Līlāvatī

Potgul Vehera, Polonnaruwa

The inscription is incised on a door-jamb of the ruined maṇḍapa at the so-called ‘Pot-Gul Vehera’, which is the central shrine in a group of ruined buildings erected on raised sites within a quadrangular mound once held up by a brick rampart faced with elephant head decorations. The site is situated about a mile to the south of the ancient city of Poḷonnaruva, not far from the southern end of the Tōpa-väva bund. Little is known about the original use of the shrine but the modern name – ‘Pot-Gul Vehera’ (‘library shrine’) – may be a misnomer, since there is no clear evidence that it was used as a monastic library. The building was excavated in 1906 by H. C. P. Bell.

The inscription records the original construction of the vihāra by king Parakkrama-Bāhu I (r. 1153-86), its rebuilding after his death by his chief-queen Līlāvatī, and the addition of the maṇḍapa by his sub-queen Candavatī. Līlāvatī’s rebuilding is described as having taken place after she had been installed as sovereign in her own right. The rebuilding can therefore have taken place no earlier than 1197, the year in which she first took the throne. She was deposed in 1200 but returned to power on two further occasions, reigning from 1209-1210 and again from 1211-12. It is clear from the inscription that the construction of the maṇḍapa by Candavatī occurred after Līlāvatī’s rebuilding (and thus no earlier than 1197). Since the inscription is written on a door jamb of the maṇḍapa, the text may have been commissioned by Candavatī’s order. Wickremasinghe and Bell identify Candavatī with the queen referred to as Rūpavatī in other sources.

The inscription is engraved on a stone fragment found between the years 1906 and 1912 in the village of Räkiṭipe in Unantänna-vasam, Diyatilaka kōrale in the Nuvara Eliya District. The abrupt ending of the inscription and the sun and moon emblems carved above the text indicate that the stone originally formed the top of a square pillar. The rest of the pillar is missing. As the extant fragment features only the first ten lines of the inscription, it is not possible to say what the subject-matter was. However, it seems from the first clause that the inscription recorded a grant of land or some other benefaction in the reign of Līlāvatī, the Queen-dowager of Parakkama-Bāhu I who ruled as sovereign in her own right for three separate periods, first in 1197, then in 1209-10 and finally in 1211-12. On the basis of palaeographic considerations, Wickremasinghe conjectures that this inscription may date to 1211 A.D., when Līlāvatī was installed on the throne for the third time, governing for seven months until deposed by the Pāṇḍyan King Parakkama.

The slab was seen by Wickremasinghe in the Archaeological Commissioner’s Office at Anurādhapura. Its original location is uncertain but, as it was placed together with objects from Puliyaṉ-kuḷam, a small village situated two and a half miles north-east of Anurādhapura, it is assumed to have come from the same locality. The material from Puliyaṉ-kuḷam included several inscribed slabs from the piḷima-gē and the stone revetment of the dāgaba, three of which were marked ‘C/6’, ‘C/7’ and ‘C/8’. The present inscription is marked ‘D/8’. It is written in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 12th and 13th centuries A.D. and records the good deeds of the queen Līlāvatī, wife of King Parakkama Bāhu I. It tells us that she ruled the island with the aid of a Council of Ministers and that she built an almshouse in Anurādhapura. There is no date given in the inscription but her reign can be dated by other sources. Līlāvatī was on the throne first from 1197 to 1200 A.D., secondly in 1209 and lastly in 1211. The present grant was probably made during the first period, when the government was administered by Kitti Sēnāpati.