1838.] Pali Buddhistical Annals. 921 



theros and the most accomplished discriminators (of the true doc- 

 trines)." All, therefore, of these genealogies, excluded from his Attha- 

 kathd, which are now found only in the Tika of the Mahdwanso, or 

 in the Dipawanso, as well as much more perhaps, illustrative of the 

 ancient history of India, which the compilers of these two Ceylonese 

 historical works did not consider worth preserving-, Buddhaghoso 

 must have rejected from his commentaries, to which he gave almost 

 exclusively the character of a religious work. 



My Buddhist coadjutors are consequently now reluctantly brought 

 to admit, that the Mahdwanso, with its Tika, and Dipawanso are the 

 only Pali records extant in Ceylon, which profess to contain the Indian 

 genealogies from the creation to the advent of Sakya ; and that even 

 those records do not furnish the genealogies in a continuous form. 

 And, now that my mind is divested of the bias which had been created 

 by their previous representations, and which led me to attach great 

 importance to the historical portions of Buddhaghoso's Atthakathd 

 I cannot but take blame to myself for having even for a time allowed 

 that impression to be made on me. The author of the Mahdwanso*, 

 in his Tikd, declares more than once that he compiles his work from the 

 Sihala Mahdicanso and Atthakathd of the Mahdwihdro, and from the 

 Sihala Atthakathd of the Uttarawihdro fraternities, as well as from 

 the Mahdwanso of the Uttarawihdro priests. The last mentioned of 

 these works alone, as far as I am able to form an opinion at present, 

 was composed in the Pali language, at the time Mahanamo compiled 

 his Mahdwanso. I am induced to entertain this opinion from the 

 circumstance, that Mahana'mo's quotations from that work alone are in 

 the metrical form, whereas all the translated quotations made by Pali 

 authors from Sihala authorities are invariably, as might have been 

 expected, rendered in prose. One of these quotations consists of the 

 identical two verses with which the Dipawanso opens, and at the close 

 of the Tikd a reference is made to the Dipawanso for explanation of 

 the violation of the Mahawih6.ro consecration, in the reign of Maha- 

 seno. For these reasons, and as that work bears also the title of the 

 " Mahdwanso " or " the great genealogy," my Buddhist coadjutors 

 concur with me in thinking, that the Dipawanso now extant is the Pali 

 Mahdwanso of the Uttarawihdro fraternity. In fact the titles of 

 Dipa and Mahd, are indiscriminately given to both these histories. 

 To prevent, however, their being confounded with each other, I shall 

 continue to reserve the title of Mahd for Mahanamo's work, and that 



* Pages xxxi. xxxii. xlii. xliii. of the Introduction to the Mahdwanso, 

 5 z 2 



