2 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
ings of Ajanta, are identical with those still everywhere 
thrown from the village hand-wheels.” We do not however find 
in Ceylon the more elaborate types of glazed pottery made in 
some parts of India; but it will be found that Sinhalese pottery 
fulfils the requirements of good workmanship in earthenware, viz., 
first, the vessel must be of a shape convenient for its purpose ; 
secondly, that shape must be one that arises naturally from the mode 
of manufacture and exhibits to advantage the plastic properties of 
clay, without becoming weak or fanciful ; thirdly, ornament should 
not interfere with usefulness and should be appropriate in amount 
and character in relation to the purpose of the vessel and the mate- 
rial it is made of ; fourthly, smoothness of surface and elaborate 
refinements (however good in their right place) are not to be thought 
of as ends in themselves, and may appear unsuitable if striven for in 
vessels meant for ordinary daily use and made of a material not over 
fine. Nevertheless the application of some simple glaze would not 
be out of place, and it is perhaps rather strange that it is never met 
with in Ceylon. 
It is by the foregoing standards then that Sinhalese pottery should 
be judged, and not by others which are applicable to Chinese 
porcelain or Greek painted vases. This reminder is needed, lest the 
reader should feel a mistaken scorn for the rough homeliness and 
simplicity of the common earthenware I speak of. 
THe PortrEer. 
The Sinhalese potters (badahelayo) are found all over the country 
in every village affording the necessary clay, but often aggregated 
in greater numbers in places where an especially good supply of suit- 
able clay is available. Thence the potter carries his pots for sale to 
more remote districts in huge pingo loads. Nowadays a good deal 
of pottery is taken in carts along the cart roads; in this way the fine 
red pots made by a settlement of Tamils at Nikapata near Haputale 
travel down the road to Balangoda, and the Kelani pots with their 
white incised patterns come up to Ratnapura and Kégalla and even 
Kandy. : 
Potters are usually in possession of lands held on service tenures, 
either directly from the king, or from the proprietor of a nindagama, 
or the grantee of a royal village, or they may owe service to a vihara 
or déwala. At the Kandyan court one of the household departments 
was that of the potters, where relays of men from the villages were 
kept constantly at work supplying the royal requirements. The 
following account’of royal potters in the Four Koralés is taken from 
Mr. Bell’s “‘ Report on the Kégalla District,” p. 112, where it is quoted 
