IN03158 Poḷonnaruva Council Chamber Pillar Inscription

This inscription is engraved on all four sides of a quadrangular stone pillar, which has been broken into two nearly equal pieces. These pieces are now joined together and preserved in the Archaeological Museum at Anurādhapura. The fragments were discovered in the vicinity of Niśśaṁka Malla’s Council Chamber on the embankment of the Tōpāväva at Poḷonnaruva, as recorded in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1909, p. 39. However, it seems that the pillar did not originate in this location and was instead brought there from somewhere else to serve an architectural purpose, possibly as a tread in a flight of steps.

The inscription is dated in the fourth year of a king referred to by his viruda title of Abhaya Salamevan. H. C. P. Bell (Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1909, p. 39) identified this monarch with Kassapa V (r. 929–939) but, as there is nothing besides the palaeography to aid this identification, we cannot be quite certain. Senarath Paranavitana suggests that, paleographically, the record could equally be ascribed to Dappula V (r. 940–952). Both Kassapa V and Dappula V used the viruda title of Abhaya Salamevan.

The inscription records the grant of immunities to certain lands held by an individual, whose name is not clearly legible, as a pamaṇu (freehold) on condition of paying, annually, one pǟḷa of dried ginger to a hospital founded by Doti Valaknä. The custom of freeholders paying a small quit-rent to a religious or charitable institution was relatively common in medieval Sri Lanka and there are a number of surviving inscriptions recording such arrangements, the vast majority of which are written in a similar style.  Indeed, in the ninth and tenth centuries, there seems to have been a specific formula for such documents. However, the present inscription departs almost entirely from this familiar model, using instead a much rarer formulation (see Misc. Notes for more detail). Senarath Paranavitana identified only two other fragmentary inscriptions that follow the same pattern as this record. One was from Rajamahavihāra at Vihāregama in the Dam̆badeṇi Hatpattu of the Kuruṇǟgala District (IN03159); and the other was found at a place named Mäda-Ulpota in Gan̆gala Pallēsiya Pattuva, Mātalē East (IN03160). These two inscriptions, though not of much interest in themselves, enabled Paranavitana to decipher certain sections of the present inscription where the writing is not clearly legible.