The Story of Furniture in Sri Lanka

History of Religious, Secular and Domestic Furniture in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 3BCE to 17CE.

This is the first book to survey the evolution of furniture of both immovable and movable objects that are made from materials as permanent as stone and masonry, furniture represented on wall paintings, and the surviving wooden objects of the Kandyan period. The book is illustrated with numerous images of objects that have never been published before, taken from the author’s original research.

The evolution of furniture in Sri Lanka is documented from the ancient RajaRata kingdoms of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, and the Divided Kingdoms, up to the early Kandyan period. Stone furniture was created during the early Buddhist monastic period 3-2 BCE until the end of Polonnaruwa period 12 CE. The wooden furniture perished leaving no evidence due to the island’s humid, tropical, monsoon climate. The story continues over the next few hundred years with furniture representations found on wall paintings. Buddhist temples of the Kandyan period disclose the existing wooden furniture dating to the 16th centuries, when the impact of the early colonial period brings other influences, dissemination and style.

The chronology of the Story of Furniture in Sri Lanka spans several hundred years. The book is divided into sections with an introduction and six chapters and a conclusion. Stone furniture, representational furniture, and Kandyan furniture-indigenous, traditional, derivative, and hybrid forms. The fourth chapter includes early colonial furniture. These chapters generate the historical evidence needed to contruct the story of how furniture evolved in Sri Lanka.

The author’s research analyses what characterizes the Kandyan furniture tradition in terms of style and design, as well as questions Kandyan tradition and its historical precedence. The extant furniture objects are from the highlands of the Kandyan region, which served as a significant repository of cultural legacy, at the time when early European maritime trading colonies penetrated the interior areas. The hypothesis discusses the impact of European style on traditional furniture from Kotte to Kandy, and questions the changes that evolved due to the transmission of cultural and stylistic influences.

The European presence influenced the lifestyle of the local people, affecting a change in the modes and manners, and the material culture of Sri Lanka. The southern Indian Nayyakars through marital ascendancy become the final rulers of the new Kandyan Buddhist kingdom. within this framework Sri Lankan culture and tradition further evolves. The conslusion argues that due to diverse socio-cultural background new stimuli were assimilated into old traditions creating a hybridity, which dictates the pioneering national tradition.