Ruvanvälisǟya

Ruwanwelisaya, Anuradhapura

Ruanweli Dagoba, c. 1891. Image from: Ricalton, James, (1891). ‘The City of the Sacred Bo-Tree (Anuradhapura),’ Scribner’s Magazine 10, pp. 319–336, image opposite p. 328.

This inscription is engraved on a large stone slab in the pavement of the Ruvanvälisǟya at Anurādhapura in close proximity to its southern vāhalkaḍa. A short donative records that the slab was incorporated into the paving at this spot in the ninth century. Before that, the slab seems to have served as the landing above a flight of steps in some old building. The inscription consists of twenty-two lines and was evidently never completed, since the last line ends abruptly before coming to a period and the horizontal partitions that separate the lines of writing are only complete up to the fourteenth line. It seems that, for some reason or other, the engraving of the inscription was interrupted before the final touches could be completed, perhaps as a result of the many internal revolutions and foreign invasions that marked the early thirteenth century in Sri Lanka. Although the inscription was apparently in relatively good state of preservation when it was discovered for scholarship in the nineteenth century, it has since suffered considerable damage, largely as a result of carts having been driven over the slab during the restoration of the dāgäba. The language of the inscription is Sinhalese, although it also includes a large proportion of Sanskrit words. The record is dated in the second year of Kalyāṇavatī (r. 1202–1208) and gives an account of the offerings made to the Ruvanvälisǟya by a minister called Vijayānāvan, his wife and his sister’s son. Vijayānāvan is described as having administered the treasuries of kings, including Parākramabāhu.

Ruwanwelisaya, Anuradhapura

Ruanweli Dagoba, c. 1891. Image from: Ricalton, James, (1891). ‘The City of the Sacred Bo-Tree (Anuradhapura),’ Scribner’s Magazine 10, pp. 319–336, image opposite p. 328.

The inscription is engraved on two fragments of a broken pillar, which were found lying amidst a heap of debris on the pavement about midway between the western and southern altars of the Ruvanväli-sǟya in Anuradhapura, a few yards from the stone votive dāgäba. In all probability, the pillar belonged to one of the many small shrines which once stood on the spacious platform where the fragments were found. The inscription records the gift of the pillar by an individual (or individuals) from the town of Mahila. It is dated in the reign of king Buddhadāsa (341–370 A.D.).