Laksha (Lacquer Work)

Laksha, or lacquer work, is identified as a Kandyan craft. An article in The Architect, the journal of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, records that lacquer-painted windows and railings were a common feature of Kandyan architecture. Lacquer also decorated the wooden covers of palm leaf manuscripts.

The same article lists lacquered objects in the Kandy museum's collection: bows and arrows, the handles of spears, banner poles, the headboards and legs of beds, and sesath, the ceremonial sunshades carried in royal and religious processions. Kandyan drum sets and the horanewa were decorated in the same way. Sri Lanka Tourism notes that the Kandy National Museum opened to the public in 1942 and holds over 5,000 objects from the Kandyan period, which it gives as the 17th to 19th centuries.

The colouring material is lac, a resinous substance secreted by a species of scale insect, Kerria lacca. The article explains that the insects favour certain trees and shrubs, particularly the keppitiya (Croton lacciferus), where they leave heavy deposits known in Sinhala as lakada.

In the traditional method the twigs are cut and the resin is scraped off. It is packed into long cloth bags, heated over a charcoal fire until it melts, and squeezed out by twisting the bags. Mineral dyes of red, yellow, black and green are worked into the lac by heating it again. The article notes that these traditional materials have largely been replaced by imported ones.

The objects themselves are turned from wood, generally suriya (Thespesia populnea), though other timbers are used when it is scarce. A 2024 study of Hapuwida names gansuriya wood and natural lacquer dyes as the local resources.

The lacquer worker shapes and colours an object on a simple lathe fixed to the ground. The block of wood is turned with a bow and cut with small chisels until it takes the form wanted. The article stresses that this is not painting: brushes are never used.

The work of Matale is of a distinct type called niyapotten weda, or fingernail work. Lac in red, yellow, black and green is heated and drawn out into thin threads. These are laid on the object and guided into the pattern with the fingernail. The piece is then heated and polished with an ola leaf.

Two other methods are described. In one, three layers of different colours are applied and a pattern is scraped through the outer layer, usually black or green, to show the yellow and red beneath. In the other, a pattern is carved into a prepared ground and filled with colour.

Citing Ananda Coomaraswamy, the article says that lacquer workers formed a professional group known as i-waduwo, or arrow-makers, who worked mostly as assistants to the chief craftsmen of the guilds. It records that the craft continues as the traditional occupation of families at Hapuwida in Matale District, a village also known as the place where the craft began, and in a few other places.

Other sources point to the same village. The Export Development Board's 2012 report on the craft sector gives Hapuvida as the cluster for lacquer ware. The 2024 study, by researchers at Gampaha Wickramarachchi University of Indigenous Medicine and the University of Kelaniya, was carried out in the Hapuwida Grama Niladhari Division of Matale District. It found that techniques there remain largely unchanged, while makers face competition from mass-produced goods sold at lower prices.

Lacquer goods are still made and shown. The National Crafts Council's published awards list has a lacquer category, with jewellery boxes entered by makers from the Matale area. The Yatawatta Divisional Secretariat in Matale District lists laksha work and the making of sesath among the crafts long practised in its villages, and names the village of Salagama for lacquer work.

The technique has also been taken into other fields. The Architect notes that the architect Minnette de Silva used lacquer-worked railings and curtain rods in her work. It adds that the Bachelor of Design programme at the University of Moratuwa has experimented with the materials and techniques of the craft to make jewellery in modern designs, in the hope of giving the craftsmen new work.