1837.] Examination of the Pali Buddhistkal Annals. 717 



service in which I have been employed has afforded me neither the 

 leisure, nor the access to the means, that would admit of my prose- 

 cuting a comprehensive literary research. The sole object I have in 

 view at present is to collect and arrange matter for the subsequent 

 consideration of competent parties ; and if in the progress of this 

 humble task, I occasionally enter upon a critical examination of those 

 materials, I wish those observations to be regarded rather as indexes 

 to the repositories from whence collateral information has been drawn, 

 or indications of the points which demand further inquiry, than as 

 opinions in themselves entitled to weight, and advanced with the view 

 to invite criticism. 



In this spirit, and in the prosecution of this design, I proceed to 

 offer the following remarks as explanatory of the grounds on which I 

 am disposed to consider, that the error of the above discrepancy was 

 designedly committed by the early compilers of these Buddhistical 

 annals, partly in India, and partly in Ceylon, for the purpose of working 

 out certain pretended prophecies hereafter noticed. 



In the first place, these minutely adjusted dates are to be found only 

 in Buddhaghoso's Pali version of the Atthakatha, and in the 

 Mahawanso; the latter history being avowedly compiled from the 

 Singhalese Atthakatha, from which Buddhaghoso translated his 

 version also of the sacred commentaries into Pdli ; making a pilgrim- 

 age from India (where those Atthakatha were, it is said, no longer 

 extant) to Ceylon for the express purpose of accomplishing that task. 

 Both works, therefore are derived from the same source, viz. the 

 Atthakatha brought from India by Mahindo in B. C. 307, and pro- 

 mulgated by him in Ceylon in the native language. 



In the second place, these dates are called forth, for the purpose 

 of showing that certain pretended prophecies of Sa'kya and his disci- 

 ples, all tending directly or indirectly to invest the Indian emperor 

 Asoko, the heirarch Moggaliputtatisso, and the island of Ceylon 

 with special importance, as the predicted agents by whom, and the pre- 

 dicted theatre in which, Buddhism should attain great celebrity, were 

 actually realized. In the third place, no mention whatever is made of 

 these prophecies in those parts of the text of the Pitakattaya in which 

 the other revelations of Sakya himself, are recorded ; and where 

 indeed, until a recent discussion raised by me, the heads of the Buddhis- 

 tical church in Kandy believed they were to be found. 



The first of those prophecies refers to Ceylon and is given in the first 

 sentence of the 7th and the last of the 6th chapter of the Mahawanso. 



" The ruler of the world (Sa'kya) having conferred blessings on the whole 

 world, and attained the exalted, unchangeable ' nibbfria ;' seated on the throne, 



