mask (ansiktsmask)

1916.9.13

Name and identification of character
The mask depicts a king who appears in the story portion of Kolam. Invariably the iconographic features point to the character of Brahmadatta Raja (King Brahmadatta), appearing in several stories enacted in the third stage of a Kolam performance (Vide Preface).

Context
King Brahmadatta appears in the story portion of Kolam, in stories such as Maname Kathava, Sandakinduru Kathava etc. (see Preface). There is a separate, huge mask of this king, which is not used in the dance, but is only meant for exhibition purposes at the beginning of a Kolam ceremony. In the normal story portion, however, he is a dancing character, wearing a small crown with iconographical similarities to the bigger mask.

Material
Wood, Vel-kaduru (Nux vomica), and traditional pigments.

Comments on the Umlauff Catalogue
The mask is wrongly identified as Wadage Radja in the Umlauff Catalogue. The name, as it is written, has no meaning at all. (i) If Wadage is taken as Waduge, it refers to King Sri Vikrama-Rajasingha (1798-1815 A.D.), the last king of Kandy. Vadige is the apellation given by Sinhala authors to this king and it simply means a person from the Vadiga (Vadugar in Tamil) country. The expression is Telugu, but in a derogatory sense. It is very unlikely, therefore, that the Sinhala carver depicted Sri Vikrama, his wife, his ministers etc. in Kolam. There was no connection between Kandyan kings of the hill country and the Kolam artistes of the low-country coastal belt. Neither do we find instances of stories in any Kolam repertoire based on Sri Vikrama's history.

(ii) If Wadage is a misspelling of the Sinhala word Vädda, there is some sense leading to an eventual identification. Even this is not probable, because the Vädda king is normally differently sculpted and painted (cf. 1916.9.16).

The face is, according to the Umlauff catalogue, flesh coloured (fleisch Farben). If it refers to the flesh colour of the Sri Lankans, the catalogue is wrong, it is normally depicted as whitish yellow or even black. The carvers refer to it as Tämbilipata (the colour of king coconuts). But in this mask paint has not been cleanly applied. The cheeks are pink in colour.

2000 02 17
Dr. M. H. Goonatilleka