No. 58. — 1907.] notes on ceylon painting, &c. 105 



Of illuminated manuscripts of the 18th century very few 

 survive, but these are in many respects so excellent as to 

 make the absence of others very regrettable. Those existing 

 , are executed on Dutch paper, and consist of Buddhist scrip- 

 tures with pictures and conventional ornament. 



There exist also working drawings and specimen drawings 

 •on Dutch paper, executed in the 18th century. 



The old paintings are executed in a gum medium and in a 

 very limited range of colours — red, black, and yellow, and 

 sometimes shades of these produced by mixture with white. 

 Blue and green are only very rarely found. 



The old pigments were prepared as follows :— 



White. — This is makul or kaolin (Chinese white) ; it is chiefly 

 obtained near Maturata. It is often mixed with other pig- 

 ments to make pink, gray, &c. 



Red. — This is sadilingam or cinnabar, which is still purchas- 

 able in the bazaars and used as of old. The mineral is not 

 known to occur in Ceylon and must always have been imported. 



Yellow.— This is gamboge from the gokatu tree (Garcinia 

 morella) ; but the material preferred for some purposes, such 

 as painting on wood, is orpiment (hiriyal) ; it is now custom- 

 ary to use hiriyal generally even where gokatu would be better. 



Black. — This is lamp-black, to prepare which jak milk, kekuna 

 oil, and dummala are ground up together and mixed with shreds 

 of cotton cloth, then set over a small fire in a clean chatty with 

 another turned over it ; the soot is deposited on the upper 

 chatty and collected. 



Blue. — This colour is very rarely seen ; it was obtained 

 from the leaves of the nilgas (indigo), but small quantities 

 only were available. In the great majority of old paintings 

 blue is absent, and so is green. 



Green. — Made by mixing blue with yellow. Very sparingly 

 used and generally absent altogether. 



Gold. — Gold is used in one case in an old (18th century) 

 pattern book which I have seen, and in an 18th century 

 banadaham pota, or breviary, a paper MS. said to have 



b 2 



