ROYAL BUILDERS.

ordered the ceremony of painting the eyes to be performed, and His Majesty also furnished all the necessaries thereto, and having granted much riches in clothes, money and other things to the artificers, the painters and the stone-cutters, His Majesty received merit and was filled with ecstacy."

One other extract is quoted from a sannasa or charter [Gangārāma Vihāra, Kandy]:

"Kirti Srī Rāja Simha

caused a vihāra to be made containing stone walls of thirteen cubits in length, seven in breadth, and eleven in height, surrounded by stone pillars, and above a roof with rafters covered with tiles. Within the walls a stone image of nine cubits in height was made, its robes beautified with painting of vermilion, its different members covered with leaves of gold, painted about with the five colours, and completed after the enshrinement of bodily relics. In the year of Saka, 1674 (A.D. 1752), of the month Poson, and on Monday, the eighth day of the increase of the moon, under the constellation Hata, eyes were affixed to the image, accompanied with great solemnity, rejoicings and excessive offerings, and the craftsmen were satisfied by appropriate gifts."*

*A. C. Lawrie, "Gazetteer "Gazetteer of the Central Province," p. 817 (with verbal alterations).

TEMPLE CRAFTSMEN.

The king, the nobles and the people, especially the craftsmen, were brought into intimate and even affectionate association on these occasions.

But not all of the craftsmen in Ceylon were servants of the king or the state directly. Every religious foundation of importance had its own lands, occupied by husbandmen and craftsmen, who owed service to the temple, just as the tenants of a royal manor owed service to the king. Let us examine a few instances of such tenancies. One of the goldsmith-tenants of the Dalada Māligāva, the great Buddhist temple in Kandy, for example, held three acres of land. For this his services, light enough, were to go to the temple and polish the gold and silver vessels and implements of the temple during six days in the year, and to give a nut-slicer and two silver rings to the lay-chief of the temple every New Year. When on duty at the temple, the tenant received his meal three times a day. The blacksmith tenant of another temple held half an acre, and owed somewhat harder service; he was to give iron utensils for the kitchen, work as a blacksmith, clean the palanquins and lamps, nail laths, give a pair of scissors and a nut-slicer, clean the court-yard and put up booths for the annual festival, and give a measure of lamp oil for another annual celebration, and at each festival to present to the lay officials of the temple a nut-slicer each. So much, indeed, were

TEMPLE CRAFTSMEN

the crafts bound up with the temples, so much occupied were the craftsmen, whether royal craftsmen or temple tenants, in either building, restoring or supplying the requirements of temples, that the art was really as distinctively religious as the Gothic art of the middle ages, and in the same way too, it was an art for, and understood by, the whole people.

The

Similar conditions probably prevailed from the earliest times. An interesting record of temple craftsmen is given in the tenth century inscription of Mahinda IV., at Mihintale, in Ceylon. The inscription describes the administration and organisation of a well-endowed* Buddhist monastery. section treating of craftsmen runs as follows: "(There shall be granted) to the chief masterartisan all that belongs to the guild of artisans at Bond-vehera; to two master-artisans, to eight carvers, and to two bricklayers-to (all of) these, the village Vadu-devagama. To each of the two workers in wood (shall be assigned) one kiriya (of land); to each of the two master-lapidaries [or

*

Mahavamsa, Ch. L.:" And he [Sena I., 13891409 A.D.] built, as it were by a miracle, a great vihara at Arittha-pabbala, and endowed it with great possessions, and dedicated it to the Pansakulika brethren. And he gave to it also royal privileges and honours, and a great number of keepers for the garden, and servants and artificers."

IN CEYLON.

goldsmiths?], three kiriya (of land); to each of the two blacksmiths, one kiriya (of land); to the limeburners, the village Sunubol-devagama; to the six cartmen, the village Dunumugama." Also, “to a painter, two kiriya (of land)"; "to each of the five potters who supply daily five earthen pots, one kiriya (of land).”*

Again, in the Jētavanārāma Sanskrit inscription (first half of ninth century), relative to the administration of another Buddhist monastery, we read: "[There shall be] clever stone-cutters and skilful carpenters in the village devoted to the work of [temple] renewal. They all . . . shall be experts in their [respective] work. To each of them shall be given of one and a half kiri [in sowing extent] for their maintenance an enclosed piece of ground. And one hena [or a plot of dry land] shall be granted to each of them for the purpose of sowing fine grain. Means of subsistence of the [same] extent [as is] given to one of these shall be granted to the officer who superintends work. Moreover, when thus conferring maintenance on the latter person, his work and so forth shall [just] be ascertained, and the name of him [thus] settled [with a livelihood], as well as his respective duties, shall be recorded in the register. Those of the five castes

* Wickremasinghe, “Epigraphia Zeylanica," Vol. I., p.p III, 112.

TEMPLE CRAFTSMEN

who work within the precincts of the monastery shall receive [their] work after it has been apportioned, and they alone shall be answerable for its excellence [lit. purity]. The limit [of time] for the completion of [a piece of] work [thus apportioned] is two months and five days. Blame [shall be attributed] to the superintendents, the vārikas, and the labourers who do not perform it according to arrangement. Those who do not avoid blame land]."

shall be deprived of their share [of

The craftsmen were provided with all materials, and probably fed while at work at the monastery, but received no wages in money; their means of subsistence being the portion of land allotted to each, and cultivated by other members of the family, and, probably, as at the present day, by themselves also in times of ploughing, sowing and harvest. The same conditions prevailed in mediæval England in this respect.* This relation between craft and agriculture is very important in view of the character of the modern social problems of the Western craftsman, alluded to in Mr. Ashbee's foreword.

* See Thorold Roger's "Six Centuries of Work and Wages," pp. 46, 179, 180. To draw any detailed comparison with the social conditions in mediaval Europe would, however interesting, have been beyond the scope of the present volume.