Stone tablets preserve Pali verses—memory hammered into rock.
Inscriptions teach ethics, announce rulers, record gifts to monasteries.
Carved for public hearing, they sounded in courtyards and shrines.
Metre aided recall; dates and places anchored belief to history.
Weather scars the faces, yet the meanings endure and travel.
Scholars trace networks of monks, patrons, and kingdoms through them.
Listen closely: each groove is a syllable of the past.