Language: संस्कृतम्

Front of the Pedestal of the Seated Buddha from the Kan Wet Gaung Gon, near the southern side of the Baw Baw Gyi stūpa.

PYU16 Socle of Kan Wet Khaung Mound Stone Buddha Image Inscription.

Bodhgayā (बोधगया, often Bodh Gaya), Bihār.

Nainativu Nagapooshani Amman Temple, Sri Lanka

This inscription is engraved on both sides of a stone slab, which was found lying opposite the entrance to the famous Nākapūṣaṇi-Ammaṉ Temple on the sacred island of Naiṉātīvu in the Jaffna district. Mudaliyar Rasanayagam made an eye-copy of the inscription and published the text as a footnote in his book Ancient Jaffna (1926: 208–209), although his reading was incomplete and contain several errors. Subsequently, the Archaeological Department prepared an estampage of the record in 1949, which Karthigesu Indrapala used to produce a more accurate text and translation in the University of Ceylon Review, 21, no. 1 (1963), pp. 63–70. Large portions of the original inscription have been lost. This is due to the fact that the lower portion of the slab has been broken off and built into the wall of the shrine. Furthermore, the first part of the inscription, written on the obverse of the slab, was obliterated by workmen sharpening their tools on their stone when it lay on the ground outside the temple. Only the text on the reverse side of the slab has survived. Fortunately, the preserved lines contain both the purpose of the edict and the name of the ruler who issued it, although it does not mention the regnal year or date. The record is written in Tamil except for the last two lines, which are in Sanskrit and state that the edict was issued by Deva Parākramabhuja, the emperor of all Siṁhala. The name Parākramabhuja is the Sanskrit equivalent of the Sinhalese Parākramabāhu and may refer to any of the Sinhalese rulers with this name. On palaeographic grounds, the inscription may be assigned to the twelfth or thirteenth century, hence the king question must be either Parākramabāhu I or II, since all the other rulers of that name reigned in significantly later periods. From the contents of the inscription, it can be inferred that the edict was issued by Parākramabāhu I, since the record contains trade regulations concerning wreckages off the port of Ūrāttuṟai (present-day Kayts). The fact that these regulations were proclaimed by the king himself indicates that he was in supreme control of the northernmost parts of the island. Parākramabāhu II did not enjoy such authority over the northern regions, while Parākramabāhu I had control over the entire island. Indeed, there is contemporary and reliable evidence that Ūrāttuṟai was an important naval and commercial centre in his time, plus he was well-known for his organisation of state trading with foreign countries.

Lankatilaka Vihara, Udunuwara, Kandy District

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 Sinhalese inscriptions arranged one above the other: the first of these records is dealt with here and features thirty-three lines, dated in the reign of Bhuvanikabāhu IV of Gaṁpaḷa; the second consists of seven lines from the reign of Bhuvanikabāhu IV’s successor, Vikramabāhu III (IN03213). Meanwhile, an inscription of forty-six lines in Tamil (IN03214) is engraved on the lower stretch of the rock. Another version of the present inscription is engraved on a set of copper plates preserved inside the Laṅkātilaka temple (IN03216).

The present inscription is dated in Śaka 1266, being the third year of Bhuvanaikabāhu IV. This date is equivalent to 1343–1344 A.D. The contents of the inscription consist of a fairly detailed account of the founding of the Laṅkātilaka shrine, mainly due to the efforts of Senālaṅkādhikāra. This is followed by a list of lands and other donations made to the shrine by the king, Senālaṅkādhikāra and other notables of the period. It 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 Sinhalese. The same stanzas also feature in the Tamil inscription on the same rock (IN03214) 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.

Ambasthala Dagoba, Mihintale

This inscription is engraved on the perpendicular face of a rock situated about 40 or 50 yards (35 or 45 m) to the north-east of the Ambastala Dāgäba at Mihintaḷē. The epigraph has been seriously damaged by the action of the weather and possibly also by the destructive attentions of vandals, to the extent that large portions of the writing are now totally effaced and many letters are not very clear. However, with help from Sylvain Lévi, Senarath Paranavitana identified part of the inscription as a copy of the Trikāyastava, a Sanskrit hymn consisting of three Sragdharāverses adoring the three bodies of the Buddha and a fourth verse in the same metre embodying the wish of the reciter. Lévi published a version of the Trikāyastava, restored to Sanskrit from a Chinese transliteration, in 1896, and another version was published by Baron A. von Staël-Holstein from a Tibetan codex in 1911. Neither version was perfect: the Tibetan version was missing the fourth verse and, although the Chinese version was complete, Lévi was unable to recognise certain words due to the fact that the Chinese alphabet does not allow for precise transliteration of Sanskrit. Nonetheless, using these two version together, Paranavitana was able to read the Trikāyastava in the Mihintaḷē inscription, filling in those portions which are missing on the stone. The Trikāyastava starts towards the close of the sixteenth line of the inscription and is continued over the next two and three-quarter lines. The first sixteen lines of the inscription also appear to be in Sanskrit verse and may include other religious hymns. However, the inscription’s poor state of preservation means that none of these verses can be deciphered. Equally difficult to make out are the final lines of the inscription, which contain some verses in the śloka metre. These verses appear to give an account of the person who had the epigraph engraved on the stone and his religious aspirations in doing this meritorious act. His name is not preserved but he seems to have been a monk.