The inscription is engraved on all four sides of a stone pillar. It was discovered by the Archaeological Commissioner, H. C. P. Bell, in September 1896. The pillar was lying almost embedded in the ground about thirty miles west-north-west of Anurādhapura in what is now the Vilpattu National Park. Bell erroneously identified the find-spot as Kukurumahan Damana (an identification repeated by Wickremasinghe) when it was in fact Mallimaḍu, according to C. W. Nicholas in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1963). The inscription consists of 73 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th century A.D. It is dated in the eleventh of the reign of king Siri San̆g-bo and records the granting of certain immunities by the king and his Council in respect of Kereḷǟ-gama, a village belonging to the hospital built by the Commander-in-Chief Gēna opposite the nunnery called Mahindārāma on the High Street of the Inner City of Anuradhapura. Wickremasinghe argues that the biruda Siri San̆g-bo refers in this instance to Kassapa IV, whose reign lasted from 912 to 929.

Epigraphia Zeylanica
Wickremasinghe, Don Martino de Zilva. (1912-27). ‘No. 5. Kukurumahan-Damana Pillar-Inscription,’ Epigraphia Zeylanica 2, pp. 24-25.

On the fifth day of the waxing moon of [the month of] Mändindina (Feb.-March) in the eleventh year of [the reign of] His Majesty Siri San̆gbo.

 

Whereas it was decreed that boundary stones and a pillar of Council Warranty should be set up in the village of Kereḷǟgäma situated in the district of Valapu in the Western Quarter, which (village) was attached to the hospital built by the Commander-in-Chief Sen in front of the Mihindaram nunnery on the High Street Man̆gulmahaveya of the Inner City, all these Officers of State, namely, (ṇi)ngamu (Udahi), Nikaväli Senu, MahaKubussā(lu) Mitu, Mekāppar (Na)muḍǟ Nilā and (DigiviliKaṇṇā) [both] of the family of Rin̆gǟva Radsivu, have come from the Council and have set up in this village a pillar of Council Warranty, granting by Order the following immunities:—Enforcers of customary laws shall not enter this village; headmen of districts and keepers of district records shall not enter; servants of the royal family shall not enter; melātti shall not enter; tramps and vagrants shall not enter; holders [of the management] of two places of business shall not enter; carts, oxen, labourers, buffaloes shall not be appropriated; aräkkan and pereläkkan shall not enter; those who have come for refuge shall not be arrested.

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