英式新闻英语第 6 课：Tamil attack reveals Buddhist murals 斯里兰卡内战中发现古壁画

Conservation experts say a Tamil Tiger bomb attack on Sri Lanka's sacred Buddhist temple accidentally uncovered priceless murals. 文物保护专家们称，泰米尔猛虎组织对斯里兰卡佛教圣庙的一次炸弹袭击，意外地炸出了非常珍贵的壁画。

Scholars have been slowly piecing together fragments of the murals revealed by the explosion two years ago in the Temple of the Tooth in the hill town of Kandy. 专家们正小心地将两年前在山城康提佛牙舍利庙爆炸后发现的壁画碎片粘合起来。

As Francis Harrison reports from Kandy, they now believe they are of extraordinary significance. 根据弗朗西斯·哈里斯在康提的报道，这些壁画具有非常重要的意义。

Kandy, home to the Buddhist tooth, for many Sri Lankans the most sacred object of worship in the Buddhist world. 康提是很多斯里兰卡佛教信徒最尊崇的圣物――佛牙舍利的所在地。

Security used to be lax. Nobody here imagined a place of such religious importance would ever be the target of a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. 但这里保卫工作一向很马虎，因为没人会想到如此重要的宗教圣地竟会成为泰米尔猛虎组织自杀性炸弹的攻击目标。

The destruction to the front of the temple was huge. The roof was blown right off. Scores of people were killed or injured. Many of those working here had a narrow escape. 寺庙的前面毁损严重，屋顶全被炸飞。爆炸造成数十人伤亡，也有些这里的工作人员幸免于难。

A Villager: I was about to come here. I was ten minutes late. Otherwise I wouldn't have spoken to you today. I would have been dead. 村民：我正打算赶到这里来，但我晚来了10分钟，要不然我就不能在这里和你说话了，已经死了。

Twice a day the inner vestibule of the shrine is unlocked. The tooth relic itself is too sacred to be shown to the public, but it's said to have been unharmed. 目前寺庙的内门厅每天打开两次，佛牙则因其圣洁而不予公开展示，但据说并未受损。

For the faithful, there's some comfort in the thought that an act of sacrilege inadvertently uncovered something with immense value. 因为这无意亵渎神灵的爆炸，竟又发现了非常珍贵的宝物，对信徒们来说至少还算是有些安慰。

A layer of plaster was blown off the wall of the inside of the shrine by the force of the explosion. 因为爆炸的威力，寺庙内墙上的一层泥土崩落，

Under the colorful 1940s paintings, the restoration team found two earlier layers of murals. This elephant dates back to the early 18th century and is probably part of a ceremonial pageant. 在原本四十年代的彩绘下面，修复工作人员发现了较早期的两层壁画。这幅18世纪早期的大象绘画可能是一个庆典大游行画面的一部分。

Scholars say the new discovery is so significant it changes the history of Sri Lankan art, filling in a six-hundred-year gap. 专家们称此次新发现非常重要，改变了斯里兰卡的艺术史，填补了艺术史上600年的空白。