IN03062 Jētavanārāma Slab Inscription 2 of Mahinda IV

The inscription is engraved on a slab found lying what was at the time believed to be the Jētavanārāma area, not far from the ‘stone canoe’ (trough) on the outer circular road in Anurādhapura. This area has since been shown to be the Abhayagiri monastery complex. The slab appears to have been erected very soon after a similar inscribed slab (IN03061) found in the same area. The present inscription consists of 60 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th and early 11th centuries A.D. The middle part of the slab is damaged, rending the inscription is largely illegible from line 6 to line 39. The inscription does include a date but, due to the damaged condition of the slab, the year – tentatively read by Wickremasinghe as the eighth of Mahinda’s IV’s reign – is unclear. The text starts with a short account of Mahinda IV and his charitable works. It then deals principally with the regulations instituted by Mahinda IV at the Abhayagiri-vihāra soon after completing the reparation of the dāgaba and other buildings attached to the monastery. The stone statue of Buddha mentioned in line 45 of the inscription may be the same as the one that was seen by the Chinese pilgrim Fâ-hien at the Abhayagiri-vihāra when he visited Ceylon in the 5^th century A.D.