Language: සිංහල

Five inscriptions in the Sinhalese script of about the sixth century are incised on a rock at the site of an ancient monastery at Galkäṭiyāgama, four miles south-west of Polpiṭigama, in the Hiriyāla Hatpattu, Kuruṇǟgala District. Each inscription refers to a named individual and states that he settled his debts and freed himself slavery. The inscriptions have been engraved close to each other, three of them on the left side of the inscribed area and two on the right.

This inscription was discovered by Senarath Paranavitana in 1931 at the site of an ancient monastery, now called Periyakaḍu-vihāra, near Nälava in the Ihala Visidekē Kōrale of the Hiriyāla Hatpattu, Kuruṇǟgala District. It consists of four lines engraved on a rock and can be dated on palaeographic grounds to the last decades of the fifth or the first half of the sixth century. The epigraph records that an individual named Naga, residing at Taḷahaya, settled a debt that he had incurred and caused the cessation of his slavery in the royal monastery of Ekadora, the latter being the ancient name for Periyakaḍu-vihāra. It is well known that, in ancient Sri Lanka, as in India, one particular class of slave was the iṇa-dāsa – a person who had submitted himself to slavery on account of a debt that he had incurred. In such instances, the payment of the debt, either in money or in services rendered, would automatically result in the cessation of the slavery caused by the debt.

This inscription is engraved in larger and clear characters on a rock by the side of the stream known as Kospotu Oya, close to the dam at Alavaḷa in the Hēvāvisse Kōraḷē of the Kuruṇǟgala District. Its existence was recorded by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883: 72, no. 171) but he provides neither the text nor the translation of the record. Müller also reported as fact an erroneous local legend that the text contained a grant to the nearby temple of Maedagama by king Parākramabāhu of Dambadeniya. In fact, the inscription registers the grant of extensive fields at Badalagoḍa to the Laṅkātilaka temple. Unfortunately, the name of the king who was responsible for the grant is no longer legible, due to the damaged condition of the first ten lines of the text. The lands affected by the grant lie close to the location of this epigraph and it was presumably inscribed here so that the local people, particularly the tenants, could be made aware of the fact. The same grant is recorded in two inscriptions – one in Sinhalese (IN03212) and one in Tamil (IN03214) – at the temple itself. However, the inscriptions at Laṅkātilaka refer to a much smaller extent of land at Badalagoḍa – only fourteen yāḷas, compared to the ninety yāḷas mentioned in the present inscription. This has led Senarath Paranavitana to conclude that the present inscription is somewhat later than those at the temple. As he suggests, the probability is that, after the publication of the temple inscriptions, more lands were brought under the plough below the Batalagoḍa tank and the income from these fields was also dedicated to the Laṅkātilaka temple.

Lankatilaka Vihara, Udunuwara, Kandy District

Lankatilaka Vihara, Udunuwara, Kandy District

Lankatilaka Vihara, Udunuwara, Kandy District

Lankatilaka Vihara, Udunuwara, Kandy District

Lankatilaka Vihara, Udunuwara, Kandy District