Object type: Stone slab

The inscription is engraved on both sides of a stone slab, now set up near the Buddhist temple at Dädigama (Dedigama) in Kegalle District. The slab has been broken into two fragments and repaired. The inscription was first recorded and translated by H. C. P. Bell in 1892. It is dated on the thirteenth day of the waxing moon in the month of Poson in the ninth year of Bhuvanekabāhu (the sixth of that name), whose reign began around 1470, although the precise year remains a matter of uncertainty. The text proclaims a grant of amnesty, by the king, to the inhabitants of the Four Kōraḷas who had recently rebelled against their sovereign and had just then been reduced to subjection.

Kaludiya Pokuna Archaeological Site, Central Province, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a slab standing near a ruined structure at a distance of about 250 feet to the south of the stupa in the ruined monastery at Kalupokuṇa or Kaludiyapokuṇa, which lies on the slopes of a range of hills known as Eravalagala, about a mile and a half to the south-east of Kum̆bukkan̆danvaḷa, in the Vagapaṇaha Pallēsiya Pattu of the Mātaḷē District. The inscription consists of forty-six lines. However, the upper part of the slab is badly damaged and consequently the first twenty-nine lines of the text are largely illegible, apart from a few words here and there. Fortunately, the name of the king who issued this edict – Mahasen Maharaj – can be read quite clearly in line 9. Maha (‘Great’) is apparently used here purely as an epithet and does not form an integral part of the king’s name. His mother’s name – Vidurāräjna – is also clear and his father’s name may be read as Udā Maharaj, though not with absolute certainty. Since the inscription may be dated to the tenth century on palaeographic grounds, he was presumably one of the three kings called Sena who ruled in this period: Sena III, Sena IV or Sena V. After studying the available evidence on the parentage of these kings, Senarath Paranavitana concluded that Sena IV (r. 972–975 A.D.) was most likely candidate. The inscription is a katikā, or a set of regulations agreed upon by common consent. It seems to have consisted of three sections: (1) rules for the guidance of the monks, (2) rules dealing with the temple officials, and (3) regulations to be observed by the royal officers in their dealings with the monastery. Of these three section, only the second and third are preserved.

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’.

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which has been broken into four fragments. Three of the fragments were found lying on the pavement of the Kirivehera stupa in Kataragama; the fourth fragment is missing. The inscription is not dated but it may be dated on palaeographic grounds to the late fifth century A.D. or the sixth century A.D. Due to the fragmentary nature of the slab, the purpose of the inscription are not entirely clear but, from the surviving text, it seems that it was intended to register a grant of land made for defraying the expenses connected with the ritual at the Maṅgala Mahācetiya at Kājaragāma (Kataragama). The Maṅgala Mahācetiya is presumably Kirivehera. The donor of the grant is identified as Mahadaḷi Mahana raja (King Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga) son of Sarataraya (Siridhara Ayya). A king of Sri Lanka named Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga is mentioned in the Mahāvaṁsa but he lived in the first century A.D. and his father was not named Siridhara. The Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga of the present inscription must, therefore, have been a local ruler of Rohaṇa who assumed the title raja. Senarath Paranavitana speculated that this ruler might have flourished in that unsettled period which followed the death of king Mahānāman and was ended by the accession of Dhātusena, when the northern part of the island was under Tamil domination and provincial governors of the south had opportunity to proclaim themselves independent.

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which was discovered among the ruins of the Kirivehera stupa at Kataragama. The discovery was recorded by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883). Writing in the early 1930s, Senarath Paranavitana recorded that the slab was at that time stood upright some 50 feet (15.2 m) to the south of the main entrance to the stupa. The inscription can be dated on the basis of the palaeography to the first or second century A.D. It records that an elder of the Buddhist Church called Nanda enlarged the caitya (i.e. the Kirivehera stupa) and got the monks at Akujuka to construct flights of steps at the four entrances.