IN03143 Kivulekada Pillar Inscription of Sena I

The inscription is engraved on the rough surface of a short pillar slab found in the village of Kivulekada, one and a half miles from Ayitigevewa in North-Central Province. The inscription was first recorded by H. C. P. Bell in 1892. The local Arachchi informed Bell that he had discovered the inscription when he had the slab dug out of the ground for use as a support in his aṭuva (granary). In 1928, Senarath Paranavitana visited the village and found the pillar lying, half-buried, on the ground with the inscribed face downwards, near the spill of the Kuḍā Kivulēkaḍa by the side of the footpath leading to the village of Maha Kivulēkaḍa.

The inscription records a grant of immunities but, curiously, does not name the land to which the grant pertains. It refers to a king named Salamevan, who is described as ‘the founder of the Riṭigal monastery’. The Mahāvaṁsa mentions Riṭigala by the name of Ariṭṭha-pabbata and states that a monastery was ‘erected as if by magic’ on the Ariṭṭha mountain by king Sena I, who is known to have used the viruda title of Salamevan. On these grounds, Bell identified the king mentioned in the present inscription with Sena I, who reigned from around 846 until 866 A.D. No regnal year is given but Paranavitana suggests that the text may date from the latter years of his reign, since the record clearly postdates the king’s building of the Riṭigala monastery, which – according to the Mahāvaṁsa – took place after the Pāṇḍyan raid.