Sinhala Sri Lankan Masks

Masks have played a very important role in Sri Lankan dancing field connected with three dancing traditions. Masks perform a character changing his personal shapes qualities. Mr. Robert Cohen describes this nature like the audience identification with dramatic characters and consequent shared feelings with the plights and fortunes of those characters, on e of the principal effects of effective drama.

Ruhunu Dance
This tradition belongs to the southern part of Sri Lanka. It is fortified with various other folk rites and traditions such as sculpturing, Art of Gok carvings, making masks, exorcisms, astronomy and invisible flowers. A person who does this is called a charmer. This is performance of devil dancing helps the folks to get rid of the evil spirit of their lives and they enjoy themselves by watching them.
To carve these masks on e has to select an auspicious time and has to follow conventional verses that describe the shapes of the faces, and use the separate colours for different faces.

The main categories of masks are:
Devil mask
Rakas mask
Sanni mask
Pali mask
Kolam mask
Animal mask
Human mask
King mask
Female mask
God mask