NOTES ON KANDYAN ART. 41 
polmal malaya, and gedi malaya, also occur in the list.* It would be 
exceedingly interesting, and to local and European art students_a 
very valuable thing, if the Ceylon Government would arrange to 
publish an adequately illustrated account of the Maligawa treasure, 
in co-operation with the temple authorities; it is a work which 
could hardly be accomplished in any other way. 
I am indebted to Mr. T. B. Keppitipola for some of the above 
information ; he is one of the few Kandyan chiefs who, at the 
present time, take ar interest in the arts and legends of the 
Kandyans. 
Bo-LEAF AS A DECORATIVE MorTIF. 
The well-known Sinhalese bo-leaf ornament, considered as a 
Buddhist symbol or decorative motif, is certainly of considerable 
antiquity in India and Ceylon. It appears probable, however, 
that the form belongs to that large class of ornamental motifs which, 
like the classical ‘‘ acanthus,” owe their name and later significance 
to an accidental resemblance in a form of quite different origin. 
General Beylié writes as follows on the bo-leaf of India :-— 
‘“Lanceolate ornament, or, more exactly, conventional leaf 
ornament, has had its own special history in each country, but 
particularly in Egypt, where we constantly meet with it on the 
tombs of Antinoe. It formed later the foundation of the decorative 
system of Musulman art (13th century) and by reaction of the 
figured work of Louis XIII. It is not impossible that the lanceolate 
ornament of the Musulman style, although of Assyrian and Egyp- 
tian origin, was only adopted in its ordinary form after having 
undergone a final transformation in the Indies. The leaf of Ficus 
religiosa appears as a nimbus in many statues of Buddha in memory 
of the sacred bo-tree under which he attained wisdom. We may 
anyhow regard it as certain that the temples of Cambodia (9th- 
12th centuries) and the palace of Angkor-Vat ...... have never felt 
any other than Hindu and Chinese influence. 
“ We may add that the principal of the lanceolate or conventional 
leaf is not Indian, but Oriental, while the multi-lobed ornament, 
evidently of a leafy character, which appears to originate in Musul- 
man art in the 13th century, on the belly of the vases of Mossul, is 
very probably of Hindu origin.” 
In other words, the bo-leaf form is of Assyrian or Egyptian 
origin—like the majority of motifs in decorative art, traced to their 
ultimate source—and was adopted as a Buddhist symbol in India, 
* Another *well-known form is the siri-bo-malaya, erroneously described as 
Sri-bo-malaya in the index to my ‘‘ Medixval Sinhalese Art,” where it is illus- 
trated (Plate XLIX., 5). This form comes mainly from the Galle District, 
and does not appear to be Kandyan. 
Other necklace names which I have heard are kalamediri malaya and 
patteya malaya. Another kind of bead is called karawila eta. It would be 
very advantageous if examples of all these named varieties could be exhibited 
in the Colombo Museum. 
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