Head dresses and hair decoration: a unique historical process of south Indian assimilation into patterns of head decoration during 16th century Sri Lanka.

Abstract

In ancient Sri Lanka, 16th Century marked limelight in the fields of Literature and Fine Arts. The pursuit of art of dance has become a regular and important feature in the Kings court with influence of the South Indian culture. This paper is based on the study of Kotte period fashions of the dance head dresses with consideration of identifying and categorizing of assimilated salient features of the South Indian culture. Further this study expounded by analyzing the influential patterns of penetrating South Indian culture to the ancient Sri Lankan Kotte era. The main argument put forward in this study is that the adaptation of South Indian elements to dance head dresses are a static entity , as most seen in structuring and designing, however a dynamic process that keeps evolving with the Sinhala tradition emerging in the context. In addition to deliberate designing, the structures could be changed and organized by the internal agents associated with the tradition. In view of that this paper reformulated the already known story of the assimilation of South Indian inspiration to Kotte kingdom as a historic process, intending to explain emerging design elements in dance coiffures as an influential phenomenon.