavali_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 157.]

[Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvi. 186.]

[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.x. p. 180. The following pa.s.sage in UPHAM'S translation of the _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. vol. i. p. 274, would convey the idea that the aeolian harp was meant, or some arrangement of strings calculated to elicit similar sounds:--"The king Prakrama built a palace at the city of Pollanarrua; and the stone works were carved in the shape of flowers and creeping plants, _with golden networks which gave harmonious sounds as if they were moved by the air_."]

[Footnote 8: JOINVILLE, _Asiat. Researches_, vol. vii. p. 488.]

_Painting_.--Painting, whether historical or imaginative, is only mentioned in connection with the decoration of temples, and no examples survive of sufficient antiquity to exhibit the actual state of the art at any remote period. But enough is known of the trammels imposed upon all art, to show that from the earliest times, imagination and invention were prohibited by the priesthood; and although execution and facility may have varied at different eras, design and composition were stationary and unalterable.

Like the priesthood of Egypt, those of Ceylon regulated the mode of delineating the effigies of their divine teacher, by a rigid formulary, with which they combined corresponding directions for the drawing of the human figure in connection with sacred subjects. In the relics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, we find "that the same formal outline, the same att.i.tudes and postures of the body, the same conventional modes of representing the different parts, were adhered to at the latest, as at the earliest periods. No improvements were admitted; no attempts to copy nature or to give an air of action to the limbs. Certain rules and certain models had been established by law, and the faulty conceptions of early times were copied and perpetuated by every succeeding artist."[1]

[Footnote 1: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii. ch.

x. p. 87, 264.]

The same observations apply, almost in the same terms, to the paintings of the Singhalese. The historical delineations of the exploits of Gotama Buddha and of his disciples and attendants, which at the present day cover the walls of the temples and wiharas, follow, with rigid minuteness, pre-existing ill.u.s.trations of the sacred narratives. They appear to have been copied, with a devout adherence to colour, costume, and detail, from designs which from time immemorial have represented the same subjects; and emaciated ascetics, distorted devotees, beatified simpletons, and malefactors in torment are depicted with a painful fidelity, akin to modern pre-Raphaelitism.

Owing to this discouragement of invention, one series of pictures is so servile an imitation of another, that design has never improved in Ceylon; one scene is but the facsimile of a previous one, and each may almost be regarded as an exponent of the state of the art at any preceding period.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Egyptians and Singhalese were not, however, the only authorities who overwhelmed invention by ecclesiastical conventionalism.

The early artists of Greece were not at liberty to follow the bent of their own genius, or to depart from established regulations in representing the figures of the G.o.ds. In the middle ages, the influence of the churches, both of Rome and Byzantium, was productive of a similar result; and although the Latins early emanc.i.p.ated themselves, the painters of the Greek church, to the present hour, labour under the identical trammels which crippled art at Constantinople a thousand years ago. M. DIDRON, who visited the churches and monasteries of Greece in 1839, makes the remark that "ni le temps ni le lieu ne font rien a l'art Grec: au XVIIIe siecle, le peintre Moreote continue et calque le peintre Venetien du Xe, le peintre Athonite du Ve ou VIe. Le costume des personnages est partout et en tout temps le meme, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et l'epaisseur des plis. On ne saurait pousser plus loin l'exact.i.tude traditionnelle, l'esclavage du pa.s.se." _(Manuel d'

Iconographie Chretienne Grecque et Latin_, p. ix.) The explanation of this fact is striking. Mount Athos is the grand manufactory of pictures for the Greek churches throughout the world; and M. DIDRON found the artists producing, with the servility and almost the rapidity of machinery, endless facsimiles of pictures in rigid conformity with a recognised code of instructions drawn up under ecclesiastical authority and ent.i.tled [Greek: Ermeneia tes Zographikes], "The Guide for Painting," a literal translation of which he has published. This very curious ma.n.u.script contains minute directions for the figures, costume, and att.i.tude of the sacred characters, and for the preparation of many hundreds of historical subjects required for the decoration of churches.

The artist, when solicited by M. Didron to sell "cette bible de son art," naively refused, on the simple ground that "s'il se depouillait de ce livre, il ne pourrait plus rien faire; en perdaut son Guide, il perdait son art, il perdait ses yeux et ses mains" (_ib_. p. xxiii.). It was not till the fifteenth century that the painters of Italy shook themselves free of the authority of the Latin church in matters of art.

The second council of Nice arrogates to the Roman church the authority in such matters still retained by the Greek; "non est imaginum structura pictorum inventio sed ecclesiae catholicae probata legislatio et traditio." In Spain, the sacro-pictorial law, under the t.i.tle of _Pictor Christia.n.u.s_, was promulgated, in 1730, by Fray Juan de Ayala, a monk of the order of Mercy; and such subjects are discussed as the shape of the true cross; whether one or two angels should sit on the stone by the sepulchre? and whether the Devil should be drawn with horns and a tail?

In the National Gallery of London there is a painting of the Holy Family by Benozzo Gozzoli, and Sir Charles L. Eastlake has permitted me to see a contract between the painter and his employer A.D. 1461, in which every figure is literally "made to order," its att.i.tude bespoke, and its place in the composition distinctly agreed for. One clause, however, contemplates progress, and binds the painter to make the piece his chef-d'oeuvre--"che detta dipentura exceda ogni buona dipintura infino aqui facto per detto Benozzo."]

Hence even the most modern embellishments in the temples have an air of remote antiquity. The colours are tempered with gum; and but for their inferiority in drawing the human figure, as compared with the Egyptians, and their defiance of the laws of perspective, their inharmonious tints, coupled with the whiteness of the ground-work, would remind one of similar peculiarities in the paintings in the Thebaid, and the caves of Beni Ha.s.san.

Fa Hian describes in the fourth century precisely the same series of subjects and designs which are delineated in the temples of the present day, and taken from the transformation of Buddha. With hundreds of these, he says, painted in appropriate colours and executed in imitation of life, the king caused both sides of the road to be decorated on the occasion of religious processions.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Foe Koue Ki_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 335.]

Amongst the most renowned of the Singhalese masters, was the King Detu Tissa, A.D. 330, "a skilful carver, who executed many arduous undertakings in painting, and taught it to his subjects. He modelled a statue of Buddha so exquisitely that he seemed to have been inspired; and for it he made an altar, and gilt an edifice inlaid with ivory."[1]

Among the presents sent by the King of Ceylon (A.D. 459) to the Emperor of China, the _Tsih foo yuen kwei_, a chronicle compiled by imperial command, particularises a picture of Buddha.[2] The colours employed in decorating their temples are mixed in _tempera_, as were those used in the ancient paintings in Egypt; the claim of the Singhalese to the priority of invention in the mixture of colours with oil, is adverted to elsewhere.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xvii. p. 242.]

[Footnote 2: B. li. p. 7.]

[Footnote 3: See the chapter on the Fine Arts, Vol. I. p. 490.]

_Sculpture_.--In style Singhalese sculpture was even more conventional and less imaginative than their painting; since the subjects to which it was confined were almost exclusively statues of Buddha[1], and its efforts were mere repet.i.tions of the three orthodox att.i.tudes of the great archetype--_sitting_, as when in deep meditation, under the sacred Bo-tree; _standing_, as when exhorting his mult.i.tudinous disciples; and _reclining_, in the enjoyment of the everlasting repose of "nirwana." In each and all of these the details are identical; the length of the ears, the proportions of the arms, fingers, and toes; the colour of the eyes, and the curls of the hair[2] being repeated with wearisome iteration. To such an extent were these multiplied, and with an adherence so rigid to the same recognised models, that the _Rajavali_ ventures to ascribe to one king the erection of "seventy-two thousand statues of Buddha," an obvious error[3], but indicative, nevertheless, that the real amount must have been prodigious, in order to obtain credence for the exaggeration. Many other sovereigns are extolled in the national annals, who rendered their reigns ill.u.s.trious by the multiplicity of statues which they placed in the temples. It was doubtless from this incessant study of one and the same figure, that the artists of Ceylon attained to a facility and superiority in producing statues of Buddha, that rendered them famous throughout the countries of Asia, in which his religion prevailed. The early historians of China speak in raptures of works of this kind, obtained from Singhalese sculptors in the fourth and fifth centuries; they were eagerly sought after by all the surrounding nations; and one peculiarity in their execution consisted in so treating the features, that "on standing at about ten paces distant they appeared truly brilliant, but the lineaments gradually disappeared on a nearer approach."[4]

[Footnote 1: Mention is made of a figure of an elephant (_Rajavali_, p.

242), and of a horse (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xix. TURNOUR'S ma.n.u.script translation), and a carved bull as amongst the ruins of Anaraj.a.poora.]

[Footnote 2: M. ABEL REMUSAT has devoted a section of his _Melanges Asiatiques_, 1825; vol. i. p. 100, to combating the conjecture of Sir W.

JONES in his third Dissertation on the Hindus, drawn from the curled or rather the woolly hair represented in his statues, that Buddha drew his descent from an African origin. (_Works_, vol. i. p, 12.) Another ground for Sir. W. JONES'S conjecture was the _large ears_ which are usually characteristic of the statues of Buddha. But it is curious that one of the peculiar features ascribed to the Singhalese by the early Greek writers was the possession of pendulous ears, possibly occasioned by their heavy ear-rings.]

[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 255. Most of these were built of terra-cotta and cement covered with chunam, preparatory to being painted. See p.

478.]

[Footnote 4: _Wei shoo_, a "History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," written A.D. 590. B. cxiv. p. 9.]

The labours of the sculptor and painter were combined in producing these images of Buddha, which are always coloured in imitation of life, each tint of his complexion and hair being in religious conformity with divine authority, and the ceremony of "painting of the eyes,"[1] is always observed by the devout Buddhists as a solemn festival.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii.; UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 275.]

Many of the works which were thus executed were either golden[1] or gilt, with brilliants inserted in the eyes, and the draperies enriched with jewels.[2] Fa Hian in the fourth century, speaks of a figure of Buddha upwards of twenty-three feet in height, formed out of blue jasper, and set with precious stones, that sparkled with singular splendour, and which bore in its right hand a pearl of priceless value.[3] This may possibly have been the statue of which the _Mahawanso_ speaks in like terms of admiration: "the eye formed by a jewel from the royal head-dress, each curl of the hair by a sapphire, and the lock in the centre of the forehead by threads of gold."[4]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.x. pp. 180, 182; _Rajaratnacari_, pp.

47, 48; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 258.]

[Footnote 3: "Parmi toutes les choses precieuses qu'on y voit, il y a une image de jaspe bleu haute de deux _tchang_: tout son corps est forme des sept choses precieuses; elle est etincellante de splendeur et plus majestueuse qu'on ne saurait l'exprimer. Dans la main droite elle tient une perle d'un prix inestimable."--_Foe Koue Ki_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 333.]

[Footnote 4: A.D. 459. _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 258. Another statue of gold, with the features and members appropriately coloured in gems, is spoken of in the second century B.C. (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.x. p. 180.)]

Ivory also and sandal-wood[1], as well as copper and bronze, served as materials for statues; but granite was the substance most generally selected, except in the rare instances where the temple and the statue together were hewn out of the living rock, on which occasions gneiss was most generally selected. Such are the statues at Pollanarrua, at Mihintala, and at the Aukana Wihara, near Wijittapoora. A still more common expedient, which is employed to the present time, was to form the figures of Buddha with pieces of burnt clay joined together by cement; and coated with highly polished chunam, in order to prepare the surface for the painter. In this manner were most probably produced the "seventy-two thousand statues" ascribed to Mihindo V.

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 72.]

Figures of elephants were similarly formed at an early period.[1] An image of Buddha so composed in the 12th century, is still standing at Pollanarrua[2], and every temple has one or more effigies, either sedent, erect, or rec.u.mbent, carefully modelled in cemented clay, and coloured after life.

[Footnote 1: A.D. 432. _Rajaratnacari_, p. 74.]

[Footnote 2: Possibly the "standing figure of Buddha" mentioned in the _Rajavali_, p. 253.]

_Architecture_.--In Ceylon, as in Egypt, a.s.syria, and India, the ruins which survive to attest the character of ancient architecture are exclusively sacred, with the exception of occasional traces of the residences of theocratic royalty; but everything has perished which could have afforded an idea of the dwellings and domestic architecture of the people. The cause of this is to be traced in the perishable nature of the sun-dried clay, of which the walls of the latter were composed. Added to this, in Ceylon there were the pride of rank and the pretensions of the priesthood, which, whilst they led to lavish expenditure of the wealth of the kingdom upon palaces and monuments, and the employment of stone in the erection of temples[1] and monasteries, forbade the people to construct their dwellings of any other material than sun-baked earth.[2] This practice continued to the latest period; and nothing struck the British army of occupation with more surprise on entering the city of Kandy, after its capture in 1815, than to find the palaces and temples alone constructed of stone, whilst the streets and private houses were formed of mud and thatch.

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 78, 79.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 222.]