Central Cultural Fund begins rescue work on photo archives 

A queen's dream kept alive

By Aditha Dissanayake

Before he dons the robes of a wandering ascetic, the Buddha cuts his long tresses with a sword. This would be the last time he would be seen in his regal splendour as Prince Siddhartha. He stands next to his friend Channa, with the sword poised over his hair.

These are the stories the paintings on the walls of Sunandarama Viharaya in Ambalangoda revealed, a decade ago, when Gamini Jayasinghe captured them on film in his camera. Today they have begun to deteriorate at an alarming rate. The need for restoration can no longer be ignored.

Picture a young painter strolling into the temple with his brushes and tins of paint. He has to restore the paintings. But how is he to know where his ancestors had drawn the lines? What colours they had used? Where is he to find the information? Where else, but at the Photo Archives of the Central Cultural Fund (CCF).

The archives at present house 3,400 slides of paintings photographed by Gamini Jayasinghe from 1982 to 1998. According to Lalindra Weerakoon, a young graduate in archaeology who is creating a database for the slides, most of the paintings on the walls of the temples, especially in the southern province, are in a critical state. "There is a great difference between the picture on the slides and the paintings one sees on the walls. There are only white patches now, where six or seven years ago there had been pictures," he says with the urgency for restoration reverberating in his voice.

Rainwater is said to leak through the wooden ceilings of the roofs of the ancient temples. The plaster on the walls is cracking. Water seeps into the bricks. Wasps have built mud nests on some parts of the walls. The paintings are deteriorating rapidly.

In order to rescue them from total elimination, the roofs need to be repaired. The foundations of the temple buildings need to be examined for structural damage. Surface water drainage systems need to be installed to prevent moisture. Help is needed, and needed urgently.

UNESCO has come to the rescue. According to Dr. M. Abeyrathna, Head of the Research Laboratory of the CCF, UNESCO has undertaken to fund the preservation of mural paintings of twenty-one temples in the island. As the Project Coordinator, Dr. Abyerathna has been the chief instigator in creating a database of temple paintings in Sri Lanka. The location, the type of building, the period and the condition of paintings of 1037 temples are included in the database using VisualdBase. "The data would regularly be updated as the condition of the paintings changes," said Dr. Abeyrathna.

Under this project attempts would be made to discover the material and the technology used by the ancient artists not only in the paintings but also in plastering the walls and panelling the ceilings. Archaeologists and artists would work together to preserve the murals by taking minute samples from the paintings and by subjecting them to dispersive x-ray analyses and x-ray diffractions. Professionals from the Post Graduate Institute of Archeology, the Post Graduate Institute of Monuments and Sites, and the University of Kelaniya would be taking part in the conservation and documentation processes.

A pilot project has already been chosen- Karagampitiya Raja Maha Viharaya in Dehiwala. Built in the 1820s, the temple has wall paintings and mosaics belonging to the late 19th century.

The CCF has plans of launching a website soon, with colour photos of the paintings. It would not be long before, Queen Mahamaya Devi's dream, as painted by an unknown artist on the walls of Sunandarama Viharaya, could be viewed on a computer screen from anywhere in the world.

And here is good news for the collector of artifacts. Slides of the 3400 wall paintings now in the possession of the Central Cultural Fund, are for sale. A slide costs Rs. 2,500.

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