470 



SCIENCES AXD SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PART IV. 



CHAP. VII. 



THE FINE ARTS. 



Music. The science and practice of the fine arts were 

 never very highly developed amongst a people whose 

 domestic refinement became arrested at a very early 

 stage ; and whose efforts in that direction were almost 

 wholly confined to the exaltation of the national faith, 

 and the embellishment of its temples and monuments. 



Their knowledge of music was derived from the Hindus, 

 by whom its study was regarded as of equal importance 

 with that of medicine and astronomy ; and hence amongst 

 the early Singhalese, along with the other " eighteen 

 sciences," 1 music was taught as an essential part of the 

 education of a prince. 2 



But unlike the soft melodies of Hindustan, whose cha- 

 racteristic 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. 



Eeverberating instruments were their earliest inven- 

 tions 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 Eajavali relates, in speaking of the army of Dutu- 

 gaimunu, that in its march the " rattling of the sixty- 

 four kinds of drums made a noise resembling thunder 



1 This fact is curious, seeing that 

 at the present day the cultivation of 

 music belongs to one of the lowest 

 castes in Ceylon. 



2 Mahawanso, ch. Ixiv. ; UPHAM'S 



version, p. 256. An ingenious paper 

 on Singhalese Music, by Mr. Louis 

 Nell, is printed in the Journ. of the 

 Ceylon branch of the Roy. Asiat. Soc 

 for 1856-8, p. 200. 



