1 Massa - Nissanka Malla

Nissanka Malla ruled Polonnaruwa during one of the last stable periods of Sinhalese imperial power before the kingdom's collapse in the 13th century. He was a prolific self-promoter, commissioning inscriptions across the island boasting of his piety, his military campaigns into South India, and his claim to Kalinga descent — a lineage he used aggressively to legitimize rule over a population that was not his own. The copper massa was the workhorse denomination of this economy, circulating through a court system sustained largely by irrigation agriculture and the tooth relic temple at Polonnaruwa.