Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/149

Rh lights and the soft strains of music won the audience and the king presented her with a gold necklace of the value of 1,008 gold coins which was the highest award given on such occasions.

In the arts of painting and sculpture also the Tamils had acquired a considerable degree of proficiency. Figures of gods, men and animals were painted with a variety of colors on the walls of private houses and public buildings, such as temples and palaces.2 The curtains used in bedrooms and theatres, and the cloth cased used for the lute and other musical instruments were beautifully painted in imitation of flowers and creepers. Very pretty dolls were made out of wood or the soft pith of the Kidai. In the temples and monasteries, there wee images of gods and goddesses made of mortar and painted so exquisitely that the superstitious worshippers believed that the cunning hand of the painter had endowed them with the power to grant their prayers. No mention is made however of images or statues made of such enduring materials as stone or metal!; and this accounts for the total absence in the Tamil-land of any relics of sculpture more ancient than those at Mamallaipuram, which were executed in the seventh or eighth century A. D.

The houses of the poor classes were built of mud and thatched with grass or with the leaves of the cocoanut or palmyra palm : and their walls were painted with red earth. Most of the houses in the towns were built of brick and had tiled roofs the walls were plastered with lime, and small windows shaped like the eye of the deer admitted light and air into the inner compartments. The gateway or portico, which was always a conspicuous part of the house, was approached by a flight of steps from the street and wide piazzas erected on both sides of the entrance afforded seats for visitors or the inmates of the house, during their leisure hours. The gateway was generally distinct from the main building, and in the open space or court-yard between it and the house, stalls were erected for the shelter of the sheep, cows and other cattle belonging to the owner of the house. The man-