Person: Senarath Paranavitana

Kaludiya Pokuna Archaeological Site, Central Province, Sri Lanka

Detail of Kaludiya Pokuna Cave Inscription

The inscription is engraved on the rock wall of a cave situated about 400 feet to the south-west of the stupa in the ruined monastery at Kalupokuṇa or Kaludiyapokuṇa, which lies on the slopes of a range of hills known as Eravalagala, about a mile and a half to the south-east of Kum̆bukkan̆danvaḷa, in the Vagapaṇaha Pallēsiya Pattu of the Mātaḷē District. The text contains sixty-seven lines, divided into five columns of unequal dimensions. It is dated on the fifth day of the bright half of the lunar month Poson in the eighth year of King Sirisaṅgbo. This biruda was used by a number of kings and it is not possible to identify definitively which one is intended here. However, on palaeographic grounds, Senarath Paranavitana suggests that the monarch in question may be Sena II (r. 866–901) or Kassapa IV (r. 912–929), more probably the former.

The inscription records the gifts made by different individuals for providing food to the inmates of the Dakiṇigiri monastery. The major part of the record is concerned with the gift of a person named Daḷanā, who invested twenty-three kaḷan̆das of gold for the daily supply of two aḍmanā of rice and one aḍmanā of curd and who stipulated that, in the event of dissension among the inmates of the of the monastery, the food intended for them should be thrown to crows and dogs. Evidently, Daḷanā was of opinion that if the members of the saṅgha quarrelled amongst themselves, they were less worthy of the offerings of the pious than such animals.

The inscription is engraved on the surface of the rock a few yards to the south of the ruined stupa at Labuäṭän̆digala, about one and a half miles to the north-east of Moraväva (Morawewa, 8.5897, 80.8352), a village in the Kalpē Kōraḷē of the North-Central Province. It was first recorded for scholarship by H. C. P. Bell in 1892. The inscription does include a date but may be attributed to the basis of palaeography to sometime around the fifth century A.D. It records that a person named Niṭalaviṭiya Sivayi, son of Raṭiya Sumanaya, deposited twenty kahāpaṇas for the benefit of the Devagiri vihara.

IN03136 is engraved immediately above the present record and appears from the palaeography to belong to the same period.

The inscription is engraved on the surface of the rock a few yards to the south of the ruined stupa at Labuäṭän̆digala, about one and a half miles to the north-east of Moraväva (Morawewa, 8.5897, 80.8352), a village in the Kalpē Kōraḷē of the North-Central Province. It was first recorded for scholarship by H. C. P. Bell in 1892. The inscription does include a date but may be attributed to the basis of palaeography to sometime around the fifth century A.D. It records that a certain individual named Sirinakayi deposited one hundred kahāpaṇas, the interest accruing from which was to be given to the monks of the Devagiri monastery for defraying the expenses connected with the vassa festival. Devagiri Vihāra was evidently the name of the monastery which existed on the rock in ancient times.

IN03137 is engraved immediately below the present record and appears from the palaeography to belong to the same period.

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 three sides of a quadrangular stone pillar, which originally stood in the forest at Deṭagamuva about a mile to the south of Kataragama. It had fallen down and was broken into two fragments, one of which was removed by the ex-headman of Kataragama to his house to serve as a step. The priest at the Buddhist temple at Kataragama had this fragment removed to the temple in 1916. Later, the lower half of the pillar was brought to the same place and set up in front of the image house. The language of the inscription is highly ornate, especially in the introductory part of the text, which abounds with metaphors within metaphors, making translation into English very difficult. The text is dated in the sixth year of King Dāpuḷu, whom Senarath Paranavitana identified, on palaeographic and other grounds, as that fifth of that name. Dappula V reigned from 940 (or 918 A.D.?) until 952 A.D., suggesting this inscription dates from around 946 A.D. (or 924 A.D.?). The inscription registers a grant of immunities to a religious establishment named Kapugam-pirivena on the southern back of the Kapikandur river in the principality of Rohaṇa by a prince named Lämäni Mihind, son of Udā (Udaya), the heir-apparent. From the inscription, we learn that this prince had conquered the southern and central parts of the island and that, when this grant was issued, he was governing the Rohaṇa country. Udā Mahayā, Lämäni Mihind’s father, was the same prince who, after the death of Dappula V, ascended to the throne as Udaya II. It is also possible that Lämäni Mihind, the donor mentioned in the present inscription, was the future Mahinda IV. Of the places mentioned in the inscription, Mahavehera can be identified with the monastery in Tissamaharama and the river Kapikandur is the Menik Ganga; Kapugam-pirivena was most probably situated at the place where the inscription originally stood.

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka