340 THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. [PART III. 



j5. c . so indifferent was he to his own faith, that his first alliance 

 307. in Ceylon was with a demon worshipper. 1 His immediate 

 successors were so eager to encourage immigration, that 

 they treated all religions with a perfect equality of royal 

 favour. Yakkho temples were not only respected, but 

 " annual demon offerings were provided " for them ; halls 

 were built for the worshippers of Brahma, and residences 

 provided at the public cost, for " five hundred persons of 

 various foreign religious faiths ; " 2 but no mention is made 

 in the Mahawanso of a single edifice having been then 

 raised for the worshippers of Buddha, whether resident 

 in the island, or arriving amongst the colonists from 

 India. 



It was not till the year B.C. 307, in the reign of 

 Tissa, that the preacher Mahindo visited Ceylon, under 

 the auspices of the king, whom he succeeded in inducing 

 to abstain from Brahmanical rites, and to profess faith 

 in the doctrines of Gotama. From the prominent part 

 thus taken by Tissa in establishing the national faith of 

 Ceylon, the sacred writers honour his name with the 

 prefix of Dewdnan-pia, or " beloved of the saints." 



The Mahawanso exhausts the vocabulary of ecstacy 

 in describing the advent of Mahindo, a prince of 

 Magadha, and a lineal descendant of Chandragupta. 

 It records the visions by which he was divinely 

 directed to " depart on his mission for the conversion 

 of Lanka ; " it describes his aerial flight, and his descent 

 on Ambatthalo, the loftiest peak of Mihintala, the moun- 

 tain which, rising suddenly from the plain, overlooks 

 the sacred city of Anarajapoora. The story proceeds to 



1 According to the Mahawanso, ': insanity, as a punishment in his person 



Vishnu, in order to protect Wijayo i of the crime of perjury, committed by 



and his followers from the sorceries I his predecessor Wijayo, Iswara wa's 



of the Yakkhos, met them on their supplicated to interpose, and by his 



landing in Ceylon, and " tied threads \ mediation the king was restored to 



on their anm, h ch. vii. ; and at a later i his right mind. Rajavali, p. 181. 

 period, when the king Panduwasa, ' 2 Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 67 ; ch. 



B.C. 504, was afflicted with temporary xxxiii. p. 203. 



