Place: Anuradhapura

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 two sides of a stone pillar, which was found, sometime between 1906 and 1912, in a chena near the Malvatu Oya, to the east of the fifth milestone on the Outer Circular Road in Anurādhapura. It was recorded as No. 2 in the list of inscriptions forming Appendix F of the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1911–12 and subsequently moved to the Anurādhapura Museum. The pillar was evidently taken from the ruins of an earlier building. The lower portion of the pillar has been broken off and, at its top, there is a mortise hole to which a wooden capital was probably fitted. The inscription records the grant of a land named Kavuḍāvatta to a pirivena constructed by the heir-apparent (Māpā) Bhuvanaikabāhu, son of Vijayabāhu. The only Bhuvanaikabāhu mentioned in the chronicles as a son of Vijayabāhu is the prince of that name who was the second son of Vijayabāhu III. This prince held the office of yuvarāja, which is very often synonymous with māpā, in the reign of his elder brother, Parākramabāhu II. Hence this record may be attributed to the latter’s reign, which lasted from 1234 until 1269 A.D.

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’.

The inscription is engraved on a mutilated pillar-slab, which was discovered near the spill (vān–äla) of the Tōpāväva in Poḷonnaruva. The slab was subsequently moved to the Archaeological Office in Anuradhapura, where it was seen by Senarath Paranavitana sometime before 1933; Paranavitana then published an edition of the text in the third volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica. The upper part of the pillar-slab is missing and the surviving fragment is irregularly shaped. The inscription states that it was issued by ‘the Kālinga Monarch’ – a reference to king Niśśaṁka Malla, who reigned from 1187 to 1196 A.D. However, unlike other inscriptions of this king, it does not contain any mention of Niśśaṁka Malla’s alleged military achievements, nor does it boast of his greatness. Instead, it is addressed to the officials of the treasury. The opening portion of the inscription is missing but it appears that the text was prefaced with three quatrains containing maxims on political morals. The main part of the inscription records that the king had become suspicious about the integrity of the accountants of the treasury; he exhorts them to inform the authorities before taking anything from the treasury and threatens those who fail to do so with royal disfavour, hinting at dire consequences. It is a sign of the corruption plaguing the kingdom at this time that Niśśaṁka Malla found it necessary to issue an edict of this nature. Although he attempted to introduce salutary reforms, the country was plunged into a period of economic uncertainty and political anarchy after his death. Indeed, his own extravagant expenditure on building projects and displays of power may have contributed to weakening the exchequer.