Ill 



Note. — At page 9, in the extract from Buddhaghosa's Attha- 

 katha on the Vinaya-pitaka, entitled Samanta Pasadika, it is stated 

 that " in the eighth year after his attainment of Buddhahood, the 

 Deity of felicity .... left the impression of his foot on the Saman- 

 takuta mountain, and departed." As this statement by Buddhaghosa 

 is the original authority upon which the Buddhist belief in the 

 Foot-print rests, it is not a little remarkable, that in another Attha- 

 katha by the same author, — that called the " Maduratthawilasini" 

 on the Buddhawanso, the fourteenth book in the Khuddakanikayo 

 of the Sutta-pitaka, — in the account he there gives of the various 

 places at which Buddha resided during his lifetime, he makes no 

 mention whatever of the visits to Ceylon which Gautama is elsewhere 

 alleged to have made. Such visits, involving tedious journeys by 

 land and sea, or most miraculous passages through the air, and fraught 

 with consequences so important to the Island, as well as to Buddhism 

 generally, could not have been overlooked in such an account, had 

 they ever really occurred. This account, taken from Tumour's 

 translation, which appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society 

 for August 1838, is as follows : — 



" By whom was this (Buddhawanso) propounded? Where, on whose 

 or what account, and when was it delivered ? Whose discourse is it, 

 and how has it been perpetuated ? 



" By whom was this Buddhawanso propounded ? It was propounded 

 by the supreme Buddho, who had acquired an infallible knowledge of all 

 the dhanma, who was gifted with the ten powers, who had achieved the 

 four wesarajjani, was the raja of dhanma, the lord of dhanma, the omni- 

 scient Tathagato. 



" Where did he propound it ? He propounded it at the great city 

 Kapilawatthu at the great Negrodho wiharo, in the act of perambulating 

 on the Ratanachankamo, which attracted the gaze of dewa and of men 

 by its pre-eminent and exquisite beauty. 



" On whose account ? He propounded it for the benefit of twenty- 

 two thousand kinsmen, and of innumerable kotiyo of dewo and men. 



