The Koravala Tank: Chronicle, Inscription and Survey
A candidate is asked to judge a claim that a third-century BCE king built the Koravala irrigation tank. The workbook supplies three items. Extract A is a translated passage from a monastic chronicle compiled in the fifth century CE; it says the king 'caused the great tank at Koravala to be made' and gave twelve villages to a monastery. Extract B is a damaged stone inscription, probably second century BCE, which mentions 'the channel from the Koravala tank' and a gift of four kare of land to a merchant guild; the royal name is chipped away. Extract C is a survey report: the tank bund and two feeder channels exist, and pottery from the bund is dated to about 200 BCE. The candidate must not assume that any one item is complete. The question asks for a judgement about which claim is safest and what further evidence would settle the royal construction point.
1. What does Extract B establish on its own, and what does it not establish? Use provenance and content.
Read the worked answer
Establishes: a tank and a channel existed by about the second century BCE, and land was gifted to a merchant guild. B is near-contemporary and epigraphic, so it is stronger than a later chronicle for those bare facts. Does not establish: royal construction. The king's name is missing; the phrase 'channel from the Koravala tank' presupposes a tank but not who built it; the gift to a guild may be private or administrative. Judgement: B supports irrigation and exchange, not the royal claim. Its silence is not a denial, but it cannot carry the claim alone.
2. How should Extract C be used to test Extract A's statement that the king built the tank?
Read the worked answer
C is independent physical evidence: the bund and two feeder channels exist, and pottery dates the structure to about 200 BCE. That makes A's date plausible and rules out a much later origin. But C dates the structure, not the agent. A was compiled centuries later for a monastic purpose and may magnify a royal donor. Reasoning: use C to corroborate existence and rough period; do not treat it as proof of the king's role. The safest statement is that a tank existed by about 200 BCE and was later credited to the king. A builder's inscription or foundation deposit naming the king would bridge the gap.
3. Which additional source would most decisively strengthen the royal construction claim, and why?
Read the worked answer
A contemporary inscription at the bund naming the king as builder, preferably in the same script and period as B, would be strongest. It would be near-contemporary, located at the works, and specific about agency. A coin of the king in a foundation deposit would help but is weaker because coins circulate and need not mark construction. Another later chronicle copying the same monastic tradition would add little, since it is not independent. A royal land-grant record that mentions the tank and the king together would also help, but only if its date and provenance are secure.