Language: සිංහල

The inscription is engraved on the surface of the rock a few yards to the south of the ruined stupa at Labuäṭän̆digala, about one and a half miles to the north-east of Moraväva (Morawewa, 8.5897, 80.8352), a village in the Kalpē Kōraḷē of the North-Central Province. It was first recorded for scholarship by H. C. P. Bell in 1892. The inscription does include a date but may be attributed to the basis of palaeography to sometime around the fifth century A.D. It records that a certain individual named Sirinakayi deposited one hundred kahāpaṇas, the interest accruing from which was to be given to the monks of the Devagiri monastery for defraying the expenses connected with the vassa festival. Devagiri Vihāra was evidently the name of the monastery which existed on the rock in ancient times.

IN03137 is engraved immediately below the present record and appears from the palaeography to belong to the same period.

The inscription is engraved on a charred copper plate. When H. W. Codrington recorded the plate was in the third volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica in the 1930s, he noted that it was in the possession of the in the possession of the Palkum̆bura Vihārē in Hārispattuva of the Kandy District. However, the record relates to a different temple. The plate has been badly damaged by fire. It is dated in the reign of Bhuvanaika Bāhu VII and records a grant of land, subject to a payment to Viṣṇu, to the Mahā Thero of the Senevirat-muḷa establishment.

The inscription is cut in bold letters on a rock in the village of Maḍavaḷa (Madawala) in the Pāta Dumbara division of Kandy District. It records a grant of land made to a silversmith Paramaṇāyā of Siddāvulla and his son Suriyā by King Siri San̆gbō Śrī Parākrama Bāhu VI in the year following the forty-sixth of his reign in the presence of Dantoṭa-vature Devan and Divāṇavatte Laṁkā Adhikārin. The signatures of these dignitaries are reproduced in the upper left-hand corner of the record as Äpaṇa and Joti Siṭāṇa. The latter is probably the ruler of the hill country, whose later rebellion is described in the Rājāvaliya. Parākrama Bāhu VI ascended to the throne in 1412 A.D. Accordingly, the date of the grant – the full moon of Vesak in his forty-seventh year – fell in April 1458.

The inscription is engraved on a slab-pillar, which originally stood in Kandēvatta or Kandē Disānāyaka Mudiyansēlāgē-vatta situated in Pamunētänna, a hamlet of Kevulgama village in Gampaha Kōraḷē West of Uḍa Dumbara in Kandy District. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the pillar was blasted in search of hidden treasure. The upper and main part of the pillar were then removed to the local vihārē and built into the inner doorway of the temple, concealing three lines of the inscription at the top and two at the bottom. It was copied in this partially obscured state by the Archaeological Survey in 1909. H. W. Codrington later convinced the priest at the vihārē to excavate the pillar, revealing the hidden lines of the inscription. The remaining fragment of the pillar was also brought by the priest from its original site to the pansala below the temple, enabling Codrington to provide a complete edition of the inscription in the third volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica (pp. 230–235, no. 23). Luckily, the blasting and resulting fragmentation of the pillar did not cause any irreparable damage to the inscription.

The inscription is written in Sinhalese and dated on the first day of the waxing moon of Hila in the first year of king Siri San̆gabo Kālin̆ga Vijaya Bāhu. Three rulers are known to have used the name Kālin̆ga Vijaya Bāhu. In a slab inscription found at the Hatadage in Polonnaruwa (IN03099), Sāhasa Malla is so styled with the prefix Siri San̆gabo, precisely as in the present inscription. According to the Nikāya Saṅgrahava, Māgha also bore the name Kālin̆ga Vijaya Bāhu but it is not known whether he used the biruda Siri San̆gabo. Last of all, Vijaya Bāhu III appears in the Rājaratnākaraya under the name; he was a descendent of Siri San̆gabo. On palaeographic grounds, the present inscription could belong to any of these princes. However, there is no proof that Vijaya Bāhu III ever held Uḍa Dumbara, which is described in the inscription as being in Pihiṭi (the King’s Country). Meanwhile, Māgha was a Kāliṅga invader and oppressed the Sinhalese. Hence, by process of elimination, Codrington identifies Sāhasa Malla as the king being referred to here. Since Sāhasa Malla took the throne in 1200 A.D., the date of the inscription can be fixed as 1 October 1200. The text records a grant to an individual named Gulpiṭi or Gulhiṭi But Pām̆bul-lē-daruvan for loyalty to His Majesty even to the receiving of wounds in his service.

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’.