504 Examination of the Pali Buddhistical Annals. £Jincv, 



(B. C. 543 ;) and as to whether the Atthakathd, also represented 

 to have been first propounded on the same occasion, and ultimately 

 (after various other authentications) recompiled in this island in the 

 Pali language, by Buddhaghoso, hetween A. D. 410, and A. D. 432, 

 were composed under the circumstances, and at the epochs, severally, 

 alleged. The importance Tiowever of satisfactorily establishing these 

 questions, I wish neither to disguise nor underrate. For on the extent 

 of their authenticity must necessarily depend the degree of reliance 

 to be placed as to the correctness of the mass of historical matter 

 those compilations are found to contain. Although the contempora- 

 neous narrative of historical events furnished in the Atthakathd are 

 comprised between the years B. C. 543 and B. C. 307, (specimens 

 of which, extracted from a Tikd, I have been able to adduce in the 

 introduction to the Mahdwanso) those notices are occasionally accom- 

 panied by references to anterior occurrences, which in the absence of 

 other data for the illustration of the ancient history of India, ac- 

 quire an adventitious value "far exceeding their -intrinsic merits. 



I had contemplated the idea at one period of attempting the ana- 

 lysis of the entire -Pitakattayan, aided in the undertaking by the 

 able assistance afforded to me by the Buddhist priests, who are my 

 constant coadjutors in my Pdli researches ; but I soon found that, 

 independently of my undertaking a task for the efficient performance 

 of which I did not possess sufficient leisure, no analysis would suc- 

 cessfully develope the contents of that work, unless accompanied by 

 annotations and explanations of a magnitude utterly inadmissible in 

 any periodical. The only other form in which, short of a translation 

 in extenso, that compilation could be faithfully illustrated, would have 

 been a compendium, which however has been already most ably 

 executed by a learned Buddhist priest, and as ably translated into 

 English, by the best Singhalese scholar in this island, Mr. Armour*. 

 Under these circumstances, the course I purpose pursuing is merely 

 to array the evidence on which the claim of these sacred works to 

 authenticity is based — to show the extent and the subdivisions of the 

 authentic version of the Pitakattayan, — to define the dates at which 

 the three great convocations were held in India — as well as the date 

 at which the Pitakattayan and the Atthakathd were first reduced to 

 writing in Ceylon, — and lastly, to fix the epoch at which the present 

 version of the Pali Atthakathd was completed by Buddhaghoso in this 

 island. When these points, together with certain intermediate links 



* We regret we have not yet found space for the insertion of Mr. Armour's 

 sketch, which will be found in the Geylon Almanac for 1835. — Ed. 



