100 



tion to the contrary is simply incredible — as incredible, in point of 

 fact, as the assertion that their accurate knowledge of the Bana 

 was owing to the powers of supernatural inspiration with which they 

 claimed to be endowed. That they had excellent memories may 

 be admitted without the slightest hesitation. But the source of 

 their alleged inspired knowledge of the contents of the Tripitaka, 

 was the sacred treasure, the Pitakas themselves, which they kept 

 carefully hidden from eyes profane, and from which, as occasion 

 served, they could refresh their memories. Unless endowed with the 

 gift of tongues, as well as with the other supernatural powers attri- 

 buted to them, how, without a written copy to guide them, could they, 

 Indian foreigners speaking a strange language, have translated the 

 Pali Pitakas into Sinhalese, without imminent risk of " disregarding 

 the nature of nouns, their gender, and (other) accidents, as well as the 

 (various) requirements of style ?"-— for which flagrant sin, as we 

 have seen in the extract quoted from the Dipawansa, the Vajjian 

 bhikkus, at the birthplace of Buddhism, were, along with other 

 causes, denounced as heretics at the several Councils, at the third 

 of which Mahinda and his associates were present. These foreign 

 Indian missionaries also composed, in Sinhalese, Attakatha on these 

 Pitakas, which were accented as canonical, which Attakatha were 

 extant at least seven hundred years after they were originally corn- 



author, quoted by Schmidt, speaks of the three revisions of ' the words of Buddha,' 

 as ' so many collections of them,' and further states, that ' three hundred years after 

 Buddha had disappeared in Nirvana, when king Kanika was master of alms-gifts 

 (grand almoner of the mendicants), a collection of the last words of Buddha was 

 made in a cloister in the kingdom of Keschmeri. At that time all the words of 

 Buddha were put into hooks.'' " — (Prof. E. E. Salisbury's Mem. of Buddhism, Journ. 

 Amer. Or. Soc. i. pp. 83, 100.) This would be at least a hundred and fifty years 

 before the period assigned for their collection into written books in Ceylon, sup- 

 posing even that previous to the days of king Kanika the}' had remained miraculously 

 preserved in the tenacious recollections of priests endowed with infallible memories. 



