1837.] Examination of the PdU Buddhistical Annals. 721 



twenty, at his accession, his age, at the time of his death, according 

 to the foregoing data, is left to vary from 80 to 147, as he may 

 have been born in the first, or the sixty-seventh year after his parents' 

 marriage. Whether Mutasiwo died at the age of 80 or 147, from 

 the date of his demise to the accession of his ninth son Aselo, (even 

 supposing him to be a reputed posthumous child of the venerable 

 Mutasiwo) as a period of 90 years had elapsed, he must have been 

 upwards of 90 years old when he commenced a turbulent reign by 

 dethroning and putting to death two foreign usurpers ; and closed it 

 when he was past his 100th year, by being himself dethroned and put 

 to death by Elaro, the first Cholian conqueror of Ceylon. That usurper 

 reigned for 44 years when he was killed in battle by Dutthaqa'mini 

 in B. C. 161, from which date, the authenticity of the chronology of 

 the Mahdwanso is not only free from all apparent discrepancy, but 

 admits of corroboration by collateral evidence. 



It will I think, from the foregoing remarks, be admitted, that the por- 

 tion of Geylonese history subsequent to the reign of Dewananpiyatis- 

 so, and down to Dutthaqa'mini, is also defective, and that either we 

 must have more dramatis persona to fill up the historical tableau 

 exhibited in the Mahdwanso between the years B. C. 543 and B. C. 

 161, or we must contract the duration of the term allotted to the inci- 

 dents of that early section of the Ceylonese history. 



Without going into further hypothetical comments, I venture to 

 assert, after a careful examination of the various annals which I have 

 had the opportunity of consulting, that any inquirer, not a Buddhist 

 bound by his creed to believe in the prophecies before mentioned, 

 will be disposed to decide that it is the chronology and not the general 

 narrative of the history that requires correction. 



The smallest amount of curtailment rendered necessary for the 

 adaptation of the preposterous terms assigned to some of the early 

 rulers of Ceylon, to an admissible duration of human existence, is 

 about 60 years, between Wijayo and Dewa'nanpiyatisso ; and a 

 similar amount of retrenchment, between Dewa'nanpiyatisso and 

 Dutthagamini, which would bring down the landing of Wijayo from 

 B. C. 543 to 423, being a period, (by the double retrenchment) of 120 

 years ; and the accession of Dewa'nanpiyatisso from B. C. 307 to 

 247, being a period, (by the second single retrenchment) of 60 years. 



The effect which this adjustment has in tending to reconcile the 

 Ceylonese with the European chronology will be noticed, after an ex- 

 amination of the contemporaneous portion of Indian history. 



However justifiable it may be to disturb, on these grounds, the 

 date assigned to the landing of Wijayo, while there is no other 

 4 z 



