One of the most striking peculiarities of Ceylonese art, as compared with that of the continent, is the almost total absence of sculpture which it exhibits, and may be a peculiarity that may render it much less useful for comparison than might at first sight appear. The most obvious suggestion to meet this difficulty is to assume that the sculptures are buried in the accumulated ruins, in the cities where the great monuments are found, and will be discovered when excavations are made. It is to be feared, however, that this theory is hardly tenable; Ceylon has never been occupied by Mahomedans, or other hostile races, and there is no reason to suppose that at any time statues would be thrown down, or bas-reliefs destroyed; besides this, such excavations as have been made--and they are in the most likely places--have revealed nothing that would lead us to hope for better results elsewhere. Perhaps this ought not to surprise us, as nearly the same thing occurs in Burmah. In that country there is an unlimited amount of painting and carving, but no sculpture properly so called; and the same thing may have occurred in Ceylon. So far as we can now see, all the great topes were covered with chunam, which may have been painted to any extent, and all the viharas, as in Burmah, were in wood, and consequently unfitted for permanent sculpture. Besides this, such information as we have would lead us to suppose that painting was a more favoured art with the islanders than sculpture. When Fa Hian, for instance, visited the island in 412-413, he describes an accompaniment to the procession of the tooth relic as follows:--“The king next causes to be placed on both sides of the road representations of the 500 bodily forms which Bôdisatwa assumed during his successive births” (the jataka in fact). “These figures,” he adds, “are all beautifully painted in divers colours, and have a very life-like appearance.”[229] It was not that they could not sculpture in stone, for, as we shall presently see, some of their carvings are of great delicacy and cleverness of execution, but they seem to have preferred colour to the more permanent forms of representation. If this is so, it certainly is remarkable, when we think of the wealth of sculpture exhibited by such monuments as Bharhut, Sanchi, or Amravati. In so far as our present information goes, one single monastery in Gandhara, such as Jamalgiri, for instance, possessed more sculpture than is to be found in the whole island of Ceylon. The form, too, of such sculptures as have been discovered, is almost as curious as its rarity. Only one ancient figure of Buddha has yet been discovered at Anuradhapura. It may be of the 3rd or 4th century, and is placed unsymmetrically in a chapel in front of the Ruanwelli dagoba. Everywhere, however, there are statues of five or seven-headed serpents, or of men with serpent-hoods, which may be of any age, and at the foot