25 



DONDRA INSCRIPTION, No. 1, TEXT, TRANS La. 

 TION AND NOTES. 



By T. W. Rhys Davids, CCS. 



This inscription was formed on an upright slab of gran- 

 ite very much resembling a gravestone, and standing under 

 the cocoanut palms on the sea shore at Dondra in a private 

 land, which was fast yielding to the encroachments of the sea. 

 On some rocks in the surf the villagers said there were more 

 letters, but I was not able to discover any — especially as my 

 time was limited, and I was obliged to be satisfied with pre- 

 serving the stone itself — which by the kind permission of the 

 owner of the land I was enabled to remove to a place of safety. 



Probably the stone has not been noticed by any Euro- 

 pean before, for of the two stones mentioned by Forbes* one 

 is in my possession! and the other has been completely de- 

 faced by the ignorant priests, who seemed to have considered 

 that the stone was placed there opportunely by Vishnu, for 

 them to heap jungle round to burn. 



The translation of the inscription will explain itself, but 

 who shall explain its curiously abrupt termination ? for it 

 ends in the middle of a line, in the middle of the sentence, and 

 almost at the top of the second side of the stone, the whole 

 of the side having evidently been smoothed for inscription ! 



It is also extremely strange — and worthy of all the greater 

 attention, that this is not the only instance in which such a 

 discrepancy occurs— -thatin the year 1432 of Saka, whichisl510 

 of our era, the reigning Cakrawarti or overlord (as given 



* Eleven Years in Ceylon, I. , 178. 



t After many hours of fruitless labour more than half of the ins- 

 cription on this stone, which is in very bad preservation, has become 

 clear. It is not, as stated by Forbes, by Parakrama Bahu the Great/ 

 but dates from about 1400, 



