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The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which is now broken, only the upper part surviving. This fragment features nineteen complete lines of writing, plus a few letters from the end of a twentieth line. It is not possible to say how many lines were lost with the lower part of the slab. The surviving fragment was found at the building called ‘the Buddhist Railing’ near the Eastern (Jetavana) dāgäba at Anurādhapura and recorded in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1892 (p. 9, no. 4). It was removed to the premises of the Archaeological Survey and was still there in the early 1930s when Senarath Paranavitana published his edition and translation of the inscription in the third volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica. The inscription is dated in the seventh year of Sirisaṅgbo Mahind (Mahinda IV) and proclaims certain rules concerning a ‘Water Pavilion’ (pän maḍiya) at the Ratnamāpirivena in the Jetavana monastery. If ‘Ratnamāpirivena’ refers to the building near which the inscription was found, it must have been the ancient name of ‘the Buddhist Railing’.

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.

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which has been broken into four fragments. Three of the fragments were found lying on the pavement of the Kirivehera stupa in Kataragama; the fourth fragment is missing. The inscription is not dated but it may be dated on palaeographic grounds to the late fifth century A.D. or the sixth century A.D. Due to the fragmentary nature of the slab, the purpose of the inscription are not entirely clear but, from the surviving text, it seems that it was intended to register a grant of land made for defraying the expenses connected with the ritual at the Maṅgala Mahācetiya at Kājaragāma (Kataragama). The Maṅgala Mahācetiya is presumably Kirivehera. The donor of the grant is identified as Mahadaḷi Mahana raja (King Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga) son of Sarataraya (Siridhara Ayya). A king of Sri Lanka named Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga is mentioned in the Mahāvaṁsa but he lived in the first century A.D. and his father was not named Siridhara. The Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga of the present inscription must, therefore, have been a local ruler of Rohaṇa who assumed the title raja. Senarath Paranavitana speculated that this ruler might have flourished in that unsettled period which followed the death of king Mahānāman and was ended by the accession of Dhātusena, when the northern part of the island was under Tamil domination and provincial governors of the south had opportunity to proclaim themselves independent.

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which was discovered among the ruins of the Kirivehera stupa at Kataragama. The discovery was recorded by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883). Writing in the early 1930s, Senarath Paranavitana recorded that the slab was at that time stood upright some 50 feet (15.2 m) to the south of the main entrance to the stupa. The inscription can be dated on the basis of the palaeography to the first or second century A.D. It records that an elder of the Buddhist Church called Nanda enlarged the caitya (i.e. the Kirivehera stupa) and got the monks at Akujuka to construct flights of steps at the four entrances.

Mihintale, Sri Lanka

In 1923, ninety-one inscribed copper votive tablets were found among the ruins of the Indikatuseya stupa at Mihintale. The tablets were discovered by the Archaeological Department of Ceylon during the restoration and rebuilding of the dome of the stupa. It appears that they were originally deposited in the relic chamber but became scattered when the stupa was raided by treasure-seekers, which would also explain the presence of some Dutch stivers in amongst the medieval copper tablets. Most of the tablets are about 0.8 mm in thickness and are inscribed on one side only. Some bear traces of gilding. The majority are completely intact but a few are broken or have missing corners. On palaeographic grounds, they can be dated to the eighth or ninth century A.D. The inscriptions on the tablets are extracts from Buddhist texts of the Mahāyāna school. Indeed, forty-six have been connected with specific passages in the Pañcaviṁśati-sāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (nos. 1–46). A further fifteen have been found to quote from various passages in the Kāśyapa-parivartta (nos. 47, 48, 50–54, 57, 58, 61, 63, 67, 69, 76 and 79). The language of the inscriptions is Sanskrit but they are written in Sinhalese characters. The tablets are therefore significant epigraphical rarities, since there are few surviving examples from the medieval period that show the transcription of Sanskrit in Sinhalese script. However, the scribe does not appear to have been overly familiar with Sanskrit and, as a result, the inscriptions on the plaques often diverge slightly from their source texts.