Person: Senarath Paranavitana

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which was discovered near Batalagoḍa-väva, an ancient irrigation reservoir situated about eight miles from Kuruṇǟgala on the road to Dam̆bulla. The slab has been broken into several fragments, some of which are missing. The remaining pieces have been joined and the gaps filled with cement by an overzealous restorer, who – not content with merely putting together what was left of the record – also guessed at what the missing portions of the text may have said and inscribed his suggestions on the cement. Most of this guesswork is unacceptable and has been omitted from the edition of the text published here.

The Batalogoda reservoir was restored by the Ceylon Government around the turn of the twentieth century. Henry Parker was in charge of the restoration work and gave a detailed description of the tank, including an account of the present inscription, in his Ancient Ceylon (1909: 254, 397–400). He was presumably the one responsible for the repair of the slab.

The inscription is dated in the fifth year of Queen Kalyāṇavatī, who ascended the throne in 1202 A.D. It records the repairs effected to the Batalagoḍa-väva and the benefactions made to a neighbouring shrine by an officer (adhikāri) named Cūḍāmaṇi. The part of the inscription containing the titles of this officer has been lost. The general Lakvijaya Ābo Senevinā is also mentioned, though the nature of his involvement is not clear as the section of inscription where his name occurs is very fragmentary. It may, however, be surmised that it was at his command that Cūḍāmaṇi carried out the works at Batalgoḍa. This general is obviously the same as Lakvijaya Siṅgu Senevi Ābonā, who placed Sāhasmalla on the throne. The same individual is called by the name ‘Āyuṣmat’ in the Sanskrit inscription of Sāhasmalla at Poḷonnaruva (IN03099) and therefore can also be identified with the general called Āyasmanta in the Mahāvaṁsa, who placed Kalyāṇavatī – the monarch of the present inscription – on the throne. Clearly he was a very powerful figure and a veritable king-maker in early thirteenth century Sri Lanka.

Rajavesyabhujanga Mandapa, Polonnaruwa. Photographed before (above) and after (below) restoration in 1931 by the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon. Images published in: Kern Institute. (1933). Annual Bibliography of Indian Archaeology for the year 1931. Leyden: E. J. Brill, plate V.

This inscription is engraved on a stone slab discovered in 1931 by the Archaeological Department during the restoration of the ruined maṇḍapa built on a three-tiered platform near the Royal Palace of Parākramabāhu I at Poḷonnaruva. This maṇḍapa was identified by A. M. Hocart with the Rājaveśyā-bhujaṅga-maṇḍapa, mentioned in the Mahāvaṁsa as having been built by Parākramabāhu I. In the course of the Archaeological Department’s restoration work, it was discovered that the builders of this structure had utilised several earlier inscribed stones for the steps, mouldings and coping stones. Evidence was also found that the building had been substantially repaired at a later date, probably during the reign of Parākramabāhu II. It is therefore not certain whether the inscribed stones were used in the initial construction of the building or whether they were introduced as part of the subsequent repairs. The slab bearing the present inscription was used for the coping on the eastern side of the lowest tier of the platform. A large part of the inscription was effaced, perhaps deliberately, when the slab was utilised for this new purpose. Originally, the record must have consisted of around 45 lines but now only the first seven are legible. These lines are not enough to determine the subject matter and purpose of the inscription. The first two lines contain a Pāli stanza eulogising a thera named Ānanda, who is said to have had some connection with the Buddhist Church of Tambaraṭṭha, possibly referring to a place in the Coḷa country in Southern India or to Nakhon Si Thammarat in the Malay Peninsula. The next five lines introduce us to Sundaramahādevī, the queen of Vīkramabāhu I (r. 1111–1132 A.D.), who was the son of Vijayabāhu I (r. 1056–1111 A.D.).

This inscription is engraved on all four sides of a quadrangular stone pillar, which was discovered at the eastern porch of the Quadrangle at Poḷonnaruva and afterwards moved to the Archaeological Museum at Anurādhapura. The pillar’s base and capital are both missing and it seems to have been utilised as a lintel, for on one side are two square mortice holds, which were obviously intended for fitting it to the two door-jambs. H. C. P. Bell included the pillar in the list of inscriptions copied between 1901 and 1905 in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1905 (p. 40, no. 42). The inscription can be assigned to around the tenth century A.D. on palaeographic grounds. It is dated in the second year of a king styled Sirisaṅgbo, whom Bell identified with Mahinda IV (r. 975–991 A.D.). However, this identification is untenable, since the mother and father of the king in question are named in the inscription as Saṅgā-räjna and Mihind-maha[rad] respectively. In the tenth century, only two kings were sons of a monarch called Mihind (Mahinda). These were Sena V (r. 991–1001) and Mahinda V (r. 1001–1037), the two sons of Mahinda IV. The former used the viruda title Salamevan and cannot therefore be identified with the Sirisaṅgbo referred to here. Instead, the monarch of the present inscription must be Mahinda V, who was entitled to the name of Sirisaṅgbo from his place in the order of succession. The inscription records a grant of immunities to land in the village of Muhund-naru, in the Eastern Quarter, belonging to a pirivena, of which the name is obliterated, in the monastery called Mahamevnā Tisaram.

The inscription is engraved on all four sides of the lower part of a pillar, which was unearthed in about 1931 in the paddy field at Mäda-Ulpota, an abandoned village in the Gan̆gala Uḍasiya Pattuva of the Mātaḷē District. The pillar fragment now stands in a chena adjoining the field. The inscription was first copied for scholarship by Senarath Paranavitana in July 1932. The name of the king in whose reign the document was dated has not been preserved. The inscription records the grant of immunities to a land which was situated in a village called Panāväli and which, apparently, was set apart for the benefit of the servitors at the Council Hall (attāṇi–hala). In style, the inscription resembles the Poḷonnaruva Council Chamber pillar inscription (IN03158) and enables us to settle one or two doubtful points in the reading of that record.

This inscription is engraved across all four sides of the upper half of an inscribed pillar situated at the bottom of the rough stone steps leading to the top of the hill at the ancient monastery known as Rajamaha Vihāra at Vihāregama in the Uḍukaha Kōraḷē West of the Dam̆badeṇi Hatpattu in the Kuruṇǟgala District. The pillar is said to have been moved to its present site from a neighbouring chena in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century but its original location is not known. The lower portion of the pillar is missing. The inscription was copied for scholarship for the first time by Senarath Paranavitana in 1931 (see Ceylon Journal of Science, Section G, vol. ii, p. 211).

The inscription is dated in the ninth year of an unnamed king who was the elder brother or cousin (bǟ) of the heir-apparent (mahapā), also unnamed, by whom the edict was issued. On the basis of the palaeography, the inscription can be assigned to a reign between Kassapa IV (r. 912–929) and Mahinda V (r. 1001–1017). Of the kings who reigned during this period, Senarath Paranavitana identified two who reigned for more than nine years and whose heir-apparent was either their younger brother or cousin, namely Kassapa V (r. 929–939) and Sena V (r. 991–1001). This inscription therefore probably belongs to one or other of these kings, although without further information it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions.

The text registers the gift of a land, the name of which is not preserved, to a person named Niligalu Bud, and the immunities granted thereto. In style, the document closely resembles the Poḷonnaruva Council Chamber pillar inscription (IN03158), many words and phrases being peculiar to both.