This inscription is one of three lengthy epigraphs engraved on the rock to the south of the Buddhist shrine of Laṅkātilaka in the village of Rabbēgomuwa in Uḍunuvara, Kandy District. Two extensive areas on the surface of the rock are covered with deeply and carefully engraved writing. The upper stretch contains two fourteenth-century Sinhalese inscriptions arranged one above the other (IN03212 and IN03213). Meanwhile, the present inscription occupies a lower stretch of the rock. It consists of forty-six lines in Tamil and seems to date from a similar time period to the Sinhalese inscriptions. Its contents record grants of land and other donations made to the monastery at Laṅkātilaka by its founder – the minister Senālaṅkādhikāra – and by the inhabitants of the realm. The text ends with imprecations against those who would hinder the continuance of the grant, and exhortations made by the minister to kings and minsters of the present and the future for the maintenance of the shrine. The exhortations are embodied in two Sanskrit stanzas with an expanded paraphrase in Tamil. The same stanzas also feature in the Sinhalese inscription of Bhuvanaikabāhu IV on the same rock (IN03212) and the second is included in the rock inscription at Alavaḷa-amuṇa (IN03217), which registers further grants to the Laṅkātilaka shrine. This would seem to suggest that these stanzas were not specially composed for the present inscription but were instead standard forms for expressing such sentiments in this period.
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Inscription ID | IN03214 |
Title | Laṅkātilaka Tamil Rock Inscription |
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Parent Object | OB03170 |
Related Inscriptions | IN03212 IN03213 |
Responsibility | |
Author | Senarath Paranavitana |
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Language | தமிழ் |
Reigning monarch | |
Commissioner | Senā-Laṁgādigārigaḷ (Senālaṅkādhikāra) |
Topic | records grants of land and other donations made to the monastery at Laṅkātilaka by its founder – the minister Senālaṅkādhikāra – and by the inhabitants of the realm |
Date: | |
Min | 1300 |
Max | 1400 |
Comment | The inscription can be dated to the fourteenth century. It appears to date from around the same time as the Sinhalese inscription of Bhuvanaikabāhu IV engraved on the same rock (IN03212). The latter inscription is dated in Śaka 1266, being the third year of Bhuvanaikabāhu IV, which is equivalent to 1333–1334 A.D. |
Hand | |
Letter size | 7.62 cm |
Description | The average size of the letters is 3 inches (7.62 cm). |
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Campus: | |
Width | 640.08 |
Height | 515.62 |
Description | 46 lines engraved on the surface of a large rock. IN03212 and IN03213 are engraved on another part of the same rock. |
Decoration | |
Bibliography | |
References | Edited and translated in Paranavitana (1960): 1–45. |
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