Language: संस्कृतम्

Nītupatpāṇa Vihara (also known Girihandu Seya), Tiriyāy, Trincomalee

This inscription is engraved on a rock situated about 200 feet (60.96 m) to the south of the vaṭadāgē at the ancient Buddhist monastery now called Nītupatpāṇa (also known Girihandu Seya) near the village of Tiriyāy (Thiriyai). This monastery stands at the summit of a hill, known by the Tamil name of Kandasāmimalai (the Hill of the Lord Skanda), about a mile to the west of the village, which is located near the sea-coast, roughly twenty-nine miles to the north of Trincomalee in the Eastern Province. The inscription was discovered in 1931, as reported in the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon Annual Report for 1931–32 (pt. IV – Education, Science and Art [J], p. 19). It can be dated on palaeographic grounds to the late seventh or first half of the eighth century A.D. and is written in Sanskrit. As B. Ch. Chhabra (1934–41: 312) has shown, the inscription is in verse, the composer having employed the Nardaṭaka metre in the first ten stanzas and the Upajāti metre in the eleventh and final stanza. The engraver has allotted one line to each stanza.

The record begins with an account of some sea-faring merchants, before launching into a long eulogy of a shrine named Girikaṇḍi-caitya. The eulogy is followed by the pious wish of the author that, by the merit he has gained by praising the shrine, the world may be freed from the miseries of existence; this wish identifies the author as a Mahāyānist, something which can perhaps also be inferred from the fact that the document is written in Sanskrit. The next portion of the inscription states that Girikaṇḍi-caitya was founded by two groups of merchants. The record ends with the Buddhist formula about the transitory nature of mundane things.

Paranavitana (1934–41: 151–160) read the names of the groups of merchants who are stated in the inscription to have built the Girikaṇḍi-caitya as Trapussaka and Vallika, which he took to be corruptions of Trapuṣa (Tapussa in Pāli) and Bhallika (Bhalluka in the Nidānakathā), two merchants who offered food to the Buddha immediately after his enlightenment and were the recipients of some his hair. This led Paranavitana to conclude that the Girikaṇḍi-caitya at Tiriyāy was founded by these merchants to enshrine the hair-relics, although B. Ch. Chhabra (1934–41: 313–314) has challenged this interpretation (see Misc. Notes for discussion).

This inscription is cut into the rock at the Gaḍalādeṇiya Vihārē, a fourteenth-century Buddhist shrine situated in Pilimathalawa, near Kandy. Rock-cut steps lead up the north-eastern side of the rock to reach the shrine. A number of inscriptions (including IN03154) are engraved, one above the other, to the right of the steps as one ascends. The present inscription is the earliest and also the longest of these inscriptions, covering more than half of the inscribed rock-surface. It is dated on the full-moon day of the month of Vesaga (Skt. Vaiśākha) in the third year of Bhuvanaikabāhu IV and also mentions the Śaka year 1266, expired. The part of the sentence which contains the date was interpreted by H. C. P. Bell (Report on the Kǟgalla District, p. 92, n. 1) and H. W. Codrington (A Short History of Ceylon, p. 88) to mean that the Śaka year given is the same as the year of accession of Bhuvanaikabāhu. However, Senarath Paranavitana argued that the sentence in fact indicated that the Śaka year in question was equivalent to the third year of the king. Hence the date of the inscription can be understood as the full-moon day of the month of Vesaga in Śaka 1266, which is equivalent to Wednesday 28 April 1344 A.D. The inscription is written in Sinhalese, except for the first line, which contains a Sanskrit śloka in the Indravajrā metre. The text records the foundation of the Buddhist shrine Gaḍalādeṇiya by the great sthavira Dharmmakīrtti. An account of the building of the temple, which comprises more than one-third of the record, is followed by a long list of lands dedicated to it by various personages. The inscription also gives certain details about the architectural features of the shrine and the images and paintings with which it was adorned. The shrine is said to have three storeys, the author of the inscription having apparently counted the terraced roof of the ardha-maṇḍapa and antarāla as the second storey and a cell on a higher level in the vimāna as the topmost storey. The name of the architect who designed the building is given as Gaṇeśvarācāri, which suggests that he was from South India, a supposition supported by the style of the architecture.

The inscription is engraved on a flat rock in the village of Koṭṭangē in the Mādurē Kōraḷē of the Vǟuḍavili Hatpattu in the Kuruṇǟgala District. When Senarath Paranavitana visited the site in 1931, the rock lay just within the boundaries of a coconut plantation called the Ōgoḍapola Estate in the Delviṭa Group. It was at that time completely buried under about two feet of earth, soil having washed down the hillside and covered the rock. However, a local villager who had seen the rock some years previously alerted Paranavitana to its existence. Paranavitana was then able to remove the earth and reveal the inscription, which he copied for the Archaeological Department. The existence of an inscription at this place had previously been mentioned in the Return of the Architectural and Archaeological and other Antiquities existing in Ceylon, which was published by the Ceylon Government in 1890, but it is not clear whether the inscription in question was the present record or IN03164, which is engraved on another rock in the same vicinity.

No date is given in the inscription. It opens with a Sanskrit verse, a significant portion of which is no longer legible. The rest of the inscription is written in Sinhalese and records that a mahāthera of the Vilgammuḷa fraternity, whose name is obliterated, granted to the saṅgha the pamuṇu village of Kaḷama and some other lands belonging to him. This mahāthera is said to have been the grandson of a personage who belonged to the Lämäni family but, unfortunately, the name of the latter is not preserved. We may presume that the mahāthera was a grandson of Loke Arakmenā, to whom the village was originally granted by Lokeśvara, as recorded in the other inscription at this site (IN03164). This supposition gains further strength from the fact that, as shown by the title ‘Arakmenā’, general Loke belonged to the Lämäni stock; his connection with the Vilgammuḷa fraternity is also shown by the stipulation in the first inscription that any disputes concerning the lands in question were to be settled by a mahāthera of that religious institution.

The inscription is cut into the rock near the ancient Buddhist monastery situated on the low, rocky hill by the Meddeketiya tank at Saṁgamuva, a village about two miles to the north-east of Gokarälla, in the Häḍahaya Kōraḷē of the Kuruṇǟgala District. A series of over one hundred steps, cut into the bare side of the rock, lead up the side of the hill to a plateau, upon which stand the ruins of an old stupa and other monastic buildings. The inscription is engraved at the top of the steps, to the left as one ascends the hill. It was copied for the first time by Senarath Paranavitana in 1931 (see Archaeological Survey of Ceylon Annual Report for 1930–31, p. 5). The text is written in Sinhalese, apart from the last four lines, which consist of a Sanskrit verse in the Vasantatilakā metre, though nearly half of this verse is no longer legible.

The inscription is of exceptional historical importance, since it records an alliance between two princes called Gajabāhu and Parākramabāhu, who can be identified as Gajabāhu II (r. 1131–1153) and the future Parākramabāhu I (r. 1153–1186). The Mahāvaṁsa records how Parākramabāhu, after consolidating his position in the principality of the Dakkhiṇadesa to which he succeeded on the death of his uncle Kittisirimegha, undertook a campaign against his cousin Gajabāhu II with the object of making himself ruler of the island of Sri Lanka. Eventually, the two princes came to a peace settlement, as recorded in the present inscription. The two princes speak in the first person in this inscription. After introducing themselves by name, they come to the matter of the agreement. The first clause states that they will not wage war against each other for the rest of their lives. Although now partly damaged, the second clause seems to declare that, whichever prince dies first, his possessions will pass to the surviving prince. Since Gajabāhu was by some margin the older of the two, this clause essentially amounts to him bequeathing his kingdom to Parākramabāhu. The third clause is now almost completely illegible. By the fourth and final clause of the treaty, the two princes enter into an offensive and defensive alliance, declaring that any king who is an enemy of one of them, is an enemy of both. Paranavitana interpreted this clause as being directed against Mānābharaṇa, the ruler of Rohaṇa, who also had designs on Gajabāhu’s throne. The agreement concludes with imprecations against both princes if they act contrary to its terms. It is not clear why this record was engraved at the Saṁgamu Vihāra. Although it was within the territories under Parākramabāhu’s rule, there is nothing to prove that the place was close to his residence, even temporarily. Paranavitana posited that the treaty may have been brokered by a monk who resided at the vihara but this is only conjecture.