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No. 38.)
POLONNARUVA INSCRIPTION OF VIJAYABAHU I.
331
Mr. K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar for many suggestions, and for the kind encouragement given to me in preparing this paper.
The slab on which the inscription is engraved measures 8' 2" by 26". There are 49 lines of writing on it. The stone had been planed and ruled before the letters were engraved. The writing, which has been well executed, is in a fairly good state of preservation-the average size of the letters being about 1 inch in height. The characters used in the record are Grantha and Tami]. They agree, on the whole, with those of the Tamil inscriptions of the contemporary Chēļa kings on the mainland of South India. The following facts, however, are noteworthy. The pulli or virāma sign, which is generally not used in most of the Tamil inscriptions in the South India of the mediaeval age, is here invariably indicated by a small vertical stroke, written over the letter, e.g. in vali vanda (1. 7). The anusvāra is generally written over the letter, at its top. The first five lines consist of a Sanskrit verse in the Sārdülavikridita metre, and the rest of the inscription is in Tamil prose, where, however, there is a great admixture of Sanskrit words. In the Sanskrit portion the rules of sandhi have not been observed in one place, i.e. kärshit+éri (1.2). It is interesting to note that, in the Tamil passage, the following old Sinhalese words are used with Tamil inflexions in some cases -
L. 16. Senevirat (Skt. Sēnāpati-rāja), Commander-in-Chief. L. 17. Pulanari (Skt. Pulasti-nagara), the name of a city, L. 20. daļadā (Skt. danshịrā-dhātu), Tooth Relic. L. 27. Mugalan (Skt. Maudgalyāyana), the name of a Buddhist monk.
No date is given in the inscription, but it mentions king Vijayabahu I, and states that he reigned for 55 years and celebrated his 73rd birthday festival. According to the Mahāvarsa, the duration of his reign was only 55 years. Therefore, it is evident that this record was inscribed after his death. According to the chronology adopted by Wijesinha, the translator of the Mahāvansa, Vijayabāhu reigned from A.D. 1065 to 1120.1
The inscription opens with an eulogistic account of king fri-Sanghabodhivarman alias Vijayabāhudēva. It says that he belonged to the Solar race and that he had to conquer many enemies before he entered Anuradhapura, where he was crowned king of Ceylon, at the instance of the Sangha (i.e. the Buddhist monks), for the protection of the religion of the Buddha. It is also stated that he invited monks from Arumana,* and purified the sangha of the three nikāyas (fraternities), to whom he gave three tulābhāras (i.e. weight of gold equal to that of his own person). Having brought the whole of the island of Ceylon under his dominion, he reigned for
According to the latest version of this part of the chronology of Ceylon, the dates, connected with the principal events of Vijayabāhu's career, are as follow
His birth, in A.D. 1040. He freed Rõhana of enemies and assumed the title of Vijayabahu, when he was seventeen years old, in
A.D. 1058. In the 15th year of his Röhapa rulo, i.e. the 33rd year of his age, he entered Anuradhapurs and became
the ruler of all Ceylon, in A.D. 1075. His death, after the 73rd birthday which was the 50th year of his Rohana rule or the 41st year of his Polonnaruwa rule, in A.D. 1114.
Epigraphia Zeylanica, Vol. II, p. 207. * Aromana (Sinhalese Aramaņa) is a corruption of the Pali word Ramañña, which was the name by which Lower Burma was known in ancient times. Rev. Foulkes tries to locate the Aramapa country on the Coromandel Coast, somewhere between the Chols and the Kalinga countries, in the dominions of the old Pallavas (Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVII, p. 126).
* The three nikayas or fraternitios, into which the Buddhist Church in Caylon was divided, were the Mahivi. hire, Abhayagiri, and Jētavana seota.
