Modern Performing Arts Related to the Folk Art Associated with The Lifestyle in Sri Lanka

Abstract

People who were dependent on grains, leaves and fruits found on the earth, later on, developed to plant seeds and receive a yield of crop in return. That is said to be the beginning of agriculture. From then on, people's lifestyles began to change. Starting from around 9500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops – emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas, and flax – were cultivated in the Levant.1 Sri Lanka's legendary harvests once brought it fame as the Granary of the East. Historical records tell us that paddy was cultivated in Anuradhapura in 161 BC and flourished there until 1017 AD. Today, it is cultivated across the Island. As society evolved, activities and people close to the heart of paddy cultivation rose to prominence. By keeping the Island fed, the goviyas or paddy farmers ascended the hierarchy of the Sinhalese cast system, raised by royal patronage because, after all, they satiated the people's hunger and so were deserving of respect.2 (Daleena, 2013,) In lush tropical Sri Lanka, paddy cultivation took deep root, transforming into the lifeblood of the islanders and setting the pace for a national culture embellished with elaborate rituals centered around the preparation of the fields and the harvesting of the grain. The cultivation cycle was a high point of their social life. Everyone pitched in. Historian, Dr Ananda Coomaraswamy writes in Medieval Sinhalese Art, "Great Chiefs were not ashamed to hold the plough in their hands. The majority of village folk were brought into close touch with the soil and with each other by working together in the fields; even the craftsmen... used to lay aside their tools to do a share of the field work when need was, as at sowing or harvest time." Popular songs forms were created among the Sinhala villagers based on this process. Modern writers tend to refer to their books as Sinhala folk poems.4 (Weerasundara, (2014), 12. P.) Siripala, (2002), 21.p.)5 Many poems related to agriculture have created. They are designed to be associated with a variety of tasks. Sri Lanka's agriculture can be classified into two categories. It is classified according to the nature of the land under cultivation. 01. Chena farming 02. Paddy cultivation