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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XII. 



Of the verification of the chronicles by comparison with 

 independent writings or histories I propose to give some 

 more detailed illustration, but first I must say, for the 

 benefit of any Member of the Society — if there be any — 

 who does not know it, what are the histories or chronicles 

 to which I refer, and what are the claims which they make 

 to historical character. It is very important to know what 

 materials the writers claim to have had access to. 



There are the old Pali chronicles, the Dipawansa and 

 Mahdwansa, of which we may say roughly that they date in 

 their present form from about 400 A.D. ; and there are the 

 Sinhalese chronicles, the Edjavaliya and others, which are 

 much later, of uncertain beginning. Both Pali and Sinhalese 

 books have been continued, of course by many different hands, 

 down to the present century. I am going to touch only the 

 earlier, the Pali histories. 



The Mahdwansa, or Great History, is in Pali verse, and 

 consists, in its complete form, of about one hundred chapters, 

 varying in length, but averaging I suppose about two hundred 

 couplets to the chapter. 



The original issue, about 400 A.D., consisted of the first 

 thirty-seven or thirty-eight chapters (it is not quite certain 

 exactly where it left off), and contains the tradition or the 

 history (you will see presently why I use two words) of the 

 whole period from the time of Buddha, or — which is the same 

 thing — from the landing of Vijaya to the date of the author, 

 or one not long before it : roughly, from the sixth century 

 B.C. to the fifth century A.D. It was compiled at the end of 

 the period, of nearly a thousand years, of which it treats. 



What materials does the author profess to have had access 

 to ? He composed his work, he tells us in his prefatory lines, 

 from tradition and from previous chronicles made by " the 

 ancients." And the Commentary, or Tika, probably written 

 also by the author himself, adds that the materials were 

 taken from the Sinhalese books (Atthakatha, books illustra- 

 tive of, or introductory to, the sacred books of Buddhism) — 

 his materials were taken from these Sinhalese Buddhist 



