August, 1873.] ASIATIC SOCIETIES. 231 “ (The King) having considered (the fact) that the Vih&ra at R&jamah& Kelaniya was a holy spot where Buddha had vouchsafed to sit, to partake of food and preach his doctrines, inquired what works of merit by way of repairs there were to be executed there; and having ascertained that the Chaitya and all other edifices were in ruins, gave much (money for) expenses from the royal palace, and assigned the task of accomplishing tho work to the chief officer of the royal revenue, and the minister Par&kkrama B&hu Vijayakkon&, who caused the execution of the plastering of the Chai¬ tya, and other necessary repairs and works; built a parapet wall of granite sixty cubits (in length) on the north, constructed a flight of steps with a Sandakadapahana (a semicircular stone serving as a stepping-stone) on the east; tho¬ roughly rebuilt the Samddht image-house, the Napilimageya and the eastern gate of the same monastery and its flight of stone-steps, the minor Trivanka house, the TeUcatarageya, the latrine common to the priesthood, and the east gate; repaired breaches and injuries, &c., of the Pas- mahdlpaya, Selapilimagoya, Siwurudageya, &c., and repaired various other breaches, and other works in the Vih&ra. And after having accom¬ plished this work thoroughly, (the King) thinking it desirable that His Majesty’s royal name should be perpetuated in this Vih&ra, conferred on tho chief priest of the monastery the title of &ri Bdjaratna Piriwan Ter a, and ordained that all who occupied the lands of the temple, those who served in the elephant stables, the horse stables, the kitchen, bath-rooms, and persons employed in various other occupations, the Tamil and the SiShalese, and those who paid rent and who owned land, should give (to the Temple) two pelas of paddy (measured) by a laha which contains 4 nelis for every amuna of sowing extent, and money payment at the rate of one panama for every ten cocoanut trees, and thus accomplished this meritorious work, so that it may last while the sun and moon exist. “ In obedience to the command delivered by His Majesty, sitting on the throne at the royal palace of Jayawardhan Kotte, in the midst of the Madali- varu (nobles), that a writing on stone should be made in order that kings and ministers in future ages might acquire merit by preserving and im¬ proving this work, I, Sanhas Teruvarahan Perumal, have written and granted this writing on stone. “ The boundaries to R&jamaha Kelaniya are— Wattala, Malsantota, Kud& Mabola, Galwalutota, Gongitota, Godarabgala Galpotta, the stone pillar ^atGonasena, including the Uruboruwa Liyedda, the canal Rammudu Ela, the Kessaketfigala, the Watagala, Esalapaluwa, the inside (?) of Pasuru- tota, the (P) of Dewiy&mulla, the boundary stone, and the great river.” The king alluded to is Dharma Par&kkrama B&hu, the 152nd sovereign in Mr. Tumour’s list of the kings of Ceylon, in whose reign “ the Por¬ tuguese first landed in Ceylon, and were permitted to trade.” Both the Mahdvanso and Rdjaratndkara entirely omit his reign, making his brother and immediate successor, Vijaya B&hu, supply his place; while the Rdjavali (which Mr. Tumour seems to have followed in compiling his epitome) gives a graphic and interesting account of his reign. The Rdjavali, however, bears internal evidence of its being a contemporaneous record, while it is well known that the Rdjaratndkara is com¬ paratively a recent work, and that this portion of the Mahdvanso too, was compiled so recently as 1758, ‘‘by Tibbotuw&we Terunn&nse, by the command of Kirtisrt, partly from the works brought during his reign by the Siamese priests (which had been procured by their predecessors during their former religious missions to this island), and partly from the native histories which had es¬ caped the general destruction of literary records in the reign of R&ja Sinha I.” In the Dondra inscription No. I., published by Mr. Rhys Davids in the Journal for 1870-71 (conf. Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 59) it is stated that king Vijaya B&hu ascended the throne in the year £aka 1432 (a. d. 1510), thus supporting, or rather seeming to support, the version given in the Mahdvanso and Rdjaratndkara, and contradicting the Rdjavali, which is supported by the Kelaniya inscription. On the discrepancy between the date given by Tumour and that recorded in the Dondra inscrip¬ tion, Mr. Davids had remarked—“ that in the year 1432 of Saka, which is 1510 of our era, the reigning Chakrawarti or Overlord (as given in Tumour’s list) was not Sanga Bo Vijaya B&hu, who came to the throne in 1527, but his brother Dharma Par&k- krama B&hu.” It would however now seem that the discrepancy is not only between Tumour’s date and that recorded in the Dondra inscription, but also between one series of writers and another, and between one “ contemporaneous record” and another:— Mr. De Zoysa then expresses his belief that the assumption of the sovereignty by Dharma Par&k- krama B&hu was disputed by his brother Vijaya B&hu, and that, at least for a time, one part of the nation (probably those in the south) acknow¬ ledged the latter as sovereign, while the rest adhered to his brother; and this view seems to derive support from the following fact mentioned by Mr. Tumour in his Epitome:— “ His (Dharma Par&kkrama B&hu’s) reign was
