Kumāradāsa

This inscription is engraved on a rock to the north of the ruined stupa at an ancient site in the forest about three miles south of Maradanmaḍuva, lying about half a mile off the route to Ikirigallǟva. Two other inscriptions are engraved on the same rock (IN03223 and IN03225). The extensive ruins at this site were discovered by the Wild Life Department in 1953. At that time, the site had no name but it now referred to as Tim̆biriväva after an abandoned and breached tank in the vicinity. As head of the Wild Life Department, C. W. Nicholas reported the discovery to the Archaeological Department, whose officers were despatched to survey the inscriptions (see Appendix II of the Administration Report for 1954, nos. 41, 42 and 43).

The present inscription registers a gift of a yāḷa of paddy for the maintenance of slaves in the vihāra called Maharala by the wife of a person named Daḷa residing at Piḷigami; her name is not given. The vihāra in question must be the one which once stood at Tim̆biriväva, where the inscription is situated. The record is dated in the fourth year of a king styled Kumara-sirisagaboyi, providing one of the earliest known uses of the throne name Sirisagaboyi (Sirisaṅghabodhi) in an epigraphical document. Senarath Paranavitana identified this king as Kumāradāsa (called Kumāra-Dhātsena in the Cūḷvaṁsa), since he was the only Sinhalese king whose name contains the element ‘Kumāra’. Kumāradāsa reigned from 512 until 520.

The inscription is engraved on a rock at Nāgirikanda, situated in the Kadavat Kōraḷē of the North-Century Province. This site was the location of an ancient Buddhist monastery, although most vestiges of this ancient foundation were destroyed or obscured by when a new shrine was constructed on the same spot during the Kandyan period. Two inscriptions, both of them engraved on rocks, have been discovered at this place. The earlier one is a short record of three lines, which can be assigned on palaeographic grounds to about the fourth century A.D. The other inscription, which is later and longer, is dealt with here. It was first published in a scholarly context by Edward Müller in his Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883: 51, 77 and 111, no. 97b) and later featured in the list of inscriptions in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon for 1890 (p. 9). The inscription was recopied in 1894 under the direction of H. C. P. Bell and again in 1928 by Senarath Paranavitana, who went on to produce an improved edition and translation of the text for the fourth volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica (pp. 115–128, no. 14). The script of this inscription is of considerable importance, since it represents the transitional stage between Brāhmī and the medieval Sinhalese. The record dates from the sixth century and registers the gift of some tanks and paddy fields to the ancient monastery on the site of the inscription, which was called Bamaṇagiriya, by a king whose name appears to be Maha-Kumaratasa, although that part of the text is quite worn. Paranavitana identified this monarch with the king called Kumāra-Dhātusena in the Mahāvaṁsa and Kumāradāsa in the Pujāvalī and subsequent Sinhalese chronicles. There is some uncertainty around the exact date of this king’s accession to the throne with Geiger, Wijesinghe and Wickremasinghe placing this event in 513, 515 and 570 A.D. respectively.