.
The murals are seen in this single room on the left and right side walls and ceilings. On the left wall we see the “Uraga Jātakaya”, a story of the Brahmin and his family, who did not lament the sudden death of the son.
The narration begins with the messenger informing the Brahmin’s wife that she is to bring the midday meal, but come with all members of the family to the plot of land. The lady receiving the message is seated inside the house. Those engaged in conversation are holding up the second finger. All three women have no upper garment. Please note the colour of the body of the woman standing. All three women have their tied up, where as the messenger’s hair is loose falling well below the shoulders.
The next scene shows the three women on their way to the plot of land, the wife and the daughter- in law of the Brahmin now wear jackets. The servant carrying the noontime meal is not wearing un upper garment.
Let us now look at this scene of the “King with a woman disguised as a queen” from Mulgirigala Raja Maha Viharaya, just to remind ourselves of the typical style of dressing of the women in the Southern School.
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The king is wearing an “Uttariya” , what we today call an “Uturu saluwa” over one shoulder and the Queen wears a larger shawl over her head and shoulders. The only figure wearing an upper garment is the male dancer on the left.
The first figure on the panel of the Vessantara Jātakaya shows the queen Mandri in the forest.
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The maze like design above her symbolically shows that she is in “Vangagiriya”. Strangely here the wife of King Vessantara, now living in the Himalayan forest, does not wear an upper garment. Her spotted yellow lower garment, may denote her status as a “Tapasvin” or ascetic, who has renounced the worldly life. Her hair is tied up well above the head. We see her in the next scene seated with the two children, dressed in the same manner.
It seems the Kandyan artist of the mid 18th century had no problem to show the wife of the future Buddha in her last birth without an upper garment. Before leaving this Viharaya, a quick glance at “Mara’s Three daughters” dancing around the Buddha in the “Fifth week after Enlightenment”.
I have shown you a basic structure, how the female costume may have changed using evidences from the Murals, beginning with the mid 18th century and ending at the turn of the 19th century. Martin Wickramasingha and M. D. Ariyapala have attempted hypothesis based on the literary evidences from the time of the “Hiatus” before the period discussed this evening. It seems that the late medieval society did not measure the “Modesty” of the female from the percentage of the exposure of the body.
Covering the Female Body: Transition seen in Buddhist murals from the 18th to 20th centuries
Asoka De Zoysa from his presentation at the National Trust Lecture Series in Lanka No. 38
https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2013...dhist-murals-from-the-18th-to-20th-centuries/
