Object type: Pillar

The inscription is engraved on a stone pillar, which now stands outside the cave at the ancient site known as Kaṭugaha-galgē (Katugahagalge) or Aturugiri Vihāra, situated about five miles to the north of Buttala in the Kan̆dukara Kōraḷē of the Ūva Province. The cave is situated on the steep side of a huge granite rock on top of which there is a small stupa now renovated. A part of the cave has been walled, in comparatively recent times, to form a shrine and six cells as living quarters for the monks. In front of the cave are remains of ancient structures, the stonework of which is plain and archaic and bespeaks an early date. The pillar, which has been broken into two unequal fragments, was not originally situated here, having been removed to this site from a neighbouring chena sometime in the nineteenth century.

Two other known pillars bear inscriptions identical to this one. One stands in the vicinity of the colossal stupa at Yudaganava, which is about four miles to the south of Katugahagalge, having been brought there from the neighbouring jungle in 1924. The other was found at Väligatta in Hambantoṭa district and now forms part of the  collection at the Colombo Museum. In August 1927, Senarath Paranavitana visited Yadaganava and Katugahagalge and found that the pillars at these two places, as well as the one from Väligatta, were gavu (P. gāvuta) stones set up by Kāliṅga Cakravartti, i.e. Niśśaṁka Malla, who reigned from 1187 to 1196 A.D. H. W. Codrington subsequently brought to light six more of these gāvuta pillars in the same locality, most of them in a fragmentary condition. Codrington’s paper on these pillars, dealing particularly with the information they yield on the precise length of the yojana and gāvuta (ancient units of measure), was published in the Ceylon Journal of Science (Section G), vol. ii, pp. 129–134. Of all of these pillars so far known, only on the Katugahagelge pillar is the inscription completely preserved. The inscription indicates the pillar marked a gāvunta and it also includes a short homily addressed to the people of Rohaṇa and an account of the achievements and deeds of king Niśśaṁka Malla.

The inscription is engraved on one side of a stone pillar, which was discovered supporting the shrine in the Buddhist temple at Budumuttǟva (Budumuttawa), a village situated about a mile to the north-west of Nikaväraṭiya in the Kuruṇǟgala District. The temple was built during Kandyan times. The shrine consists of a wood and clay superstructure supported on a number of stone pillars, all of which appear to have been scavenged from the ruins of earlier buildings, though their original contexts are not known. Two of these pillars bear Tamil inscriptions, one of which is dealt with here (see IN03146 for the other). The existence of both inscriptions was first recorded by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions of Ceylon (1883: 60, no. 1).

The present inscription is dated in the eighth year of king Jayabāhu (I). Although there is scholarly debate about the duration of Jayabāhu I’s reign, it is generally agreed to have begun around 1114 A.D. or slightly earlier, placing the date of this inscription sometimes around 1122. The inscription registers certain gifts made by a princess (possibly called Cundhamalliyāḻvār, although the name is difficult to make out) to a Śaiva shrine named Vikkirama-Calāmēga-Īśvara in the town of Māgala alias Vikkirama-Calāmēga-pura. The town of Māgala must have been in the vicinity of the tank at Nikaväraṭiya, near Budumuttǟva, as that reservoir is still known as Māgalaväva. The princess mentioned in the inscription is described as a daughter of the Coḷa king Kulottuṅga, whom Senarath Paranavitana identified as the powerful ruler Kulottuṅga I (r. 1070–1122 A.D.), and as the wife of a Pāṇḍyan prince called Vīrapperumāḷ. The identity of this prince is less certain but Paranavitana conjectures that he was Mānābharaṇa, otherwise known as Vīrabāhu, the ruler of the Dakkhiṇadesa, the region where the inscription was found. The name Vīrapperumāḷ is a combination of Vīra – possibly an abbreviated form of Vīrabāhu – and perumāḷ, which meant ‘prince’ or ‘lord’ and could be suffixed to a personal name to denote respect.

The inscription is engraved on three sides of a stone pillar, which was discovered supporting the shrine in the Buddhist temple at Budumuttǟva (Budumuttawa), a village situated about a mile to the north-west of Nikaväraṭiya in the Kuruṇǟgala District. The temple was built during Kandyan times. The shrine consists of a wood and clay superstructure supported on a number of stone pillars, all of which appear to have been scavenged from the ruins of earlier buildings, though their original contexts are not known. Two of these pillars bear Tamil inscriptions, one of which is dealt with here (see IN03147 for the other). The existence of both inscriptions was first recorded by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions of Ceylon (1883: 60, no. 1).

The present inscription is dated in the eighth year of king Abhaya Śilāmegha Jayabāhu. On palaeographic grounds, Senarath Paranavitana identified this king with Jayabāhu I, the younger brother of Vijayabāhu I. Although there is scholarly debate about the duration of Jayabāhu I’s reign, it is generally agreed to have begun around 1114 A.D. or slightly earlier, placing the date of this inscription sometimes around 1122. The inscription records that the officers of Vīrabāhudēvar, having inquired into former custom, upheld that the blacksmiths were entitled to the use of koṭṭacaḷu, foot-clothes and clothes for covering the faces of the dead and ordered the washermen to perform their services accordingly. Paranavitana identified the Vīrabāhu mentioned here with Mānābharaṇa, the father of Parākramabāhu I, since the Mahāvaṁsa tells us that Mānābharaṇa was also known by that name. The pillar was engraved by a person named Mākkaliṅgam Kaṇavadi and was attested by Kummaracena Nambaṉaṉ alias Vijayābaraṇaṉ. There are some more signatories, whose names cannot be satisfactorily made out.

The inscription is engraved on one side of a pillar found at the Vaṭa-dā-gē at Poḷonnaruva, where it had been installed in the pavement. It was recorded as No. 55 in the list of inscriptions examined between 1901 and 1905 in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1905 (p. 40). The pillar was subsequently removed to the Archaeological Museum at Anurādhapura. A portion of the inscription was obliterated at some point in the past, possibly when the pillar was used as a paving slab. Twelve lines remain legible, from which it seems that the inscription was a grant of immunities to a village named Muhundehi-gama. Fortunately, the surviving lines also include the date of the inscription, which is given as the fifteenth year of a king styled Abhā Salamevan. Bell, however, misread this date as the forty-fifth year of Abhā Salamevan. This caused some puzzlement because, although the inscription may be dated to the nine century A.D. on palaeographic grounds, no king is recorded in the historical chronicles of Sri Lanka as having reigned for more than forty years at any time between the fourth and eleventh centuries A.D. As a consequence, this inscription was sometimes cited as evidence that the chronicles do not provide a reliable source for the lengths of royal reigns in medieval Sri Lanka, until Senarath Paranavitana corrected Bell’s mistake in the third volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica (p. 290).  Paranavitana also concluded that the king mentioned in the inscription was probably Sena I, who is known to have used the viruda title Abhā Salamevan.

The inscription is engraved on the rough surface of a short pillar slab found in the village of Kivulekada, one and a half miles from Ayitigevewa in North-Central Province. The inscription was first recorded by H. C. P. Bell in 1892. The local Arachchi informed Bell that he had discovered the inscription when he had the slab dug out of the ground for use as a support in his aṭuva (granary). In 1928, Senarath Paranavitana visited the village and found the pillar lying, half-buried, on the ground with the inscribed face downwards, near the spill of the Kuḍā Kivulēkaḍa by the side of the footpath leading to the village of Maha Kivulēkaḍa.

The inscription records a grant of immunities but, curiously, does not name the land to which the grant pertains. It refers to a king named Salamevan, who is described as ‘the founder of the Riṭigal monastery’. The Mahāvaṁsa mentions Riṭigala by the name of Ariṭṭha-pabbata and states that a monastery was ‘erected as if by magic’ on the Ariṭṭha mountain by king Sena I, who is known to have used the viruda title of Salamevan. On these grounds, Bell identified the king mentioned in the present inscription with Sena I, who reigned from around 846 until 866 A.D. No regnal year is given but Paranavitana suggests that the text may date from the latter years of his reign, since the record clearly postdates the king’s building of the Riṭigala monastery, which – according to the Mahāvaṁsa – took place after the Pāṇḍyan raid.