Person: Don Martino de Zilva Wickremasinghe

The inscription was discovered in 1896 by the Archaeological Commissioner, H. C. P. Bell, at Bilibǟva in Ihala Kälǟgam Tulāna, about fifteen miles to the south-west of Anurādhapura. Engraved on three sides of a stone pillar, it consists of 80 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the latter half of the 10th century A.D. The text is dated to the seventh year of king Abhā Salamevan’s reign and records a grant of immunities to Mahagǟpiyova, a village in the district of Pirivatu in the Southern Quarter, dedicated to the Kasub-Senevirad-pirivena which Sak-Senevi San̆galnāvan had built in the Mahāvihāra. Wickremasinghe suggests that the biruda Abhā Salamevan refers in this instance to Kassapa V.

The inscription was examined in 1892 by Bell and Wickremasinghe at Ayitigeväva, a small hamlet in Kum̆bukväva Tulāna in the Kuñcuṭṭu Kōrole, about twenty-five miles north-north-east of Anurādhapura. Engraved on all four sides of a stone pillar, it consists of 65 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the latter half of the 10th century A.D. The inscription is dated to the fifth year of Abhā Salamevan’s reign and records a grant of immunities to a certain plot of ground, five payalas in extent, belonging to Tisaram nunnery built on the ‘Auspicious High Street’ by the Commander-in-Chief Sēna. Wickremasinghe suggests that the biruda Abhā Salamevan refers in this instance to Kassapa V.

Medirigiriya Vatadageya, Medirigiriya, Sri Lanka

Granting of immunities regarding land. Concerns a village and a hospital.

The inscription was discovered by the Archaeological Commissioner, H. C. P. Bell, in August 1897 in the course exploring the ruins of Mäḍirigiriya in Tamankaḍuva, about forty-six miles east-south-east of Anurādhapura. It is engraved on four sides of a stone pillar and consists of 95 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th and early 11th centuries A.D. The text is dated to the third year of king Abhā Salamevan and records the granting of certain immunities in respect of the land within the four boundaries of Mäḍiligiri-Ätveher-Piyan-gala in Rantisǟ in the district of Bidervatu-kuḷiya. Wickremasinghe suggests that the biruda Abhā Salamevan refers in this instance to Kassapa V.

The inscription is engraved on all four sides of a stone pillar. It was discovered by the Archaeological Commissioner, H. C. P. Bell, in September 1896. The pillar was lying almost embedded in the ground about thirty miles west-north-west of Anurādhapura in what is now the Vilpattu National Park. Bell erroneously identified the find-spot as Kukurumahan Damana (an identification repeated by Wickremasinghe) when it was in fact Mallimaḍu, according to C. W. Nicholas in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1963). The inscription consists of 73 lines in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th century A.D. It is dated in the eleventh of the reign of king Siri San̆g-bo and records the granting of certain immunities by the king and his Council in respect of Kereḷǟ-gama, a village belonging to the hospital built by the Commander-in-Chief Gēna opposite the nunnery called Mahindārāma on the High Street of the Inner City of Anuradhapura. Wickremasinghe argues that the biruda Siri San̆g-bo refers in this instance to Kassapa IV, whose reign lasted from 912 to 929.

The inscription was found on a pillar in the premises of the mosque in Nǟgama, a village in Nǟgampaha Kōrale, about twenty-five miles south of Aurādhapura. It was examined by the Archaeological Commissioner, H. C. P. Bell, in 1895. The inscription originally consisted of 84 lines, divided equally between the four sides of the pillar, but the top two lines on each side are now missing, the top of the pillar having broken off. The text is dated to the seventh year of the reign of the king Siri San̆g-bo and records a grant of immunities to Koḷayunugama, a village which had been given by Udā Mahāpā to one (Ki)tambavä Mahayā as pamaṇu or ‘descendible’ property. Wickremasinghe suggests that the biruda Siri San̆g-bo refers in this instance to Kassapa IV.