This inscription is engraved on a fragment of an irregularly shaped octagonal stone slab, which appears from its shape to have originally formed a cross-bar of a railing. The fragment is now in the collection of the National Museum at Colombo. It was unearthed in 1893 by H. C. P. Bell in one of the buildings of the group called monastery L in the extensive monastic complex at Jetavanārāma in Anurādhapura. One end of the slab has broken off and is missing. As a result, the inscription is incomplete. The record can be dated on palaeographic grounds to the third or fourth century A.D. The first line tells us that it is an edict issued in the first year of a king’s reign but, unfortunately, the monarch’s name was inscribed on the lost portion of the slab. The fragmentary nature of the record prevents us from gaining a complete idea of the edict’s purpose but it seems to have been designed to regulate the ecclesiastical affairs of the ancient Sinhalese Buddhist Church. It addresses certain monks whose doctrines are described as needing regulation. These monks were apparently the inmates of some establishments known as the ‘Five Great Residences’. It appears that the king who issued this edict did so under outside influence, the inscription being engraved on a type of stone and using a form of script which were native to the Āndhra country and which are not typically found Sri Lanka. Senarath Paranavitana conjectured that the inscription may relate to the struggle between the monks of the Mahāvihāra and king Mahāsena (r. ca. 334–361), which is described in the chronicles. Paranavitana cited numerous pieces of evidence to support this theory (see Misc. Notes below) but, owing to the fragmentary nature of the edict, no decisive conclusion is possible.
. . . . . . Proclaimed in the first year of . . . . . . of the community of bhikkhus . . . . . . as the doctrines of the monks who belong to . . . . . . are unsettled, . . . . . . the monks who are the followers of . . . . . . the Great Residences and the whole community . . . . . . though rebuked, sins in various ways . . . . . . various . . . . . . (having written) in books the Vayatuḍala which creates (i.e. points out) the path of . . . . . . with faith in one’s mind and . . . . . . of heart in the community of bhikkhus and in one’s own self . . . . . . the [exposition of] meaning and the books written . . . . . . in the Five Great Residences and . . . . . . towards those who cause disturbance to one another and . . . . . . create confusion . . . . . . any in the time of any king who desires the welfare of (the others) as well as his own self . . . . . . his own duty which causes the increase of merit to himself . . . . . . the great monastery of Abhayagiri . . . . . .
Other versions
Line 1. Biku saga, “the community of monks.”
Line 2 may mean “the parents of monks who have gone abroad.”
Line 3. “Of the monks who have entered the great monastery (i.e., The Mahâ Vihâra?) and the whole community of monks.”
Line 4. ca nana magini pavata = (Skt.) ca nâṇa mâṛgeṇa parvata, “and by various ways the rock.”
Line 5. maga karavaya (maga = Skt. mârga), “having had a road made.”
Line 6. “at the Chaitya rock, and in the community of monks, and in himself (?).”
Line 7. Paṁca maha avasahi — “In the five great monasteries.”