No. 54.— 1903.] KING KIRTI SRI'S EMBASSY TO SIAM. 17 
AN ACCOUNT OF KING KIRTI SRPS EMBASSY TO 
SIAM IN 1672 SAKA (1750 A.D.). 
Translated from the Sinhalese by P. E. Pieris, M.A., Barrister- 
at-Law, CCS. 
Introduction. 
The learned Ratanapala Sthavira, who wrote the Sinhalese 
translation of the Vimdna Wastuiva in the Saka year 1692 
(1770 A.D.), has left a short sketch of the history of the 
decline of the priesthood in Laiika and of the attempts made 
under various kings to re-establish it on a sound basis. He 
says : — 
Two hundred and forty years after the death of our Lord Buddha, 
the shelter of all the worlds, who departed this life after he had for 
forty-five years showered on all the heavenly food of his doctrine, and 
had accomplished every act which befits a Buddha (when the Maha 
E4ja Petissa was holding sway over our Island of La^ka), his doctrine 
was first introduced by Mahiiidu Maha Thero and the other priests 
who accompanied him from Dambadiva. Ever since the faithful and 
wise kings who have reigned from time to time, aided by their great 
ministers and the efforts of pious priests learned in the law, had 
caref ully swept away all schisms that had sprung up and preserved the 
doctrine inviolate. But in recent times the disappearance of 
such kings and ministers, followed by the oppression of the 
unbelieving Parangis and Damilas, had robbed the pious priests of the 
Four Necessaries ; and as the religious young men of good families who 
assumed the robe had not the learning to study with care the Three 
Pitakas, which contain the Vinaya, Sutra, and Ahhidharma, and to 
order their lives in consonance with the precepts contained therein, 
by degrees power fell into the hands of low-born priests of profane 
life, to the great injury of the church. And as for the priestly 
succession, which beginning from Upali Sthavirayo (whora'the Buddha 
himself had named as the first in the knowledge of the Vinaya), and 
continued in the persons of Dasekaya, Sonakaya, Siggavaya, Moggali- 
putthaya, Mihindu, &c., and recruited from all pious folk who assumed 
the robe without any distinction of family in proper and perpetual 
succession of master and pupil, this they ignored ; and, confusing 
physical with spiritual kinship, refused to allow pious young men 
of good family to assume the robe, and treated all the estates and 
wealth which generations of godly kings and ministers had dedicated 
to the service of the priesthood as if they had been dedicated to the use 
of their private families. Accordingly, for the sake of this wealth, 
they had the members of their own families ordained, so that being 
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