Community: Sri Lanka epigraphy

The pillar was first discovered sometime in or before 1886 by H. Parker in the forest below the embankment of the Padaviya Tank “at the site of an ancient town which is now called Moragoḍa”. It was still there, “lying prone among the ruins”, when Bell and Wickremasinghe visited the spot in October 1891. The pillar is inscribed on all four sides in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th century A.D. The inscription is dated in the sixteenth year of reign of king Kasub Sirisaṅgbo, identified as Kassapa IV (r. 912-929 A.D.) It proclaims the grant of certain immunities to lands irrigated by the waters of the Padonnaru tank.

The inscribed stone pillar was discovered by Wickremasinghe and Bell in 1891 in Buddhannehäla (Buddhanagehela) in Kun͂chuṭṭu Kōrale, North-Central Province, about seven miles north of the ruins of Padaviya. Five caves and one dāgaba were found in Buddhannehäla and the present inscription was discovered in Cave No. 3. The pillar was placed upside down to serve as a door-jamb of a Śaiva shrine of about the eleventh or early twelfth century A.D. and was evidently brought there from elsewhere. Written in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th century A.D., the inscription covers the four sides of the pillar. On the first side, the inscription is surmounted by a large śrī and, above that, an emblem of the sun or a lotus. On the fourth side, a crow and a dog are cut underneath the inscription to indicate that whosoever transgresses the rules enjoined shall be born in the future as these animals. The inscription records regulations concerning the management of lands (fields, water, employees, cattle, sowing). Its use of the expression abhiṣekayen daru (‘son by sacred sprinkling’) indicates the prevalence of certain Brahmaṇic or more likely northern Buddhist (Mahāyāna) rites not sanctioned in the southern Buddhist Church. The inscription is dated in the third year of the reign of His Majesty Abhā Salamevan. This name (biruda) was used by a number of Sri Lankan monarchs. It may refer in this instance to Kassapa V (r. 929-939).

The inscription was unearthed in 1898 at the image-house of the ruined monastery at Puliyaṉ-kuḷam. The slab is pointed at the lower end and must have originally stood upright. It is engraved with 44 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the last quarter of the 10th century or of the first quarter of the 11th century A.D. The inscription records the merits and great deeds of the Chief Governor Udā Mahayā.

The slab was seen by Wickremasinghe in the Archaeological Commissioner’s Office at Anurādhapura. Its original location is uncertain but, as it was placed together with objects from Puliyaṉ-kuḷam, a small village situated two and a half miles north-east of Anurādhapura, it is assumed to have come from the same locality. The material from Puliyaṉ-kuḷam included several inscribed slabs from the piḷima-gē and the stone revetment of the dāgaba, three of which were marked ‘C/6’, ‘C/7’ and ‘C/8’. The present inscription is marked ‘D/8’. It is written in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 12th and 13th centuries A.D. and records the good deeds of the queen Līlāvatī, wife of King Parakkama Bāhu I. It tells us that she ruled the island with the aid of a Council of Ministers and that she built an almshouse in Anurādhapura. There is no date given in the inscription but her reign can be dated by other sources. Līlāvatī was on the throne first from 1197 to 1200 A.D., secondly in 1209 and lastly in 1211. The present grant was probably made during the first period, when the government was administered by Kitti Sēnāpati.

The inscription is written over four sides of a quadrangular pillar. The pillar was found by H. C. P. Bell in 1891 in the village of Ram̆bǟva on the right bank of the Yōda-äla canal, about 3 miles north-east of Īripinniyǟva. The inscription is written in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th century A.D. and deals with the granting of immunities in respect of certain lands dedicated to the Sen-Senevirad-pirivena. It is dated to the [lunar month] Hil (Oct.-Nov.) in the first year of the reign of Abhaya Salamevan. The text is almost identical to that of the Īripinniyǟva pillar inscription (IN03054), which was granted five weeks later by the same king. Only the names of the lands being dealt with and one or two clauses are different. Abhaya Salamevan is a name (biruda) used by several kings. In this inscription, it probably refers to one of the two kings who reigned between Sēna II and Kassapa V, namely Udaya I and Kassapa IV.