OB03039

The pillar was first discovered sometime in or before 1886 by H. Parker in the forest below the embankment of the Padaviya Tank “at the site of an ancient town which is now called Moragoḍa”. It was still there, “lying prone among the ruins”, when Bell and Wickremasinghe visited the spot in October 1891. The pillar is inscribed on all four sides in the Sinhalese alphabet of the 10th century A.D. The inscription is dated in the sixteenth year of reign of king Kasub Sirisaṅgbo, identified as Kassapa IV (r. 912-929 A.D.) It proclaims the grant of certain immunities to lands irrigated by the waters of the Padonnaru tank.