40 



NATURE 



[July 8, 1909 



anyone interfering with it is smitten witli sicl<ness. 

 In this ceremony a mirror was held to receive the first 

 glance (belma) of the image while the eyes were being 

 painted. 



An account of the teaching of drawing as practised 

 at the present day serves as an introduction to a 

 consideration of the motifs employed, in Sinhalese 

 decorative art. Although there is an immense amount 

 of new material in this section, it may be doubted 

 whether it would not have been rendered more valu- 

 able to all, as it certainly would have been to the 



anthropologist, 

 if greater at- 

 t e n t i o n had 

 been paid to 

 the history of 

 the evolution of 

 the individual 

 elements of 

 decoration ; for 

 instance, the 

 makara, which 

 bulks so largely 

 i n Sinhalese 

 art, and which 

 occurs on the 

 Barahat Stupa, 



circa 200 B.C., 

 is dismissed in 

 rather less than 

 half a page of 

 print, while the 

 hamsa fares 

 even worse. 

 These and 

 many o t h er 

 conventi o n a 1 

 elements were 

 most skilfully 

 combined, and 

 the beauty of 

 the results at- 

 tained is seen 

 in plate xvi. 

 (here repro- 

 duced in Fig. 

 i). of a nine- 

 teenth - century 

 ceiling painting 

 from the Da- 

 lada Maligawa, 

 Kandy, repre- 

 senting a forest 

 scene. 



There are 

 chapters on 

 architect u r e, 

 wood w o r k , 

 stonework, 

 figure sculp- 

 ture, and paint- 

 ing, the reduced 

 colour plates of 

 some of the 



Fu,. 2- — Guardian Deicy from a Temple Door 

 Jamb, Ivory. Height of plaque, lo^ inches. 

 Colombo Museum Collection. From '* Medi£e%'al 

 Smhalese Art." 



wall paintings in Degaldoruwa Vihara, Kandy, being 

 extraordinarily faithful reproductions of the originals, 

 the spirit of which they have preserved to a surprising 

 degree. 



.Vn interesting conjecture is made in chapter x., 

 which suggests that ivory was comparativelv little 

 used in Indian art on account of the Hindu reluctance 

 to use the products of dead animals ; Buddhists had 

 no scruples of this sort, and so ivory was always 

 valued and used in Ceylon even in temples, with the 

 result that ivory carvings are perhaps the most beauti- 

 NO. 2071, VOL. 81] 



ful and pleasing fruit of the Sinhalese art impulse, 

 rivalled only by some of the superb inlay metal work 

 still existing on the temple doors. Fig. 2 represents 

 an ivory carving in the Colombo Museum of a 

 guardian deity from the jamb of a temple door. 



In the last two chapters Dr. Coomaraswamy shows 

 that, in the present stage of our knowledge, it is only 

 possible to indicate the main sources which have 

 influenced Sinhalese art. The most widely exerted 

 influence in Indian art is that due to the Asokan 

 Buddhist missions, the culture which these dispersed 

 being early Indian ; thus Sinhalese art is largely the 

 result of the evolution of an early Indian art, in part 

 sheltered by the geographical position of Ceylon from 

 that Hinduism which overwhelmed it upon the main- 

 land. But in post-.'\sokan and medieval times this 

 art was continually exposed to Indian influence; 

 " indeed, until the close of the period of mediaeval 

 conditions, the relations between Southern India and 

 Ceylon were similar to those obtaining in the Middle 

 Ages between France and England." This leads to 

 the suggestion that the famous rocli paintings at 

 Sigiri, the like of which are found only at Ajanta, are 

 due to a school, representatives of which were to be 

 found both in India and Ceylon. The fine bronzes 

 recently found by Mr. H. C. P. Bell at Polonnarua 

 and now in the Colombo Museum, though of a later 

 date, point in the same direction, for the whole feeling 

 of these is Hindu. To sum up. Dr. Coomaraswamy 

 sees in Sinhalese art " an early stratum of indis- 

 pensable barbaric decorative motives, . . . then a 

 main stream of North Indian Buddhist influence; and 

 thereafter the influence of continued reliance upon and 

 intercourse with India, especially Southern India, 

 accounting at everv period for the strong admixture 

 of purelv Hindu with Buddhist motifs." With this 

 conclusion few will quarrel, though Dr. Coomara- 

 swamy says all too little concerning the earliest 

 stratum. It remains only to direct attention to the 

 number and e.Kcellence of the photographs by Mrs. 

 Coomaraswamy, and to indicate that it is owing to 

 her energv that the remains of the moribund art of 

 Sinhalese embroidery have been brought together to 

 form chapter xv. C. G. S. 



A DISCUSSION OF AUSTRALIAN 

 METEOROLOGY.'- 



THE meteorology of the southern hemisphere 11 

 presents a specially attractive field of study. ' ' 

 The large area of water surface conduces to much 

 simpler conditions than are to be found to the north 

 of the Equator, and here, if anywhere, the 

 meteorologist may hope to discover the fundamental 

 principles underlying the general movements of the 

 atmosphere. On the other hand, he has to face the 

 relative paucity of data. The meteorological organisa- 

 tions of the three great land areas are still young, and 

 our knowledge of what is happening over the sea is 

 woefully small as compared with the completeness 

 with which we are able to track down changes 

 occurring over the great trade routes of the North 

 Atlantic. The present discussion forms a recapitula- 

 tion and a completion of work published from time 

 to time from the Solar Physics Observatory, of which 

 abstracts have appeared in previous numbers of 

 Nature (Ixx., p. 177; Ixxiv., p. 352). .^t the outset 

 we congratulate Dr. Lockyer on his success in bring- 

 ing together a vast amount of information and on the 

 skill with which he has marshalled the facts deduced 

 therefrom. 



1 Solar Physics Commiitee. A Discussion of Auslrilian Meteorology, 

 by Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer, under the direction of Sir Norm: n Lockyer, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S. Pp. vii + 117 ; lo plates. (London: Wyman and Sons, 

 Ltd., 1909.) 



