Foot Note
1.
It is not possible to ascertain how many letters have been lost. The letter ma is parly preserved.
2.
W. reads saha…………. The stroke which gives the appearance of sa to this letter is extrancous.
3.
Bata vaṭiya :- Bata is Skt. bhakti ‘food’. vaṭita is taken as the prototype of väṭa which is found in compounds like dan-väṭa. Dan in this compound also has the same meaning as bata in this inscription, and bat in the later Sinhalese language. Dan-väṭa is used of maintaining the supply of meals to bhikkus, though the word dan itself, derived as it is from Skt. and P. dāna, means ‘gift’. The change in meaning is due to the fact that the meal of a monk in ancient days was always a gift from another. Even today, the act of partaking of food by a monk is reffered to as dan-vaḷaňdinavā. In the present inscription, however, the word meaning food has used instead.
4.
Hamana-pahiy :- Hamana is Skt. śramaṇa,P. samaṇa, Eḷu mahana. The metathesis of consonants which gave rise to the Elu word had not yet taken place at the time of our record. Pahaja is Skt. pārṣadya, Pkt. Pāsajja. The Pali equivalent is parisa ; the phonetic changes by which the ild Indian parṣad developed to P. parisa, are not reflected in the Old Sinhalese word. These is reference to four parisas in Pali, that is bhikkhu, bhikkuṇī, upāsaka and upāsikā. The Sinhalese word piris is connected with P. parisa ; no word going back to pahaja is now found in the Sinhalese language.
5.
Ariṭa hamaṇa is a shortened form presumably of Ariṭṭhapabbata-samaṇa by the elision of the middle word in the compound. For ariṭṭa-pabbata, now known as Riṭigala, see Ep. Zey., Vol. I, p.135 ff. For the cave inscriptions, mostly in early Brāhmī, at the site, see CBIC, Vol. I, Nos 236 to 269.