Devendra Mulachari

Devendra Mulachari belonged to the Nilagama line, the most celebrated of the Kandyan painter-families, and he carried the title Mulachari, the master craftsman at the head of a workshop. His name survives above all on two works of the last years of the kingdom, both raised for Sri Wickrama Rajasinha, the final king of Kandy, whose reign ran from 1798 to 1815: the Paththirippuwa, the octagonal pavilion added to the Temple of the Tooth at Kandy, and the great artificial lake below it, both of which still shape the face of the city.

His craft ran wider than the brush, into the design of building and of works in stone, in the manner of the old master craftsmen who were architects and painters at once. The Nilagama school to which he belonged is credited too with work at the rock temple of Dambulla. His is one of the last great names of the court tradition, set down almost at the moment the kingdom itself came to an end.