to be untenable.  Sir Charles L. Eastlake[2] has adduced the evidence of AEtius of Diarbekir, to prove that the use of oil in connection with art[3] was known before the 6th century; and Dioscorides, who wrote in the age of Augustus, has been hitherto regarded as the most ancient authority on the drying properties of walnut, sesamum, and poppy.  But the Mahawanso affords evidence of an earlier knowledge, and records that in the 2nd century before Christ, “vermilion paint mixed with tila oil,"[4] was employed in the building of the Ruanwelle dagoba.  This is, therefore, the earliest testimony extant of the use of oil as a medium for painting, and till a higher claimant appears, the distinction of the discovery may be permitted to rest with the Singhalese.

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxvii, p. 163.]

[Footnote 2:  EASTLAKE’S Materials for a History of Oil Painting, ch. i. p. 18.]

[Footnote 3:  Aetius [Greek:  Biblion iatrikon.]]

[Footnote 4:  Tila or tala is the Singhalese name for sesamum from which the natives express the gingeli oil.  SIR CHARLES L. EASTLAKE is of opinion that “sesamum cannot be called a drying oil in the ordinary acceptation of the term,” but in this passage of the Mahawanso, it is mentioned as being used as a cement.  A question has been raised in favour of the claim of the Egyptians to the use of oil in the decoration of their mummy cases, but the probability is that they were coloured in tempera and their permanency afterwards secured by a varnish.]

Style of Ornament.—­In decorating the temporary tee, which was placed on the Ruanwelle dagoba, prior to its completion, the square base was painted with a design representing vases of flowers in the four panels, surrounded by “ornaments radiating like the five fingers."[1] This description points to the “honeysuckle border,” which, according to Fergusson, was adopted and carried westward by the Greeks, and eastward by the Buddhist architects.[2] It appears upon the lat column at Allahabad, which is inscribed with one of the edicts of Asoca, issued in the 3rd century before Christ.

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxii. p. 193; ch. xxxviii. p. 258.]

[Footnote 2:  FERGUSSON’S Handbook of Architecture, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 7.]

[Illustration:  FROM THE CAPITAL OF A LAT]

The spire itself was “painted with red stick-lac,” probably the same preparation of vermilion as is used at the present day on the lacquered ware of Burmah, Siam, and China.[1] Gaudy colours appear at all times to have been popular; yellow, from its religious associations, pre-eminently so[2]; and red lead was applied to the exterior of dagobas.[3] Bujas Raja, in the 4th century, painted the walls and roof of the Brazen Palace blue[4], and built a sacred edifice at Anarajapoora, which from the variety and brilliancy of the colours with which he ornamented the exterior, was known as the Monara Paw Periwena, or Temple of the Peacock.[5]