Kirivehera

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which has been broken into four fragments. Three of the fragments were found lying on the pavement of the Kirivehera stupa in Kataragama; the fourth fragment is missing. The inscription is not dated but it may be dated on palaeographic grounds to the late fifth century A.D. or the sixth century A.D. Due to the fragmentary nature of the slab, the purpose of the inscription are not entirely clear but, from the surviving text, it seems that it was intended to register a grant of land made for defraying the expenses connected with the ritual at the Maṅgala Mahācetiya at Kājaragāma (Kataragama). The Maṅgala Mahācetiya is presumably Kirivehera. The donor of the grant is identified as Mahadaḷi Mahana raja (King Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga) son of Sarataraya (Siridhara Ayya). A king of Sri Lanka named Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga is mentioned in the Mahāvaṁsa but he lived in the first century A.D. and his father was not named Siridhara. The Mahādāṭhika Mahānāga of the present inscription must, therefore, have been a local ruler of Rohaṇa who assumed the title raja. Senarath Paranavitana speculated that this ruler might have flourished in that unsettled period which followed the death of king Mahānāman and was ended by the accession of Dhātusena, when the northern part of the island was under Tamil domination and provincial governors of the south had opportunity to proclaim themselves independent.

Kiri Vehera, Kataragama, Sri Lanka

The inscription is engraved on a stone slab, which was discovered among the ruins of the Kirivehera stupa at Kataragama. The discovery was recorded by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883). Writing in the early 1930s, Senarath Paranavitana recorded that the slab was at that time stood upright some 50 feet (15.2 m) to the south of the main entrance to the stupa. The inscription can be dated on the basis of the palaeography to the first or second century A.D. It records that an elder of the Buddhist Church called Nanda enlarged the caitya (i.e. the Kirivehera stupa) and got the monks at Akujuka to construct flights of steps at the four entrances.