IN03131 Kataragama Pillar Inscription of Dappula V

The inscription is engraved on three sides of a quadrangular stone pillar, which originally stood in the forest at Deṭagamuva about a mile to the south of Kataragama. It had fallen down and was broken into two fragments, one of which was removed by the ex-headman of Kataragama to his house to serve as a step. The priest at the Buddhist temple at Kataragama had this fragment removed to the temple in 1916. Later, the lower half of the pillar was brought to the same place and set up in front of the image house. The language of the inscription is highly ornate, especially in the introductory part of the text, which abounds with metaphors within metaphors, making translation into English very difficult. The text is dated in the sixth year of King Dāpuḷu, whom Senarath Paranavitana identified, on palaeographic and other grounds, as that fifth of that name. Dappula V reigned from 940 (or 918 A.D.?) until 952 A.D., suggesting this inscription dates from around 946 A.D. (or 924 A.D.?). The inscription registers a grant of immunities to a religious establishment named Kapugam-pirivena on the southern back of the Kapikandur river in the principality of Rohaṇa by a prince named Lämäni Mihind, son of Udā (Udaya), the heir-apparent. From the inscription, we learn that this prince had conquered the southern and central parts of the island and that, when this grant was issued, he was governing the Rohaṇa country. Udā Mahayā, Lämäni Mihind’s father, was the same prince who, after the death of Dappula V, ascended to the throne as Udaya II. It is also possible that Lämäni Mihind, the donor mentioned in the present inscription, was the future Mahinda IV. Of the places mentioned in the inscription, Mahavehera can be identified with the monastery in Tissamaharama and the river Kapikandur is the Menik Ganga; Kapugam-pirivena was most probably situated at the place where the inscription originally stood.