Kandyan King

Temple Of The Tooth, Kandy

The portrait of the crowned and captioned standing king is rendered, like the other paintings in the temple, in Kandyan style (see previous page). The figure is very thick, with strangely boneless arms and short legs, although some of this may be an artifact of the elaborate and impressively padded costume that he is wearing. The king is standing underneath an honorific makara torana, and grasps a lotus stem in his right hand like a Bodhisattva. His left hand holds a piece of cloth, presumably a royal attribute.