IN03122 Vihāregala Rock Inscription 1

The inscription is engraved within an outline framing on the dressed surface of a low, flat rock amidst the ruins of an ancient monastery at Vihāregala. This site lies at the southern end of the Puliyankuḷam range of hills, about two and half miles to the north-west of Galenbin̆dunuväva in the Uḍḍiyankuḷam Kōraḷē of the North-Central Province, and to the east of the village named Mahakälǟgama (Maha Kelegama, 8.28531, 80.680939). The inscription records that king Saba granted a tank named Uppaladoṇika to the monks to the Ekadvāra monastery. The king in question is Subha, who reigned between 60 and 66 A.D. A later inscription (IN03123) is inscribed on the same rock as the present record, in which king Gaja Bahu I (113–135 A.D.) re-grants the tank to the monastery. The two inscriptions were first recorded in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1893 (p. 7). The Uppadoṇika tank to which they refer is apparently the one now known as the Pahala Kayinattama Wewa, which lies only two miles north of the ruined monastery. An inscription on the bund of the Pahala Kayinattama Wewa (IN03121) confirms that it was given by king Saba to the Ekadvāra monastery.