Language: Sinhalese Prakrit

Mihindu (Mahinda in Pali) Seya at Rajagala

This inscription is engraved on a rock, which stands among the remains of an extensive ancient monastery on the rocky hill called Rājagala or Rāssahela in the Vävugam Patty of the Batticaloa District. It was discovered in 1935 by W. E. Fernando, the Draughtsman of the Archaeological Department, who had been sent by Senarath Paranavitana to explore the site (see Archaeological Survey of Ceylon Annual Report for 1935, p. 9). Fernando prepared an estampage of the inscription but it did not give a clear reading of the latter part of the inscription, which was faint and covered with moss. A clearer estampage was created sometime later, after the site had been opened up for cultivation and cleared of jungle. The inscription is written in early Brāhmī characters and refers to the two theras called Iḍika (P. Iṭṭhiya) and Mahida (P. Mahinda) in connection with a nearby stupa. Since these two theras are described as having come to the island of Sri Lanka from overseas, the Mahida in question can be identified as Saint Mahinda, who travelled from India to preach Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the third century B.C. It is stated in the chronicle that, after Mahinda’s cremation, half of his bodily relics were distributed across the island, to be enshrined in stupas specially built for the purpose. It would seem that one such stupa was erected at Rājagala and the present inscription was engraved to commemorate this fact. In terms of dating, it is not impossible that the stupa was built shortly after Mahinda’s death, which occurred about 200 B.C., with the inscription being incised around the same time. The palaeography contains nothing that militates against this view.

The inscription is engraved on a rock at Nāgirikanda, situated in the Kadavat Kōraḷē of the North-Century Province. This site was the location of an ancient Buddhist monastery, although most vestiges of this ancient foundation were destroyed or obscured by when a new shrine was constructed on the same spot during the Kandyan period. Two inscriptions, both of them engraved on rocks, have been discovered at this place. The earlier one is a short record of three lines, which can be assigned on palaeographic grounds to about the fourth century A.D. The other inscription, which is later and longer, is dealt with here. It was first published in a scholarly context by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883: 51, 77 and 111, no. 97b) and later featured in the list of inscriptions in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1890 (p. 9). The inscription was recopied in 1894 under the direction of H. C. P. Bell and again in 1928 by Senarath Paranavitana, who went on to produce an improved edition and translation of the text for the fourth volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica (pp. 115–128, no. 14). The script of this inscription is of considerable importance, since it represents the transitional stage between Brāhmī and the medieval Sinhalese. The record dates from the sixth century and registers the gift of some tanks and paddy fields to the ancient monastery on the site of the inscription, which was called Bamaṇagiriya, by a king whose name appears to be Maha-Kumaratasa, although that part of the text is quite worn. Paranavitana identified this monarch with the king called Kumāra-Dhātusena in the Mahāvaṁsa and Kumāradāsa in the Pujāvalī and subsequent Sinhalese chronicles. There is some uncertainty around the exact date of this king’s accession to the throne with Geiger, Wijesinghe and Wickremasinghe placing this event in 513, 515 and 570 A.D. respectively.

This inscription is engraved across the front, one side and the back of a stone slab now preserved in the Archaeological Museum at Anurādhapura. Senarath Paranavitana recorded that the slab was said to have been discovered in the area of the Abhayagiri Vihāra in Anurādhapura. He also noted that it had been included in the list of lithic inscriptions from Nuvara-kalāviya exhibited at Anurādhapura in the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon Annual Report for 1911–12 (p. 73, no. 16). He was unable to find any other references to the slab giving further details about its provenance.  The inscription registers some donations made to a Buddhist monastery by the queen of a king called Badadasa Ḷa-Parideva. Neither the name of the monastery nor that of the queen is preserved. However, it seems that the final part of the monastery’s name may have been la, suggesting that it was not the Abhayagiri Vihara, in which case we may perhaps assume that the slab was originally situated elsewhere and brought to this vihara at a later date, possibly for some architectural purpose. As for the king’s name, Paranavitana argues that Parideva may be taken as a clerical error for or variant of Paridadeva – a combination of the personal name Pārinda and the suffix deva, which could be applied to the appellation of any royal personage. According to the chronicle, Pārinda was one of the six Tamil rulers who occupied the throne of Anurādhapura in the fifth century A.D., prior to the accession of Dhātusena. Since Ḷa in Sinhalese means ‘tender’ or ‘young’, Ḷa-Pari(da)deva can be understood as ‘Pārindadeva the Younger’, which equates to Khudda Pārinda (the lesser Pārinda), the name given in the chronicle to king Pārinda’s younger brother and successor. Hence Paranavitana attributes this inscription to Khudda Pārinda, the Tamil king who reigned from 437 to 452 (or from 498 to 513, according to Wickremasinghe’s chronology).

H. C. P. Bell  discovered the present inscription in 1910 in what was then believed to be the Jētavanārāma dāgaba. This dāgaba has since been shown to be part of the Abhayagiri vihara. The record consists of 16 lines of the top side of a slab, which has been reused to form one of the flag-stones of the pavement at the south altar of the dāgaba. Written in the Southern Brāhmī alphabet of the latter part of the 2nd or the first half of the 3rd century A.D., it records donations from the king Maḷu-Tisa to the Utara-maha-ceta, identified with the Abhayuttara-mahā-cētiya of the Abhayagiri-vihāra, as well as water regulations.

The inscription is situated on a rock at the vāṇa or “spill-water” of an abandoned tank known as Pālu Mäkiccǟva. The tank is situated in the jungle, about 120 yards off the high road to Trincomalee, 16 miles from Anurādhapura. The inscription is composed of six lines, written in Southern Brāhmī alphabet of the latter part of the 2nd century A.D. It records the donation of 5000 kārṣāpaṇas from king Gamiṇi Abaya to the Buddhist priesthood of Tubaraba (Thūpārāma). Gamiṇi Abaya (or Gajabāhuka Gāmaṇī Abhaya) is described as having created the Vaḍamanaka tank in the Upala district but not the Pālu Mäkiccǟva tank, which he appears only to have repaired or deepened. The inscription identifies the Pālu Mäkiccǟva tank as the Abhivaḍḍhamānaka-vāpi tank and says that it was constructed by Gamiṇi Abaya’s grandfather.