Object type: Stone slab

Udaypur, Madhya Pradesh

Arabic and Persian inscription (INAP00005) in a mosque (OBAP00005) near Chatua Darwaza recording the construction of the building by Khān-i ʿĀlam Jangi Khān in the time of Islām Shāh; working reading of the text 02/2020.

Udaypur, उदयपुर (Madhya Pradesh).

Mosque (OBAP00005) near Chatua Darwaza with an Arabic and Persian inscription (INAP00005) dated 1549 in the time of Islām Shāh of the Sūr dynasty.

Velaikkara Slab Inscription near the Atadage, Polonnaruwa

The inscription is incised on a fine granite slab found lying prone in the Tōpa-väva quadrangle (the Dalada Maluwa) in Polonnaruwa. The find was reported by H. C. P. Bell in his Annual Report of the Ceylon Archaeological Survey for 1903 (p. 11). The slab was subsequently framed with cement and placed upright near the Atadage in the Tōpa-väva quadrangle, where it stands today. Consisting of forty-nine lines in total, the inscription is written in Tamil with an introductory Sanskrit verse. It was erected by the members of the Vēḷäikkāṟa (or Velaikkara) community. As part of the expeditionary forces of Rājēndra Coḷa I, the Velaikkaras established themselves as a powerful force in northern Sri Lankan following the capture of Mahinda V in 1017–18 A.D. They were subjugated by king Vijaya-Bāhu I in 1073 A.D. but rebelled against his authority eleven years later, after he asked them to fight in his military campaign against their own kinsmen, the Coḷas. Although the king’s forces quickly quelled the rebellion, the Velaikkara community continued to hold considerable power. Indeed, such was their influence that, during the turbulent period of internal conflict that followed Vijaya-Bāhu I’s death, they were entrusted with the protection of the Sacred Tooth-relic Temple, which had been built (probably some twenty or thirty years earlier) by the minister Deva Senāpati under Vijaya-Bāhu’s orders. This inscription was erected around this time to provide written assurance that the Velaikkara soldiers would protect the sacred relics. The first part of the text serves as an introduction, describing Vijaya-Bāhu I’s charitable acts, including the building of the Tooth-relic temple. The second part details the provisions made by the Velaikkaras for the protection of the temple and relics. No date is given in the text but, drawing on a combination of palaeographic and historical evidence, Wickremasinghe argues that it dates from between 1137 and 1153 A.D., belonging either to the reign of Vikkama-Bāhu (1116–1137 A.D.) or, more probably, to that of his son Gaja-Bāhu (1137–1153 A.D.).

The inscription is covers the upper end of the prepared surface of a stone slab, which was discovered in July 1921 in or near a village called Ānaulundāva to the north of Poḷonnaruva. The text consists three lines written in the Sinhalese alphabet of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The third line is no longer legible and the first and second consist only of a number of high sounding titles of honour in Sanskrit. Wickremasinghe notes that these titles are practically identical with those applied to certain members of a guild of merchants called Vīra-Baṇañju or Vīra-Vaḷañjiyar, who are referred to as prominent donors in several Kanarese inscriptions of the twelfth century, including those from Kolhāpūr, Miraj and Mamdāpūr (see Epigraphia Indica 19 [1927-28], pp. 19-41). The inscription would thus seem to suggest that these merchants were present in Sri Lanka in the twelfth century, leading Wickremasinghe to infer the possibility of their having acquired important trading and other concessions during the time of Kīrti Niśśaṅka-Malla. Following their practice in Mysore and elsewhere in India, the merchants may have set up the present slab to record one of their pious gifts to a Hindu temple.

The inscription is incised on both sides of a quadrangular slab, which was discovered sometime before 1874, standing upright at a spot north of the Häṭadāgē in Poḷonnaruva. The text is mostly in Sinhalese but two Sanskrit stanzas in śārdūlavikrīḍita metre make up the first and last five lines; these stanzas are separated from the rest of the text by fish emblems. The inscription gives an account of the parentage and ascent to the throne of Siri San̆gabo Kāliṅga Vijaya-Bāhu, noting that he was the (half-)brother of king Niśśaṅka-Malla and assumed the biruda epithet Sāhaṣa-Malla. It then records that Sāhaṣa-Malla appointed the general Lak-Vijaya-Sin̆gu-Senevi as his prime minister and granted him much wealth.

Whereas most Sri Lankan inscriptions of this period are dated only by the regnal years of ruling monarchs, this record contains a date in the Buddha-varṣa and thus provides a fixed point of historical reference within broader chronologies of the period. The date given in the inscription is 1743 years, 3 months and 27 days of the Buddhavarṣa, Wednesday, the twelfth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Binera (Bhādrapada, Aug.-Sept.). Following Fleet (1909: 331), Wickremasinghe identified this date with Wednesday 23 August 1200 A.D. It refers to Sāhasa-Malla’s anointment as king and not the incision of the inscription. However, the grant recorded in the inscription is described as having taken place in the first year of the king’s reign (between August 1200 and August 1201 A.D.).

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which was discovered between the years 1906 and 1912 in Bōpiṭiya, a village in Hevāvissa Kōrale in the Central Province of Ceylon. The slab was found in two fragments: the first piece was the top portion of the slab and contained six lines of the inscription; the second piece evidently belonged to the lower part of the slab and featured the words hira sanda (‘sun and moon’), which usually occur at the end of a grant. From what remains of the inscription, it is evident that the record was commissioned by queen Kalyāṇavatī, who was married to king Niśśaṅka-Malla (r. 1187-1196 A.D.) and who ruled in her own right between 1202 and 1208 with backing from the powerful military commander Āyasmanta. The present inscription refers to a Tamil insurrection against Kalyāṇavatī’s stronghold. Wickremasinghe suggests that the record may have been made in 1208 or 1209, after the queen had been deposed; he conjectures that she was at this time living in retirement, possibly somewhere near Bopiṭiya, where the inscription was found.