NO. 48. — 1897.1 ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY, SIGIRIYA. 121 



props,both unreliable : first, the casual m ention of oil painting 

 in connection with the building and decoration of Ruwanveli 

 Dagaba by King Dutugemunu about 80 B.C.; and secondly, 

 the occurrence of one or two frescoes among the Ajanta 

 paintings supposed to relate to Ceylon. 



Could evidence be more slender ? Even if the Mahd- 

 ivansa record be held unimpeachable, what was there to 

 prevent King Dutugemunu from securing his artists from 

 the continent ? And as to the fancied Yijayan and other 

 frescoes — if, indeed, the scenes be accurately allocated to this 

 Island — the story of the migration to, and conversion of, 

 Ceylon would be the common property of all Buddhists, 

 whether of the northern {Mahay ana) or southern (Hina^ 

 yana) schools, and certain to find a place, with other 

 Buddhistic legends, on the walls of the Ajanta caves. 



On the other hand, there is the stubborn fact that nowhere 

 else in Ceylon have similar frescoes, or other paintings rising 

 to so high a standard of art, been yet discovered. There 

 is nothing to equal them in the fragments left on the altars 

 of the Anuradhapura Dagaba s — on the walls of the so-called 

 " Demala-maha-seya " at Polonnaruwa — or in the countless 

 caves of the northern part at least of the Island. The best 

 painting at Dambulla Vihare, barely 12 miles from Sigiriya — 

 a shrine famed for centuries before S'igiri-gala was occupied 

 as a royal citadel — is not on a par with the least successful 

 of these frescoes. 



Intercourse with Buddhist India had for some length of 

 time prior to the middle of the fifth century been, if not 

 close, at least free and not slight. Nine reigns earlier, during 

 the rule of Kirtti Sri Meghavarna, an Indian prince and 

 princess had brought over the Daladd, or Tooth-relic, to be 

 in future enshrined in Ceylon. And it was to India that 

 Moggallana resorted for the army which finally captured 

 his brother's stronghold at Sigiriya. 



And strongest proof of all : no tradition exists that the 

 skilled artists who executed the frescoes were Sinhalese ; 

 nor regarding the methods whereby these paintings have 



16—97 K 



