IN03082 Poḷonnaruva Niśśaṅka-Dāna-Vinoda-Maṇḍapa Inscription

The inscription is engraved on two sides of the upper portion of the shaft of a stone pillar. It was seen by Wickremasinghe in Archaeological Commissioner’s Office at Tōpaväva in Poḷonnaruva sometime before 1927, having been discovered by S. M. Burrows in 1885-6. The inscription consists of 12 lines and records that a pavilion called Niśśaṅka-dāna-maṇḍapa was constructed for the purpose of witnessing the great rejoicings of the beggars who had received alms from the king Niśśaṅka-Malla. It is therefore quite obvious that this inscription dates from the reign of Niśśaṅka-Malla (1187-1196 A.D.) and originally stood somewhere at the entrance to the Niśśaṅka-dāna-maṇḍapa. Burrows found the pillar-fragment in a ruined building, with massive pillars, abutting on the bund of Tōpa-väva tank in Poḷonnaruva and consequently identified this building as the Niśśaṅka-dāna-vinpoda-maṇḍapa (‘the pavilion for the past-time of Niśśaṅka-almsgiving’). This identification was confirmed in 1902 by H. C. P. Bell, whose excavations revealed that the building originally stood at the centre of quadrangular terraced platforms and had therefore been well suited for witnessing the distribution of alms.