Although Sri Lanka has been long-renowned for its natural beauty, the art of the island seems to have been far less celebrated — or even studied — than that of other South Asian countries that share Theravada Buddhist culture, such as Burma or Cambodia. Though Sri Lanka was obviously greatly influenced culturally by neighboring India, its art — at least that from the well-known temple ruins on every tourist's agenda, and the objects in Colombo's National Museum, that was still intact — has tended to be lumped together by foreign scholars with art from South India. This has changed as archaeological work systematically carried out during the past three decades on the half-dozen major sites in the center of the island has brought many outstanding treasures to light.
Some of these newly-discovered early bronze works were exhibited in 1993 in "The Golden Age of Sculpture from Sri Lanka" show at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. Now for the first time in Japan, a selection of major art works from various Sri Lankan museums, made of metal, stone and ivory, can be seen in a special exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum, "Cultural Heritage of Sri Lanka — The Land of Serendipity" until Nov. 30.
As Sri Lanka was very much a stepping stone for the transmission of Buddhist and Hindu culture from India to other countries, the country's historic importance will be now surely be recognized and its artistic heritage reappraised.