Place: Archaeological Commissioner's Office, Anuradhapura

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.

The inscription is engraved on all four sides of a broken pillar discovered in Giritaḷē, a village seven miles to the north-west of Poḷonnaruva, where it was first recorded by H. C. P. Bell in the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon Annual Report for 1905 (p. 39, no. 8). The pillar was subsequently brought to the premises of the Archaeological Commissioner at Anurādhapura, where it was seen by Senarath Paranavitana sometime before 1933. The lower part of the pillar is missing and the portions of the inscription on the second and fourth sides of the pillar are no longer legible. It is, however, apparent from the surviving parts of the inscription that, like the majority of pillar inscriptions of the tenth century, it is concerned with a grant of immunities to a certain land. The inscription is dated in the first year of King Udā Sirisaṅgbō, who is described as the son of Mahinda, the sub-king (or heir apparent) and who can therefore be identified as Udaya II (r. 952–955 A.D.).

The slab was seen by Wickremasinghe in the Archaeological Commissioner’s Office at Anurādhapura. Its original location is uncertain but, as it was placed together with objects from Puliyaṉ-kuḷam, a small village situated two and a half miles north-east of Anurādhapura, it is assumed to have come from the same locality. The material from Puliyaṉ-kuḷam included several inscribed slabs from the piḷima-gē and the stone revetment of the dāgaba, three of which were marked ‘C/6’, ‘C/7’ and ‘C/8’. The present inscription is marked ‘D/8’. It is written in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 12th and 13th centuries A.D. and records the good deeds of the queen Līlāvatī, wife of King Parakkama Bāhu I. It tells us that she ruled the island with the aid of a Council of Ministers and that she built an almshouse in Anurādhapura. There is no date given in the inscription but her reign can be dated by other sources. Līlāvatī was on the throne first from 1197 to 1200 A.D., secondly in 1209 and lastly in 1211. The present grant was probably made during the first period, when the government was administered by Kitti Sēnāpati.