IN03120 Kuccavēli Rock Inscription

The inscription is carved on the sloping side of a gneiss boulder, which stands just to the west of a larger cluster of boulders and caverns on the beach at Kuccavēli (Kuchchaveli) – a small fishing-village in Kaḍḍukkuḷam East, twenty-one miles to the north of Trincomalee. To the right of the inscription, an area of the boulder’s surface measuring about four feet (121.92 cm) square has been partitioned into sixteen compartments of equal proportions, into each of which has been carved in low-relief a representation of a stūpa. The inscription is written in Sanskrit and consists of two verses in the Upajāti and Vasantatilakā metres. The palaeography indicates a date later than the fifth century A.D. and earlier than the eighth. From the degree of development in the script, Senarath Paranavitana tentatively ascribes the record to the seventh century A.D., making it one of the earliest Sanskrit inscriptions in Sri Lanka. The contents of the inscription do not furnish any more precise information about the date. It simply states the pious wish of the author that, by the merit he has gained (presumably through making the carvings on the boulder), he may become a Buddha in the future for the deliverance of suffering humanity.