Person: Senarath Paranavitana

This inscription is engraved on a rock situated in a stretch of paddy-fields in the village of Nugaliyadda in Pāta Hēvāhäṭa, Kandy District, and about a quarter of a mile to the south of the well-known Sagama temple, a shrine dating from Kandyan times. The record was first published by H. C. P. Bell in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 22 (1910), pp. 364–365. It is dated in the ninth year of Bhuvanaikabāhu. On the basis of the palaeography, which dates the inscription to the fourteenth century, this king could be either Bhuvanaikabāhu IV or V. However, as the document registers a grand by the Minister Aḷakeśvara, a dignitary who did not come into prominence until after Bhuvanaikabāhu IV’s death, it is clear that the king in question must be the later monarch. Bhuvanaikabāhu V’s reign began in 1371–1372 A.D., hence the present inscription can be dated to 1380–1381 A.D. The language of the record, which is Sinhalese with some Sanskrit tatsama forms, is very ornate in style, the author having used simile, metaphors and, at one point, the highly artificial figure of speech called the śleṣa (double entendre). The inscription registers a donation of lands in the village of Saputala in Sagama by the two brothers Aḷakeśvara and Devamantrīśvara to the god Nātha of Senkaḍagala and the god of the Nā tree of unspecified location, in gratitude to these deities for having crowned with success the efforts of the two dignitaries to place the affairs of the Church and the State in a stable condition. The village of Saputala, where the lands granted were situated, is modern Haputalē, which adjoins to the north and west the stretch of paddy fields where the record was found. The donors, Aḷakeśvara and Devamantrīśvara, are described in terms indicating that they were second in importance only to the king. They can be identified with the two brothers Aḷakeśvara or Aḷagakkonāra and Dev-himi, who are eulogised in very high terms in the Mayūra-sandeśa, a Sinhalese poem composed in the reign of Bhuvanaikabāhu V. H. C. P. Bell identified the Aḷakeśvara of the present inscription with Vīra Aḷakeśvara, who wielded power on two occasions in the troubled period prior to the accession of Parākramabāhu VI (as recorded in an oft-quoted passage in the Saddharmaratnākara). However, Senarath Paranavitana offered an alternative interpretation, arguing that the Aḷakeśvara mentioned here was in fact Vīra Aḷakeśvara’s uncle, a minister who rose to fame in the reign of Vikramabāhu III and, under the title of prabhurāja, became the virtual dictator of the Sinhalese country.

This inscription is engraved on a rock at the northern end of the village reservoir at Nilagama, behind a huge boulder which contains an ancient Buddhist cave-temple. Edward Müller mentions the Nilagama Vihāra in his Ancient Inscription in Ceylon (1883: 46–47, no. 79) and discusses certain inscriptions at the site but he makes no explicit reference to the present record and it is not clear whether he was aware of its existence. The first definite record of the present inscription dates from 1935, when the text was copied by an overseer working on behalf of Senarath Paranavitana. On palaeographic grounds, the epigraph can be dated to the sixth or seventh century. It is a private document and records that certain named individuals freed themselves from slavery in the Nilagama Tisa-arami Raji-maha-vahara by paying a hundred (kahāpaṇas?) each. The Nilagama Tisa-arami Raji-maha-vahara was clearly the ancient name of the monastery on this site: Nilagama remains the name of the village to this day, indicating that it has been in continuous occupation since the time of the inscription; the monastery itself was called Tisa-arami, presumably because it was founded by a king named Tissa.

The inscription is dated in the reign of a king styled Mapurumu Budasa Daḷi-Mugalana Maharaji Apaya. The word expressing the regnal year is not entirely clear and can be read as either paḍama (first) or aṭama (eighth), although Senarath Paranavitana reckoned the latter more likely. As for the king, only ‘Daḷi-Mugalana’ can be treated as a personal name. The rest of his appellation can be disregarded as mere titles, since the same epithets appear, either together or separately, in the names of other kings. ‘Mugalana’ is obviously the same as Pāli ‘Moggallāna’, which is the name of three kings mentioned in the chronicles. Moggallāna I can be discounted, since he is nowhere mentioned with the soubriquet ‘Daḷi’ or similar affixed to his name. The same logic cannot help to decide between Moggallāna II and Moggallāna III, since the Sinhalese Pūjāvalī refers to the Moggallāna II as Daḷa Mugalan and the Cūḷavaṁsa states that Moggallāna III was surnamed Dalla. However, if we follow Paranavitana’s reading of the regnal year as the ‘eighth’, then it follows that the king in question must be Moggallāna II, who is said to have reigned for twenty years, and not his later namesake, who ruled for just three years. Geiger dates Moggallāna II’s accession to 537 A.D.

This inscription is engraved on a fragment of an irregularly shaped octagonal stone slab, which appears from its shape to have originally formed a cross-bar of a railing. The fragment is now in the collection of the National Museum at Colombo. It was unearthed in 1893 by H. C. P. Bell in one of the buildings of the group called monastery L in the extensive monastic complex at Jetavanārāma in Anurādhapura. One end of the slab has broken off and is missing. As a result, the inscription is incomplete. The record can be dated on palaeographic grounds to the third or fourth century A.D. The first line tells us that it is an edict issued in the first year of a king’s reign but, unfortunately, the monarch’s name was inscribed on the lost portion of the slab. The fragmentary nature of the record prevents us from gaining a complete idea of the edict’s purpose but it seems to have been designed to regulate the ecclesiastical affairs of the ancient Sinhalese Buddhist Church. It addresses certain monks whose doctrines are described as needing regulation. These monks were apparently the inmates of some establishments known as the ‘Five Great Residences’. It appears that the king who issued this edict did so under outside influence, the inscription being engraved on a type of stone and using a form of script which were native to the Āndhra country and which are not typically found Sri Lanka. Senarath Paranavitana conjectured that the inscription may relate to the struggle between the monks of the Mahāvihāra and king Mahāsena (r. ca. 334–361), which is described in the chronicles. Paranavitana cited numerous pieces of evidence to support this theory (see Misc. Notes below) but, owing to the fragmentary nature of the edict, no decisive conclusion is possible.

Aluth Nuwara Dedimunda Devalaya, near Mawanella

This inscription is engraved on one side of a stone slab, which stands at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the main shrine of the dēvāle at Alutnuvara. The slab is situated to the left of the steps as one ascends. Another inscribed slab stands on the other side of the steps and is engraved with two inscriptions (IN03205 and IN03206). The slabs were discovered in the late nineteenth century and their inscriptions were first published by H. C. P. Bell in 1892 (Report on the Kegalla District of the Province of Sabaragamuwa, pp. 80–81).

The present inscription has been almost completely obliterated and only a few lines at the end remain legible. In these surviving lines, we can recognise the words of an imprecation, usually found in medieval Sinhalese records, against persons who cause obstruction to the maintenance of endowments made to religious institutions. Hence we may infer that the subject-matter of the inscription was a grant of land to a religious establishment. The document is attested by an officer named Sanhas Sivatta Nāyanāru, according to the order delivered, presumably by the king, when the latter was staying at the rest-house in a village of which the name is not fully preserved. Sanhas Sivatta Nāyanāru figures as the attestor of other documents issued in the reign of Senāsammata Vikramabāhu (see H. W. Codrington, ‘Some Documents of Vikramabāhu of Kandy’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32 [1931]: 64–75). We may therefore conclude that the present record was also one of that monarch – a conclusion to which the palaeographic evidence presents no objection. Senāsammata Vikramabāhu was in fact an independent ruler of the Hill Country who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, his reign beginning in 1474 or 1475 at the latest.

This inscription is engraved on one side of a stone slab, which stands at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the main shrine of the dēvāle at Alutnuvara. A related inscription is engraved on the other side of the slab (IN03205). The slab is situated to the right of the steps as one ascends. It is badly weatherworn and only the lower part of each face remains legible. Another inscribed slab stands on the other side of the steps but its inscription has been totally obliterated, apart from a few lines at the end (IN03207). The slabs were discovered in the late nineteenth century and their inscriptions were first published by H. C. P. Bell in 1892 (Report on the Kegalla District of the Province of Sabaragamuwa, pp. 80–81).

The present inscription contains a declaration by the ruler of Highlands that neither he nor any other member of the royal family will cause loss of property, limbs or life, to the people of the Satara Kōraḷē. No regnal year or date is found in the preserved portion of the record but it does state that it was set up Vikramabāhu Ǟpā at the command of King Senāsammata Vikramabāhu. Bell took this king to be Vikramabāhu III, who reigned from Gampaḷa in the middle of the fourteenth century, but this supposition was proved to be incorrect when H. W. Codrington proved that Senāsammata Vikramabāhu was in fact an independent ruler of the Hill Country who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, his reign beginning in 1474 or 1475 at the latest. The identity of the individual called Vikramabāhu Ǟpā, who set up the edict on Senāsammata Vikramabāhu’s behalf, is not clear. In the medieval period, the title ǟpā was usually reserved for the heir-apparent. It would therefore appear that Senāsammata Vikramabāhu had an heir who was also called Vikramabāhu, although this would conflict with Codrington’s survey of the documentary evidence, which seems to show that the king’s successor was in fact named Jayavīra. The present inscription appears to be a response to the text engraved on the other side of the slab (IN03205), which contains a declaration of allegiance by the inhabitants of Satara Kōraḷē to the kingdom of the Highlands (Kanda-uḍakaṭṭuva).

Aluth Nuwara Dedimunda Devalaya, near Mawanella