In each circle is a sculptured figure, and scarcely two figures are alike.
On page 283 is an accurate drawing of this very beautiful window, which is unique of its kind in Ceylon. No verbal description will convey a proper idea of it.
The circles of the lowest row, it will be seen, contain grotesque Bacchanalian figures, which represent jolly, laughing fellows, and are executed with great humour. Above them are nâtch girls, all slightly different in attitude. They occur again in four circles near the centre of the window, and in a row near the top.
The row of circles above the nâtch girls contains figures of animals, which are repeated vertically along the mouldings on each side of the window, and continued in a horizontal row, the third from the top; in short, they form the outer ridge of a square pattern, comprising the twenty-five centremost circles of the window. The figures of these animals, it will be noted, vary considerably. Eight have the elephant's trunk, and are evidently intended to represent the gaja-singha, before described. It is remarkable that this is, so far as I know,—and there are very few ruins in Ceylon that I have not thoroughly examined,—the only example in which this fabulous animal is represented in any but a couchant attitude. Seven appear to be the same animal without the trunk, in which case, since the gaja-singha is the elephant-lion, the characteristic of the former being removed, the latter should remain; but I am bound to say the resemblance to a lion in these seven circles is the very faintest. But the centre circle of the third row from the bottom contains a pair of perfect lions rampant.
The nine circles remaining of the twenty-five before mentioned form again a distinct square pattern within the other, of which four lotus flowers, or stars, mark the angles.
The row of circles at the top of the window contain figures of the Hansa, the royal rather than the "sacred" bird, of which Tennent has given so many curious particulars, and which, in Ceylon as well as in Burmah, was one of the
Burmese Hansa. (From Tennent's "Ceylon.")
emblems of the national banner. If this be intended for the Hansa, as I believe it to be, it certainly greatly differs from the usual representation of it, and much more nearly resembles the Burmese figure as given by Tennent, vol. i. p. 485, first edition. It is very unlike the bird as it appears in the sculptures at Anaradhapoora (vol. ii. p. CI 9), and the clay figure of it in the palace at Kandy (vol. i. p. 487). It is equally unlike the following sketch of one of the oldest Hansas I have seen—a beautifully
Brick from the Naga Wihare.
moulded relief on a brick, from the very ancient Naga Wihare, in Màgampattoo, in the south of the island, the "Maha Naga Wiharó," mentioned in the Mahawanso, and founded by Maha Naaga, brother of Devenipia Tissa, b.c. 306, the founder of the ancient city of Maagama.
The peculiar beauty of the window consists rather in the general effect produced by the arrangement of the figures with which it is so profusely decorated, than in the ornamentation itself. Seen from a little distance the details are lost; and the window appears to be of beautiful tracery work, and of regular pattern. It is only when closely examined that the quaint designs I have endeavoured to describe
Fragment of Broken Window.
are observed. If my sketch did justice to the original, the effect I have described would be visible by looking at the drawing with partially closed eyes.
