314 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. [PART III. 



of Galle, a learned priest, through whose instrumen- 

 tality he obtained from the Wihara, at Mulgiri-galla, 

 near Tangalle (a temple founded about 130 years before 

 the Christian era), some rare and important manu- 

 scripts, the perusal of which gave an impulse and di- 

 rection to the studies and investigations which occupied 

 the rest of his life. 



It is necessary to premise, that the most renowned 

 of the Singhalese books is the Mahawanso, a metrical 

 chronicle, containing a dynastic history of the island for 

 twenty-three centuries from B.C. 543 to A.D. 1758. But 

 being written in Pali verse its existence in modern times 

 was only known to the priests, and owing to the obscurity 

 of its diction it had ceased to be studied by even the learned 

 amongst them. 



To relieve the obscurity of their writings, and supply 

 the omissions, occasioned by the fetters of rhythm and 

 the necessity for permutations and elisions, required to 

 accommodate their phraseology to the obligations of 

 verse, the Pah authors of antiquity were accustomed 

 to accompany their metrical compositions with a tika 

 or running commentary, which contained a literal ver- 

 sion of the mystical text, and supplied illustrations of 

 its more abstruse passages. Such a tika on the Maha- 

 wanso was generally known to have been written ; but 

 so utter was the neglect into which both it and the 

 original text had been permitted to fall, that Tumour 

 till 1826 had never met with an individual who 

 had critically read the one, or more than casually 

 heard of the existence of the other. 1 At length, 



He did not live to complete the task 

 he had so nobly begun ; he died while 

 engaged on the second volume of his 

 translation, and only a few chapters, 

 executed with his characteristic ac- 

 curacy, remain in manuscript in the 

 possession of his surviving relatives. 

 It diminishes, though in a slight de- 

 gree, our regret for the interruption 

 of his literary labours to know that 

 the section of the Mahawanso which 



he left unfinished is inferior both in 

 authority and value to the earlier 

 portion of the work, and that being 

 composed at a period when literature 

 was at its lowest ebb in Ceylon, it 

 differs little if at all from other 

 chronicles written during the decline 

 of the native dynasty. 



1 TTJENOTTH'S 3/a7ia?7awso, introduc- 

 tion, vol. i. p. ii. 



