9:22 Pdli Buddhistical Annals. [Nov. 



of Dipa for the prior compilation, the author of which has not yet been 

 ascertained. 



It has been shown in the introduction to the Mahdwanso, that its 

 author Maha'na'mo compiled his history in the reign of his nephew 

 Dhatasino the monarch of Ceylon who reigned between A. D. 459 and 

 477, from the materials above described, a part of which was the ver- 

 sion of the Atthakathd brought by Mahindo from India in 307 

 before Christ, and translated by him into the Sihala language. This 

 fact, coupled with many other circumstances inadvertently disclosed in 

 the histories of the convocations, go far to prove that the Pitakat- 

 tayan and Atthaknthd were actually reduced to writing from the 

 commencement of the Buddhistical era, and that the concealment of 

 their record till the reign of the Ceylonese ruler Wattagamini, be- 

 tween B. C. 104 and 76, was a part of the esoteric scheme of that 

 creed, had recourse to in order to keep up the imposture as to the 

 priesthood being endowed with the gift of inspiration. The cessation 

 of the concealment of these scriptures at that particular period, though 

 attributed to the subsidence of the spirit of inspiration, in all probabi- 

 lity, proceeded from the public disorders* consequent upon the Cholian 

 invasion, which led to the expulsion of that king and the priesthood 

 from Anurddhapura by a foreign enemy, and to their fugitive exist- 

 ence in the wilderness of the island during a period of nearly 15 years. 



The Dipaivanso from its being quoted by the author of the Mahd- 

 wanso, is unquestionably a prior work ; but as its narrative extends to 

 the reign of Maha'seno in A. D. 302, its priority cannot exceed 150 

 years. In the Journal of December last, I have mentioned the circum- 

 stances under which I obtained possession of a Pali copy of the Dipa- 

 wanso, in a very imperfect state, written in the Burmese character. 

 As this work and the Mahdwanso, with its Tikd, are the best Pali 

 records I possess of the Indian genealogies, I shall proceed to make 

 extracts from such parts of the Dipawanso as may throw light on this 

 subject ; adding a note in those cases, in which the Tikd is either fuller 

 than, or at variance from, the Dipawanso. I shall not attempt to tabu- 

 larize these dynasties, as the lists of kings is avowedly and manifestly 

 incomplete, and as no continuous chronological results could be safely 

 deduced from any table formed from such mystified data. It will be 

 observed that the names of even the three rajas, during whose reigns 

 the three Buddha who preceded Go'tamo were manifested in this kappo, 

 are omitted in these lists. And yet there are detached notices of those 

 kings, as well as of other Indian rajas, both in the text and commen- 

 taries of the Buddhistical scriptures, which are in themselves well 

 * Vide Mahdwanso, Chap. 33. 



