Personal names and names of places in Sigiri graffiti

By Padma EDIRISINGHE

Swasthi! Bathimi leemi

Hail! I am Bathee. I wrote this.

John Smith, they say is a name that a multitude of Englishmen carry it while Sanchez is said to be a very common name in Latin America. With all the uproar against the ruthless Portuguese conquistadors of the 16th and 17th centuries who pillaged and plundered our temples, that a good many of our countrymen, some very fervent Buddhists especially of the lowlands still retain names as Silva, Perera and Fernando seems almost ironical. What's in a name, you could again philosophize. Bandas and Bandaras make their teeming presence in the highlands. Some cynically bent on spoiling everything they come across see in these names considered almost sacrosanct among the Kandyans, alien antecedents as Pandaram corresponding to Prince.

On a rainy day thumping through a legacy left by my late husband, ie. two huge volumes of Sigiri graffiti authored by one of our greatest scholars, Dr. S. Paranavithana I came across in the appendix of Volume I, a list of place names and personal names that existed between the 8th and 10th Centuries when poets and a handful poetesses and even aesthetic inclined monks and possibly even royalty inscribed lines in appreciation of the ravishing Sigiri beauties plus other facets of this edifice. Appendix C carries the list of place names mentioned.

In the context of the present interest of tracing the original Sinhala place names of the East and the North, I found verse 230 particularly interesting where a visitor from Kokila gives his name after his poetic impressions as follows:

"Pesili Kitala Malage kokele Devami" which Dr. Paranavithana explains as follows: "I am Koklle Deva of the house of Pesili Kitala Mala". He goes on to say that of the personal names Kokela Deva and Pesili Kitala Mala the first members are doubtless the names of the places after which the individuals had been called".

Little did the erudite professor guess that not only that this beautiful name Kokila in subsequent times would be changed to Kokilai but that hundreds of fishermen from Negombo performing their Varakan or Seasonal fishing would be killed there by a deadly terrorist group intent on building their empire encompassing these areas.

Anyway we are going off the tangent and we will come back to the business of personal names as they existed during the time phase mentioned. Batha seems to have been a very popular name. Many Bathas or Bathees come from different provinces of the island to admire the Sigiri landscape and its beauties on whom their creative powers just gush on the Gallery Wall. Bathee is not the female form of Batha but gets transformed from Batha with the nourishment of a vowel for formalised sentence construction.

"Swasthi! Batheemi leemi" "Hail! I am Batha who wrote this". Some Bathas carry prefixes. Meyal Batha comes from Eastern province while Samanala Batha comes from Northern province and Mital Batha from Godagambu and Dalmal Bathi from the monastery of Mahanapatu. Just as a good number of the gee are anonymous some of those who inscribe their names on the rock do not place their "addresses". To this category belong Senel Batee, Salamei Bathee, Mihindal Bathee, Nal Bathee, Piyal Bathee, Kamala Batha, Kital Batha and Sang Bathee.

Agboy is another common name. Sometimes it is spelt as Agbo. And these Agbos too come from various provinces. Dr. Paranavithana in the introduction to this list of personal names makes things very precise by placing the letter F against feminine names. Out of feminine interest I sieved them out and was disappointed to come across in a list of poets of around 600 only these females ie., Deva, Mahamata ambu V 152, Dayal Batee V 122, Nal Himiambu V 543, Sen-bati V 400, Sevu, Nidalu Mihid ambu V 41, Sev Kala, Uturu ambu 247, Selu ambu 681 b. We see that five out of these take care to present themselves as the wives of So and So. Sela ambu's verse follows that of her husband's which means that they were a literary couple which implies that not only were our women literate as early as the 8th C but had no qualms in following literary pursuits along with her partner.

What is very striking about these names, both male and female is their non-exotic aspect. Very short and simple names. Only one Shri occurs. A Shri Harsha. Even the names of monks are very terse. The learned author calls them friars and the monasteries, convents. A sample of names of laymen who turned into Scribblers on Sigiri is given below--Uda, Ojal, Kasub, Kit, Kola, Tisa, Dala, Deva, Manal, Miti, Vijur, Siri, Sen. The list of very simple female names given above as Deva, Dayal, Nal, Sev, Kala are so distant from present female names not only in time but in the exotic aspect.

These are some of the names of friars -- Ananda pavijja, Nuga thera (Palavatu veheren), Budmit pavijja, Boy pavijja, Mahadeva pavijja, Sirina paviji of Taralpa pirivena, Riyan Sena pavijja and Sen Pavijja and Upatis himi of Kapugal pirivena. Compare these names with the names of the present Buddhist clergy that run into lines. Anyway these were all sightseeing and touring monks who did not fear to dwell on the physical beauty of the Sigiri beauties. They enjoyed what they saw and like the Sandesha monk - poets were bold enough to burst into poetry on them. But according to some Gee the beauty of some of the frescoed females was already fading with time.

Most of the visitors seem to have come from Ruhuna while a few have come from Eastern and Northern province (Uturu pasa). Only two seem to have come from Pela pedesa or Western province. In Appendix C that lists place names the author refers to a visitor come from Kivisi 574,562 and states that this name is still called Kibissa. It is a village very near Sigiriya itself, that has carried its name for 1200 years. Another visitor came all the way from distant Valigam which according to the author is modern Weligama near Matara. There are also sightseers from Vadunna bima (vadunna reservoir), Ritgal (Ritigala) and Sagama (in Kandy district), Salagala, Siripura and Mahagama (modern Tissamaharama). Verse 184 has been written by a tourist from Kobala, which the author identifies as modern Kombala in the Galle district. Poets from Polonnaru and Abhayagiri Vehera in Anuradhapura too have contributed to the poetic extravaganza of Sigiri. Augmenting the architectural extravaganza initiated by king Kasyapa in the 5th Century.

What delayed the Sigiri scribblings as late as the 8th Century? Perhaps the unfortunate events staged in the 18 years of Kasyapa's reign made the place inauspicious as a palace and the successors beginning with Mugalan went back to the traditional capital while the fortress Palace and the 500 Ranwan and Nilwan beauties and odes sung to them were forgotten. Then somewhere in the 8th C the sightseeing trail up would have begun by a few members of a highly civilized race that in the British Parliament of the 19th C was labelled as a semi-civilised race who had to be whitewashed and converted for advancement.