Sāhasa-Malla

The inscription is engraved on a slab-pillar, which originally stood in Kandēvatta or Kandē Disānāyaka Mudiyansēlāgē-vatta situated in Pamunētänna, a hamlet of Kevulgama village in Gampaha Kōraḷē West of Uḍa Dumbara in Kandy District. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the pillar was blasted in search of hidden treasure. The upper and main part of the pillar were then removed to the local vihārē and built into the inner doorway of the temple, concealing three lines of the inscription at the top and two at the bottom. It was copied in this partially obscured state by the Archaeological Survey in 1909. H. W. Codrington later convinced the priest at the vihārē to excavate the pillar, revealing the hidden lines of the inscription. The remaining fragment of the pillar was also brought by the priest from its original site to the pansala below the temple, enabling Codrington to provide a complete edition of the inscription in the third volume of Epigraphia Zeylanica (pp. 230–235, no. 23). Luckily, the blasting and resulting fragmentation of the pillar did not cause any irreparable damage to the inscription.

The inscription is written in Sinhalese and dated on the first day of the waxing moon of Hila in the first year of king Siri San̆gabo Kālin̆ga Vijaya Bāhu. Three rulers are known to have used the name Kālin̆ga Vijaya Bāhu. In a slab inscription found at the Hatadage in Polonnaruwa (IN03099), Sāhasa Malla is so styled with the prefix Siri San̆gabo, precisely as in the present inscription. According to the Nikāya Saṅgrahava, Māgha also bore the name Kālin̆ga Vijaya Bāhu but it is not known whether he used the biruda Siri San̆gabo. Last of all, Vijaya Bāhu III appears in the Rājaratnākaraya under the name; he was a descendent of Siri San̆gabo. On palaeographic grounds, the present inscription could belong to any of these princes. However, there is no proof that Vijaya Bāhu III ever held Uḍa Dumbara, which is described in the inscription as being in Pihiṭi (the King’s Country). Meanwhile, Māgha was a Kāliṅga invader and oppressed the Sinhalese. Hence, by process of elimination, Codrington identifies Sāhasa Malla as the king being referred to here. Since Sāhasa Malla took the throne in 1200 A.D., the date of the inscription can be fixed as 1 October 1200. The text records a grant to an individual named Gulpiṭi or Gulhiṭi But Pām̆bul-lē-daruvan for loyalty to His Majesty even to the receiving of wounds in his service.

The inscription is incised on both sides of a quadrangular slab, which was discovered sometime before 1874, standing upright at a spot north of the Häṭadāgē in Poḷonnaruva. The text is mostly in Sinhalese but two Sanskrit stanzas in śārdūlavikrīḍita metre make up the first and last five lines; these stanzas are separated from the rest of the text by fish emblems. The inscription gives an account of the parentage and ascent to the throne of Siri San̆gabo Kāliṅga Vijaya-Bāhu, noting that he was the (half-)brother of king Niśśaṅka-Malla and assumed the biruda epithet Sāhaṣa-Malla. It then records that Sāhaṣa-Malla appointed the general Lak-Vijaya-Sin̆gu-Senevi as his prime minister and granted him much wealth.

Whereas most Sri Lankan inscriptions of this period are dated only by the regnal years of ruling monarchs, this record contains a date in the Buddha-varṣa and thus provides a fixed point of historical reference within broader chronologies of the period. The date given in the inscription is 1743 years, 3 months and 27 days of the Buddhavarṣa, Wednesday, the twelfth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Binera (Bhādrapada, Aug.-Sept.). Following Fleet (1909: 331), Wickremasinghe identified this date with Wednesday 23 August 1200 A.D. It refers to Sāhasa-Malla’s anointment as king and not the incision of the inscription. However, the grant recorded in the inscription is described as having taken place in the first year of the king’s reign (between August 1200 and August 1201 A.D.).