SRI LANKA, KANDYAN PERIOD, 18TH CENTURY

The present work is a masterful example of late Sri Lankan Buddhist sculpture, with its broad shoulders, undulating folds of drapery, and large and crowning siraspata all emphasized by the rich gilding. Its importance is underscored by its massive size and weight, due to the solid-cast method employed by the Buddhist image makers of the Kandyan period.
After a period of decline lasting a few centuries, Buddhism was revived throughout the Kandyan kingdom in the second half of the eighteenth century under the King Kirti Sri Rajasinha (r. 1747-1782), who encouraged Buddhist monks from Burma and Thailand to emigrate to Sri Lanka, and heavily patronized the Buddhist institutions within his kingdoms. In accordance with texts dating from as early as the ninth century, all Buddhist images in Sri Lanka were required to be solid-cast; as such, heavy molds were often used in the Kandyan period, resulting in a remarkable consistency of style. However, while Kandyan sculpture is consistent in its broad-shouldered outline, there is considerable variation in the rendering of the robe, with various degrees of undulation in the wave patterns of the folds, as well as the hemline of the sanghati draped across the left shoulder.