Chapter III: Historical Position

The chronicles of Ceylon were all written or compiled by the Elders whose primary interest naturally lay in the history of Buddhism and Buddhist foundations. Although the religious motive finding its expression in the edification of all things connected with Buddhism, predominates over everything else, there is really an interplay throughout of two distinct motives, devotional and patriotic.

The first of them may be construed as puritanic and sectarian, and the second as national and racial. Just as the religious motive cannot be divorced from the cultural advancement, so the patriotic motive cannot be separated from the promotion of the general cause of piety.

The belief in miracle and super­naturalism has had its due role. Proper allowance must have to be made also for the inventive power of imagination behind some of the legends that have found their place in sober historical narratives. But, in spite of all these, it is now admitted on all hands that the chronicles of Ceylon are not full of mendacious fictions, their kernel and main bulk being history, nothing but history.

The modern idea of sober and authentic history may be absent, but their permanent value as an indispensable sourcebook of history remains unchallenged. In fact in the absence of inscriptions, archaeological finds and foreign accounts, the chronicles only deal with the early history of Ceylon. The later history of Ceylon from Kitti-Siri-Meghavaṇṇa stands on a solid basis of fact as presented in the Cūḷavaṁsa, and does not, therefore, need much comment. The historical position of the chronicles needs clarification in so far as they are concerned with the early history of the island and it may be worth while to examine it, period by period.

 

1. Pre-historic Period

The chronicles speak of a pre­historic period during which the island of Ceylon had undergone changes in its names before it came to be known by the name of Laṅkādipa or Tambapaṇṇidīpa. These periods are conceived in terms of the successive dispensations of the four Buddhas, Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana, Kassapa, and Gotama, the advent of all of whom took place in the present era or æon of cosmic evolution, the development of the earth as the abode of men. The island which was known by the name of Ojadīpa in Kakusandha’s time became known by the name of [44] Varadīpa during the next dispensation. It was called Maṇḍadīpa in the time of Kassapa, and Laṅkādīpa and Tambapaṇṇidīpa in Gotama’s time.

The island had different capitals in succession: Abhayapura, Vaḍḍhamāna, Visāla, and Anurādhapura. Four different mountains came into prominence: Devakūṭa, Sumanakūṭa, Subhakūṭa, and Cetiyapabbata. Evidently the Buddhist chroniclers built up these legends on the basis of the Indian legends of the Buddhas in such canonical texts as the Mahāpadāna Suttanta and the Buddhavaṁsa. However pious may be their motive, these cannot but appear to modern students as incredible and unhistorical. They will certainly be reluctant to go so far as to believe in miracles and super­normal powers upon which depends the credibility of visits and preachings by which the four great Buddhas of the present era sanctified the island in the pre-historic period of its history and culture.

The chronicles are far from giving us a realistic account of the remains of the handicrafts of men who lived in the Palæolithic and Neolithic Ages. But they introduce us surely to two powerful aboriginal races of Yakkhas and Nāgas who held sway over the island previous to the establishment of the Aryan rule. They are unaware of the Veddās who are taken to be present descendants of the Palæolithic dwellers. They have nothing to say about the Śabaras whose name lingers in the name of the village called Habaragāma. They make mention, on the other hand, of the Pulindas as a mixed race of aborigines who sprang from the union of an Indian prince with a Yakkhinī. The Yakkhas; and Nāgas, too, appear at first sight as semi-mythical and semi-human savages who deserved to be tamed, defeated and destroyed. That there previously existed an island known by a certain name with its noted mountain-peaks and hills is undeniable. But as regards its primitive inhabitants, the chronicles speak very lightly of them, and the accounts they give of them are at variance in some important respects with those met with elsewhere. Valāhassa Jātaka, No. 196, Jataka, II, pp. 127-130; its Sanskrit version in the Divyāvadāna, pp. 523ff.; Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, I, p. lxxii; Beal, op. cit., II, pp. 239ff.; McCrindle, Ancient India, pp. 60ff., 173ff.

The invention of pious legends regarding the inestimable favour done to the country and its inhabitants by the Buddha through his miraculous visits and acts of grace was not peculiar to the chronicles of Ceylon there were similar legends invented and cherished in other countries where Buddhism became the living faith of the people. But the Ceylon chroniclers far excelled others in this art. [45]

The taming of the Yakkhas and Nāgas by the historical Buddha was in no way new. The Sutta and Vinaya Piṭakas record many instances thereof. The novelty lay only in the skilful adaptation of the canonical examples to different local conditions with all the ingenuity and the air of plausibility and truth. The lead given in the Dīpavaṁsa was faithfully followed in the later chronicles without any questioning about its reasonableness or soundness. It is interesting nevertheless to consider the historical information which can be gathered from the legendary accounts.

A. It is claimed that the plains of Laṅkā or Tambapaṇṇi were inhabited by men in the old ages, even when it was known as Ojadīpa, Varadīpa or Maṇḍadīpa. At the time of the rise of Buddhism the land was covered with great forests and full of horrors. It came then to be inhabited by the Yakkhas and such savage kinsmen as the Rākkhasas and Pisācas who were of various shapes and hideous forms, full of fury and wrath, wicked backbiters, pitiless and cruel, violent and merciless, and harmful. Thus the island stood badly in need of being secured against them, so that it might again be the peaceful, delightful, and congenial habitat of a large number of men.

B. The first wise and effective step to be taken was to follow the doctrine of segregation, the island of Laṅkā being reserved for the higher races of men and Giridīpa allotted to the predatory savages. The second island stood in close proximity to the first, and in their physical features they were almost alike; the latter was in some respects even superior to the former. Here the description of the two islands seems to be vivid and accurate. They had high and low lands, beautifully adorned with rivers, mountains and lakes, free from danger, well protected, surrounded by the ocean, rich in food-grains and blessed with a well-tempered climate. They were charming and delightful, green and cool, adorned with gardens and forests, fruit and flower trees, provided with ample living spaces, and subject to no master.

C. Geiger identifies Giridīpa with the highlands in the interior of Ceylon on the twofold ground: (1) that the word dīpa was formerly used in a wider sense, and (2) that the Yakkhas (evidently meaning the Veddās) are still to be found in Ceylon in later times. Mahāvaṁsa, Geiger’s translation, p. 4. This is not at all convincing, since the highlands in the interior of Ceylon are not separated from the mainland, and are not surrounded by the ocean. [46]

D. In the next stage we find that within a few years the island of Laṅkā became a scene of conflict between the Nāgas who are distinguished as those who were dwellers of the sea, the dwellers of the mountains, and those of a riverine region at the mouth of the river Kalyāṇī. They are represented as matrimonially connected, while their kings are called Mahodara (big-bellied), Cūḷodara (small bellied), and Maṇi-akkhika (gem-eyed). The name of Nāgadīpa apparently forming a part of Ceylon was derived from the Nāga settlers. The chroniclers were probably guilty of a confusion made between Nāga meaning serpents and Nāga standing for nagga (naked ones).

E. In the third stage at about the time of the Buddha’s demise the chronicles go on to depict a scene in which Ceylon is divided into two Yakkha principalities, the western one with Sirīsavatthu as its main city and the eastern one having Laṅkā for its capital. Strangely enough, Sirīsavatthu, which is mentioned in the Pali Valāhassa Jātaka, as the prosperous port and main city of Tambapaṇṇi division of Ceylon, is described here as the capital of the western Yakkha principality situated below Tambapaṇṇidīpa.

F. In these connections the chronicles draw our attention to the sanctified site of the Subhaṅgaṇa Thūpa on the bank of a river near Mahiya Pokkhala, to Giridīpa (modern Karadivo), the riverine region of Kalyāṇī (Kaelani), the principal river of Ceylon which flows down into the sea to the north of Colombo, the sites of the Kalyāṇī-cetiya, the Dīghavāpi-cetiya, Meghavanārāma, Mahābodhi-cetiya, Mahāthūpa, Thūpārāma-cetiya, Mahiyaṅgana-thūpa, and Mahānāga garden on the bank of the river called Gaṅgā or Mahāgaṅgā (modern Mahāwaeligaṅgā).

As a fitting introduction to the historical drama of Buddhism in Ceylon it is not enough to impress the reader with the high antiquity and sanctity of the island forming the scene of action. The Mahārājavaṁsa or great line of illustrious rulers in whose family Gotama the Buddha, the main actor and hero, was born, is indispensable as a means of heightening its antiquity and importance. Gotama’s descent is traced from Mahāsammata, the first elected ruler and leader of men through three stages: from Mahāsammata to Accimā, from Accimā to Nemiya, and from Nemiya to Suddhodana, father of Siddhārtha-Gotama – a theological device followed in the Gospels of Jesus Christ. St. Matthew, I, 17: ‘So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.’

The family-line [47] may he briefly traced from king Okkāka (Ikṣvāku), the pride being taken in having Gotama as a scion of the Solar race of Khattiyas. The illustrious predecessors of Jesus of Nazareth were all great patriarchs and prophets born in the Hebrew race, and their noble traditions are embodied in the Old Testament. As regards the illustrious predecessors of Gotama of Kapilavatthu, many of them are passing shadows, mere names, and the traditions of a few only are still preserved in the Jātakas and other Indian works. The chroniclers of Ceylon were not bound to vouchsafe for the authenticity of the long string of ornamental names. Dīpavaṁsa, III; Mahāvaṁsa, II; Geiger’s translation, pp. 10ff.

 

2. Beginning of historical period

The sequence of events which is the essence of historical narratives needs a framework of chronology. This is sought to be built in the chronicles of Ceylon on a twofold succession, the succession of rulers and ruling dynasties (rāja-paramparā) and the succession of the leading Elders (thera-paramparā). Rhys Davids, Buddhist Suttas (S.B.E., Vol. XI), Intro., pp. xlvi ff. The comparative continuity of the first being greater, the chronicles naturally rely more upon it. The chronology must begin from a certain definite date, which, in the case of the Ceylon chronicles, is the year of the Buddha’s demise, making the starting point of the Buddha Era (Buddhavassa).

A happy coincidence is imagined and availed of to build up a systematic chronology of the kings of Ceylon, the coincidence of the day of the Buddha’s demise with that of the landing of the exiled prince Vijaya on the island of Laṅkā. Dīpavaṁsa, IX, 21; Mahāvaṁsa, VII, 1-3. A prediction is put into the mouth of the Buddha to raise the importance of his appearance on the island as the founder of the first Aryan rule. An account is given of the circumstances that led to the banishment of the prince which proved to be a blessing in disguise for the future history of the island as a whole.

The chroniclers who were mad with the idea of the Indo-Aryan rule did not foresee the difficulties to be met by the modern historian. The abruptness of the establishment of an Indian form of monarchy goes against other historical traditions that sensibly represent it as the final result of an earlier and long process of settlement and colonization. They are silent altogether on the previous trade-connection of the island with the mainland of India. They are unaware of the tradition narrating how a leader of sea-going Indian merchants [48] figured ultimately as the first monarch of Ceylon and the founder of the first ruling dynasty.

Neither the process of colonization nor that of linguistic development could have taken place so soon. They would have us believe that the conqueror of the island then under the sway of the Yakkhas, and the founder of the first monarchy favourable to the propagation of Buddhism, was the banished crown prince Vijaya, the son of king Sīhabāhu of the country of Lāḷa, with Sīhapura as its capital, and the grandson of the king of Vaṅga on his maternal side. The location suggested leaves no room for doubt that the chroniclers kept in view Rāḍha (Ardhamāgadhī Lāḍha) meaning West Bengal and Siṁhapura on the northern border of the country of Kaliṅga.

The legend Watters, On Yuan Chwang, II, p. 233. recorded by Hiuen Tsang mentions South India as the scene of action of the lion and the princess. Presumably behind this legend was the history of Siṁhapura on the southern portion of Kaliṅga. The fondness of the people of Ceylon for the first-named Siṁhapura as the homeland of Vijaya is clear from the fact that even in later times two Indian princes, Nissaṅkamalla and Sāhasamalla, from the royal house of this place, were successively offered the throne of Ceylon. Culavaṁsa, P.T.S., Chap. 80, vv. 18 foll.

But if Siṁhapura, the homeland of Vijaya, were situated in western Bengal or southern India, there is no reason why the ship which carried Vijaya and his councillors and officers touched the western coast of India at the ports of Bharukaccha (Broach) and Suppāraka (Sopārā) and proceeded therefrom to reach the western shore of Ceylon. It is equally unintelligible why another ship was carrying Vijaya’s wife and her female companions to Mabilādīpa, which was undoubtedly an island governed by women and situated, according to Megasthenes McCrindle, Ancient India, p. 150. and Hiuen Tsang, Watters, On Yuan Chwang, II, p. 257. below Persia and near the mouth of the Indus. The identification of Lāḷa by Geiger with Lāṭa on the western coast of India above Gujarat does not wholly meet the situation. The oldest form of the Sinhalese language, as found in the early Brāhmī inscriptions, appears as an Indo-Aryan dialect, which is very closely allied to the language of the Mansehra version of Asoka’s Rock Edicts. In accounting for all these facts the historian cannot but think of Siṁhapura in the lower eastern Punjab.

The change of the genitive suffix sya (Pali ssa) into ha is a distinctive characteristic of old Sinhalese, which is without [49] its parallel in any of the earlier known inscriptions of India. This goes to connect the language with Old Persian in which we have hyā for sya and the Dardic speech of Dardistan. Barua, Ceylon Lectures, p. 45, f.n. 4. It is near about Dardistan that there still dwell a people called Singhans, i.e. Siṁhalas (Pali Sīhaḷas).

The chronicles of Ceylon have nothing to say about the Uttarāpatha background of the ancient history of Ceylon. They will offer us cheap and fantastic explanations for the origin of the two names of the island, Sīhaḷa because of the epithet Sīhaḷa earned by Vijaya’s father Sīhabāhu since he had slain the lion, Mahāvaṁsa, Chap. 7, v. 42. and Tambapaṇṇi because of the fact that on their first landing on the island the hands of Vijaya’s companions were coloured red with the dust of the red earth. While playing on the word tambapāṇi, ‘red hand’, they betray their ignorance of the fact that Tambapaṇṇi was just a Pali equivalent of the Sanskrit name Tāmraparṇī or Tāmravarṇī, meaning the copper-coloured or red-coloured.

The matrimonial alliances between the royal house and nobles of Ceylon and those of the neighbouring country of Pāṇḍya are not unexpected. The island may have needed the services of the traditional eighteen guilds from Pāṇḍya for her town-planning and industrial development. The building of the towns of Tambapaṇṇi and Anurādhapura with its suburbs by Vijaya and the princes and councillors who accompanied him is apparently too realistic to be disbelieved, although the fact may be that the work was not accomplished all at once.

After setting up Vijaya as the king eponymous of Ceylon the chroniclers seem interested in building up a rāja-paramparā parallel to that of Magadha: from Vijaya to Devānaṁpiya Tissa, from Ajātasattu to Dhammāsoka. Thereafter the thread of synchronism is lost, and it can be rarely established in individual cases on the joint evidence of the chronicles of Ceylon and other independent records.

The year of the Buddha’s demise as known nowadays in Ceylon, Siam and Burma is 543 B.C. But the Buddha Era of 483 B.C. was current in Ceylon up till the fifteenth century, at the close of which a reform of the calendar was made. 483 B.C. agrees very nearly with 486 B.C., which is fixed on the strength of the Chinese dotted record maintained at Canton till the end of the year A.D. 489 and 487 B.C., which may be fixed on the strength of the contemporaneity of Devānaṁpiya Asoka with the five Greek kings. J.R.A.S., 1905, p. 51; ibid., 1906, pp. 984ff.; Epi. Zeyl., III, pp. 4ff.; J.R.A.S., Ceylon Branch, XXIII, No. 67, pp. 141ff.; Barua, Asoka and His Inscriptions, I. pp. 6ff.

In accordance [50] with the Buddha Era of 483 B.C. Geiger presents the chronicle tables of the kings of Ceylon and Magadha as below:

The immediate successor of king Vijaya is said to have been Paṇḍuvāsa Dīpavaṁsa, X, 2. or Paṇḍuvāsudeva Mahāvaṁsa, VIII, 10. who was the youngest brother of Vijaya and reigned for thirty years. The change of the Dīpavaṁsa name Paṇḍuvāsa into Paṇḍuvāsudeva must have been purposely done in the later chronicle Mahāvaṁsa, the author of which seems to have been somehow acquainted with the name of Paṇḍuvāsudeva, king of Vaṅga and Kaliṅga, mentioned in the Mahābhārata in connection with the military campaign of Bhīma. Mbh., Sabhā P., Chap. 34, v. 11 (Vaṅgavāsī Edn.). But the earlier name Paṇḍuvāsa meaning the pale-robed one would seem more appropriate in view of the account given in the Mahāvaṁsa of his arrival in Ceylon with a retinue of thirty-two followers, all in the guise of Indian wandering ascetics (paribbājakaliṅgavā). The later chronicle supersedes the earlier one in mentioning the mouth of the river Mahākandara Mahāvaṁsa, VIII, 12. According to Geiger, it was probably a small stream to the north of Mannar. as the landing place of Paṇḍuvāsudeva and his retinue. Ibid., VIII, 12. From this place they are said to walk down to Upatissagāma, a locality in a suburb of Anurādhapura.

Another happy coincidence is devised for a critical juncture when a suitable princess was needed to be the queen of Paṇḍuvāsa. The princess supplied is a Śākya maiden called Kaccānā or Bhaddakaccānā who arrived on the island precisely with a retinue of thirty-two maidens. The story of matrimonial alliance of the royal house with a Śākya royal house of a kingdom founded on the southern bank of the Ganges, was thought to be an attractive prelude to a course of events leading to the establishment of the Buddhist faith in the island. The foundation of a new Śākya territory on the southern bank of the Ganges needed a plausible explanation, [51] and it was found in the historical tradition of the massacre of the Śākyas by Viḍūḍabha the usurper king of Kośala in the last year of the Buddha’s life. Mahāvaṁsa, VIII, 18-19.

The same is utilized by the chroniclers of other places for explaining the foundation of Śākya territories elsewhere. Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, p. 238. I have shown elsewhere that the story of the decimation of the Śākyas in the Buddha’s lifetime is falsified by the Pali canonical representation of the Śākyas of Kapilavatthu as one of the powerful claimants for the bodily remains of the Buddha. B.C. Law, Some Kṣatriya Tribes of Ancient India, Chap. V.

The earlier chronicle has nothing more to say than this that the Śākya princess Kaccānā who came to the island from Jambudīpa (India) became the chief queen of Paṇḍuvāsa. The relationship of Paṇḍuvāsa with Vijaya is not mentioned, nor is it said that he came across from India. The Dīpavaṁsa is silent about the territory from which Kaccānā came and the circumstances under which she had to leave her father’s territory. Dīpavaṁsa, X, 1-2. The missing links are ingeniously supplied in the Mahāvaṁsa. We are told that the princess Bhaddakaccānā, too, came in a ship with her retinue, all in the guise of female wandering ascetics (paribbājikā) Mahāvaṁsa, VIII, 24: The landing place of the princess is said to have been Goṇagāma apparently at the mouth of the same river called Mahākandara. evidently to evade the risk of being attacked by pirates on the way. The fascination of the number thirty-three for the chronicler lay apparently in the theological motive to suggest that the island was converted into a heaven of the thirty-three gods and goddesses.

The chronicles did not stop there. They would bring into the island the seven Śākya prince, all grandsons of Amitodana, a brother of Suddhodana, to figure as seven gāmaṇīs or village headmen. Dīpavaṁsa, X, 6-7; Mahāvaṁsa, IX, 15. The seven settlements of these princes, all brothers of Bhaddakaccānā, were respectively named after them as Rāmagāma, Tissagāma, Anurādhagāma, Mahāligāma, Dīghāvugāma, Rohiṇīgāma. Dīpavaṁsa, Chap. X. The Mahāvaṁsa omits the name of Tissa and spells the name of the seventh prince as Rohaṇa. It credits Anurādha also with the excavation of a tank to the south of Anurādhagāma. Mahāvaṁsa, Chap. IX, vv. 9-11.

The parallelism between the two rāja-paramparās is brought out thus in the Dīpavaṁsa: In the ninth year of Ajātasattu’s reign Vijaya came to Ceylon. In the sixteenth year of Udaya’s reign Paṇḍuvāsa was crowned. In the [52] interval between the two kings, Vijaya and Paṇḍuvāsa, the island had no king for one year. In the twenty-first year of Nāgadāsa, Paṇḍuvāsa died and Abhaya was crowned. In the fourteenth year of Candagutta king Pakuṇḍaka died and his son Muṭasiva was consecrated. In the eighteenth year of Asoka king Muṭasiva died to be succeeded by his son Devānaṁpiya Tissa. Dīpavaṁsa, XI, 8-14. Pakuṇḍaka of the Dīpavaṁsa is the same king as Paṇḍuka Abhaya of the Mahāvaṁsa, father of Muṭasiva and grandfather of Tissa. The identity of the two is suggested in the Dīpavaṁsa itself. Ibid.,X, 9; XI, 1-2

The royal line of Vijaya, better of Paṇḍuvāsa, became deflected when the rulership of the island was seized by Pakuṇḍaka or Paṇḍuka Abhaya after slaying seven of his maternal uncles, the younger brothers of king Abhaya, who died after a successful reign of twenty years. On his paternal side Paṇḍuka Abhaya is represented as the grandson of the Śākya prince who figured in the island as Dīghāvu the clever Gāmaṇī. Ibid., X, 8 It is interesting to note how the chroniclers availed themselves of the Indian legend of Devagabbhā, Nandagopā, Vāsudeva and Kamsa as contained in the Ghata Jātaka. Jātaka, No. 454.

It is certain that Devānaṁpiya Tissa who was definitely a Ceylon contemporary of Devānaṁpiya Asoka was preceded by a line of kings, even if we prefer with Dr. Paranavitana to regard them as elected leaders and not as properly consecrated rulers. The royal line which commenced from the reign of Pakuṇḍaka or Paṇḍuka would seem quite historical. The earlier framework of the political history of Ceylon is more or less a got up thing. The true significance of the Dīpavaṁsa name Paṇḍuvāsa is still a matter of speculation. I have taken it so far to mean the pale-robed one, but it may as well be a Pali or Prakrit equivalent of Pāṇḍyavarṣa meaning one from the Pāṇḍya country, i.e. a Pāṇḍya by his nationality. The name Paṇḍuka is apparently of the same iṁport. According to Megasthenes the Pāṇḍyas were originally a people who maintained the tradition of a matriarchal form of society. McCrindle, Ancient India, p. 150.

Assuming that the political history of Ceylon began from the reign of Paṇḍuka, it is important to note how his career is described in the chronicles. He rose into power and eminence from the family of a village headman and popular leader. Cf. Mehergrām Copperplate Inscription of Dāmodaradeva which records an Indian instance of the rise of the Deva dynasty of Samataṭa from the family of a grāmaṇī. He started his career as a robber with the forest as his hiding [53] place. The first definite step to seizing the rulership was to get rid of his rivals. After obtaining the rulership his first duty was to establish peace and order in the country. The chronicles credit him with an unusual length of reign for seventy years. His son and successor Muṭasiva, too, is said to have reigned for sixty years. The earlier chronicle skips over a very important matter relating to Paṇḍuka’s reign, which is dealt with in the Mahāvaṁsa. It appears that in building up Anurādhapura into a fine and prosperous city, evidently on the site of Anurādhagāma, he faithfully followed the Indian system of town-planning and town administration.

The city was provided with four gates, each of which opened into a dvāragāma or suburb. Four tanks were caused to be made, one on each side, all named after Abhaya. The city was guarded by the Yakkha shrines on the four sides, that of the Yakkha Kāḷavela on the east side, that of the Yakkha Cittarāja on the same side at the lower end of the Abhaya-tank, that of a Yakkhinī at the south gate, the Banyan shrine of the Yakkha Vessavana Kubera presumably at the north gate, and the Palmyra-palm shrine of Vyādhideva presumably at the west gate. Mahāvaṁsa, (X, 89-90) wrongly places the shrines of Vessavana and Vyādhideva on the western side. Within the precincts of the royal palace was built the central shrine of an Assamukhī yakkhiṇī. To all of these demi-gods and demi-goddesses the sacrificial offerings were caused to be made year by year, while on festival days the king sat beside the image of Cittarāja on a seat of equal height and having the dolls of gods and goddesses and human dancers to dance before them. Similarly the charity-halls were put up on the four sides. Mahāvaṁsa (X, 90) places them only on the western side. Geiger and others have failed to make out the right word dānasaṁbhāgavatthuṁ; here yonasabhāgavatthuṁ is meaningless.

The city was caused to be guarded by a city-warden (nagara-guttika). On its western side were quartered the caṇḍālas who did the work of sweepers, cleaners of sewers, corpse-bearers and watchers of the cemetery. The caṇḍālas had a separate cemetery for their use to the north-east of their locality. North of the caṇḍāla cemetery and between it and the Pāsāṇa mountain were built the huts for the huntsmen (vyādhas). In the space to the north of these and extending as far as the Gāmaṇī tank was built a hermitage for the hermits (tāpasas). To the east of the same caṇḍāla cemetery was built a house for the Nigaṇṭha (Jaina recluse) Jotiya, and in that locality dwelt the Nigaṇṭha called Giri and the recluses (samaṇas) of various orders. A temple [54] (devakula) was caused to be built for the Nigaṇṭha Kumbhaṇḍa, which was named after him. Westward of these and eastward of the huts of huntsmen dwelt five hundred families of heretical faith. Beyond Jotiya’s house and on this side of the Gāmaṇī tank were caused to be built a retreat for the wandering ascetics (paribbājakārāma), and an abode for the Ājīvikas, and a residence for the Brāhmaṇas.

Here the city of Anurādhapura as built by Paṇḍuka Abhaya appears as a Ceylon counterpart of an Indian city like Rājagaha, Vesālī or Pāṭaliputta. Whether all the details given in the Mahāvaṁsa about it, when it was first built, be literally true or not, the religious conditions and atmosphere which prevailed in the island previous to the reign of Devānaṁpiya Tissa and the propagation of Buddhism are precisely the same as those presupposed by the 13th Rock Edict of Asoka. The hermits, Brahman wandering ascetics, Ājīvikas, Jaina and other recluses were the precursors of the Buddhist missionaries and preachers as much as in India as in Ceylon. They were the pre-Asokan and pre-Tissa evangelists of the Indo-Aryan culture who prepared the ground for Buddhism. Law, India as described in early texts of Buddhism and Jainism, pp. 218ff.; McCrindle, Ancient India, pp. 69, 106, 120. The island had the age-old shrines of the Yakkhas, Rākkhasas, Pisācas and Nāgas. Mahinda, the king of the gods, had been the guardian deity of Laṅkā before Mahinda, the propagator of Buddhism, took over the charge of the island. The ascetic god Śiva had a good deal of hold over the religious belief of the people, and it is manifest even from the personal names of Girikaṇḍasiva and king Muṭasiva, father of Tissa. The god Uppalavaṇṇa or Viṣṇu was the intermediary between the two Mahindas.

The contemporaneity of Tissa with Asoka, both honoured with the same epithet, is shown to have afforded an important junction for the meeting of the three lines of chronological succession, namely, the rājaparamparās of Magadha and Ceylon and the theraparamparā of the orthodox Buddhist order. Thus the chronicles enjoy a triple importance through their bearings on the early political histories of India and Ceylon and the early history of Buddhism.

As regards Ceylon, the political, social and religious background of this junction has already been discussed and characterized. The three main landmarks of the early history of Buddhism from the demise of the Buddha are the three orthodox councils (saṁgītis) each preceded by a general gathering of the monks (sannipāta), out of which the delegates were selected. In [55] connection with the councils the three royal patrons are said to have gained in importance, namely, Ajātasattu, Kālāsoka and Dhammāsoka.

While judging the success of a reign three main considerations rest on the chroniclers’ decision: (1) the removal of the undesirable elements and the quelling of the disturbing factors with a view to making the island a fit habitat for the higher races of men, (2) the works of piety and public utility, and (3) the aids to the cause of religion and religious foundations and the development of art and architecture.

From the Buddhist point of view too, the main grounds of consideration are: (1) the patronage to the orthodox order in the task of collecting the traditional teachings of the Buddha, handing them down by an oral tradition or preserving them by means of writing, and promoting the cause of Buddhist education and scholarship, (2) the aids to the same in maintaining its activity and integrity by getting the help of the heretics and schismatics, and (3) the stabilization of the position of Buddhism and enhancement of its popularity through the erection of magnificent monasteries (ārāmas, vihāras) and Buddhist shrines, particularly the thūpas or dagobas, the latter as tangible means of keeping up the memory of the Buddha and other great personages among his disciples and followers.

Judged by all the six considerations Devānaṁpiya Asoka of India was sure to be found the best monarch on the earth who appeared to the chroniclers as a living embodiment of the cakkavattī ideal of the Buddha. It was then natural to them to idolize as much Dhammāsoka of Jambudīpa as their own Devānaṁpiya Tissa.

To honour Devānaṁpiya Tissa as the first great builder the Mahāvaṁsa preserves the following traditional list of memorable erections: the Mahāvihāra and Cetiyavihāra, the Thūpārāma and Mahāthūpa, the shrine of Mahābodhi, a stone-pillar before the Mahācetiya or Mahāthūpa bearing an inscription, the Collar-bone shrine at Mahiyaṅgaṇa, the Issarasamaṇaka Vihāra on the spot where Mahinda converted five hundred votaries of Issara meaning Śiva, the Tissa Tank, the Paṭhama Thūpa at the landing place of Mahinda, the Vessagiri Vihāra at the place where Mahinda converted five hundred men of the Vessa caste, the delightful Upāsikāvihāra, Hatthāḷhaka Vihāra and two nunneries, the Jambukoḷa Vihāra at the port of Jambukoḷa in Nāgadīpa, and the Tissa Mahāvihāra and Pācīnavihāra at Anurādhapura. Mahāvaṁsa, XX, 17-25.

The rājaparamparā of Magadha as presented in the chronicles shows the succession of four ruling dynasties: the [56] dynasty traced from Bhātiya, father of Bimbisāra, and a friend and contemporary of Suddhodana, father of Gotama the Buddha, the Susunāga (Śaisunāga), the Nanda, the Moriya (Maurya). They were unaware of the fact that the rulers of the first dynasty were known as Haryaṅkas. B.C. Law, Aśvaghoṣa, p. 80. The Purāṇas treat the first two dynasties as one and apply to it the name of Śiśunāga or Śaiśunāga. The chronicles are not concerned with the Bhadrathas who were the precursors of the Haryaṅkas.

It is on the whole found that the chronological succession of the rulers of Magadha from Bhātiya as suggested in the chronicles is the most reliable of all. The Buddhist Sarvāstivāda tradition is defective for a two-fold reason: (1) that it ignores the history of a century, and (2) that it is guilty of a confusion between Kālāsoka the Susunāga and Dhammāsoka the Moriyan.

The importance of Ajātasattu is stressed on two grounds: (1) the collection of the bodily remains of the Buddha from all the thūpas in which they were at first enshrined for depositing them in one thūpa built at Rājagaha, and (2) the facilities offered to the five hundred leading Theras when they met at the First Council for the collection of the words of the Buddha and the preparation of the first redaction of the Theravāda or Pali Canon.

With regard to the first wise deed of Ajātasattu for facilitating the great work to be done by Dhammāsoka the chronicles sought to establish an island parallel in a similar deed on the part of Devānaṁpiya Tissa With reference to the great work to be done by Duṭṭhagāmaṇi Abhaya who was the national hero of Ceylon in the estimation of Mahānāma, the famous author of the Mahāvaṁsa.

Unexpectedly the account given of the Rājagaha Thūpa of Ajātasattu with all the details of its construction Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, ii, pp. 611ff.; Thūpavaṁsa, pp. 34-35. is highly exaggerated. This account presupposes not only a Buddhist stūpa in India, such as that of Bhārhut completed as late as 100 B.C., but also even those built in Ceylon in the time of Duṭṭhagāmaṇi.

As regards the part played by Ajātasattu: in connection with the First Buddhist Council, the Pali Canonical account in the Vinaya Cullavagga, Chap. XI, is completely silent. The chronicles while giving an account of the First Council overstep certain limits set in the earlier and more authentic Vinaya description. The latter, for instance, does not associate the place of the Council with the Sattapaṇṇi Cave, nor does it tell us that the three Piṭakas were brought into existence by the Theras under the leadership of Mahākassapa. [57]

The description goes only so far as to state that the nucleus of the Buddhist canon was formed by the five Nikāyas and two Vinaya books, namely, the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga and the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. Vinaya Piṭaka, edited by Oldenberg, II, p. 287.

It is true that the Vinaya account of the Second Buddhist Council, too, clearly points to 100 B.C. as an important chronological landmark of the early history of Buddhism, and the fact is corroborated by the internal evidence of a few other Canonical texts. The Serissaka story forming the canon basis of the Vimāna and Petavatthus professes to be a composition of 100 B.E. B.C. Law, History of Pali Literature, Vol. I, p. 36. It may be true that 100 B.E. fell within the reign of Kālāsoka, identified by Dr. Raychaudhuri with Kākavarṇa of the Purāṇas. But the Vinaya description is reticent on the part played by Kālāsoka in the matter of the Council itself. There is another important point of difference to which the reader’s attention must be drawn.

All that the Vinaya account offers us is a description of the general conference of the Theras which appointed a judicial committee of eight representatives to give its considered findings on the ten issues arising from the indulgences of the Vajjiputtaka monks of Vesālī in contravention of Vinaya rules.

It has nothing to say regarding the Second Council convened to recite and canonize the authoritative Buddhist texts and the Great Council (Mahāsaṅgīti) convened by the Vajjiputtaka monks for vindicating their position as against the arbitrary action of the orthodox Theras. It is reticent also on the rise of the eighteen Buddhist sects and schools of thought previous to the reign of Asoka as a sequel to the first rupture brought about in the Saṅgha by the Vajjiputtaka seceders.

These three deficiencies are made good in the chronicles. That the Vinaya description is incomplete without the account of the Second Council proper may be taken for granted, otherwise the incorporation of some texts and compilations into the growing corpus of the Buddhist Canon, even such texts as the Vinaya Mahāvagga and Cullavagga, the Serissakavatthu and several discourses with reference to Pāṭaliputta, is inexplicable.

It seems very likely that the high-handed action on the part of the orthodox section of the Buddhist brotherhood of the age was bound to be followed by a schismatic reaction. This eventuality is equally borne out by the Sarvāstivāda tradition as embodied in the writings of Vasumitra, Bhavya and Vinītadeva.

The Chinese pilgrim [58] Hiuen Tsang, too, was well aware of the tradition about the eighteen sects. Unfortunately even Vasumitra, the earliest among the Sarvāstivāda writers, cannot be supposed to have flourished in an age anterior to the reign of the Kuṣāṇa king Kaṇiṣka.

The reliability of the Ceylon tradition about the rise of the eighteen sects prior to Asoka’s time is doubted for the first time by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar on the strength of the evidence of the three versions of Asoka’s Schism Pillar Edicts at Sārnāth, Kauśāmbī and Sāñcī Asoka, revised Ed., p. 100. and subsequently discussed at length by Dr. Barua Barua, Asoka and His Inscriptions, Pt. I, pp. 333ff. and in the opinion of both the history of the rise of these earlier Buddhist sects must have to be relegated to a post-Asokan period.

The utmost concession which could be made to the Ceylon tradition is that the unorthodox views discussed in the Kathāvatthu which is traditionally a compilation of the eighteenth year of Asoka’s reign, were the views of individual members and their adherents within one and the same Saṅgha and not those of separate sects and schools of thought whose names figure prominently in Indian inscriptions, none of which can be dated earlier than the first century B.C. and later than the third century after Christ.

Buddhaghosa, the author of the Kathāvatthu Commentary, clearly distinguishes between the views as upheld by the individual teachers and their supporters in Asoka’s time, and the same as upheld in his days by the different Buddhist sects and schools.

The author of the Nikāyasaṅgraha suggests an ingenious way out of the difficulty by stating that the Tīrthakas who had been expelled from the Saṅgha in Asoka’s time on account of their non-conformity with the rules of the Canon grew angry and assembled at Nālandā. They deliberated together with a view to causing a breach among the Śākya monks. Determined to become monks again, they returned, and failing to gain admission into the Theriya order, they went to the fraternities of the seventeen schismatic sects, the Mahāsaṅghika and the rest. Even these orders they left afterwards, and after two hundred and thirty-five years from the Buddha’s demise they separated into six divisions and resided in six places giving rise to nine later sects: Hemavata, Rājagiri, Siddhārtha, Pūrvaśailī, Aparaśailī, Vājirī, Vaitulya, Andhaka and Anyamahāsaṅghika. Nikāya-saṅgraha, p. 9.

Thus the author of a Sinhalese chronicle of the fourteenth century tried to reconcile the earlier available Ceylon traditions [59] regarding the rise of the Buddhist schismatics as several sects both before and after Asoka. They are apparently guilty of an anachronism. The Schism Pillar Edict of Asoka promulgates an ordinance, meaning to penalize those who will cause a division in the Saṅgha (ye bhākhati, future tense), while the Ceylon traditions tell us that Asoka actually penalized the schismatics. Here is a glaring instance of confusion between the future on the one hand and present and past on the other.

The Dīpavaṁsa says nothing about the Nandas. Incidentally it refers to the reign of Candagutta of the Moriya family (Moriya-kula) Dīpavaṁsa, VI, 19. The gap between the Susunāgas and the Moriyas is filled up by the Mahāvaṁsa Mahāvaṁsa, V, 66. with the reign of the Nine Nandas. In the latter work Candagutta is said to have killed Dhanananda, the last Nanda king, and secured the sovereignty over the whole of Jambudīpa under the guidance of the wrathful Brāhman Cāṇakka (Cāṇakya). The Mahāvaṁsa-Ṭīkā goes still further to avail itself of a fantastic story to account for the name of Candagutta and of other legends to connect Candagutta and his descendants with the Moriyas, undoubtedly the Moriyas of Pipphalivana, and ultimately with the Śākyas of Kapilavatthu. It narrates the early life and training of Candagutta under Cāṇakka. Vaṁsatthappakāsinī, I, pp. 183ff. Evidently there grew up in later times a Ceylon Buddhist version of the legend of Candagutta and Cāṇakka as a counterpart of the Brahmanical and Jaina versions.

With the chroniclers of Ceylon Bindusāra, the son and successor of Candagutta, is just a passing shadow. They are unaware of the legend of Bindusāra in the Mañjuśrī Mūlakalpa.

The historical value of the Pali legendary materials for the life and career of Asoka has been carefully discussed and assessed by competent scholars. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 274 ff.; Radhakumud Mookerji, Asoka, p. 2; Barua, Asoka and His Inscriptions, Pt. I, pp. 7ff. But it may not be out of place to state below some of the main results hitherto obtained. It is opined that these legends are not altogether fictitious. They are of great value only in so far as they supplement the information which can be gathered from the inscriptions and Greek writings. They are certainly one-sided and inconclusive. There was distinctly a Buddhist theological motive behind the connection which is sought to be established between the Moriyas of Magadha with the Moriya clan of warriors and ultimately with the Śākyas. In many respects [60] the legends are irreconcilable with Asoka’s own records. On the whole the tradition preserved in the Dīpavaṁsa is most helpful to the modern historian, particularly with regard to the double conversion and coronation of Asoka.

The main concern of the Ceylon chroniclers about Asoka is to represent him as the greatest known Buddhist emperor of Jambudīpa, as the greatest builder of Buddhist vihāras and religious monuments, and as the greatest supporter of the Buddhist faith and missionary activities.

The vital point in which the inscriptions are apt to disappoint them is the lack of corroboration of the truth in the legend claiming Mahinda and Saṅghamittā to be beloved children of Asoka by his Vaiśya wife Devī of Vidisā. Until the thirteenth or fourteenth year of Asoka his children were completely out of the picture (R.E.V). None can think of Asoka having grown up sons before his 27th regnal year (P.E. VII). Some amount of suspicion is sure to arise in connection with the chronicle story of Mahinda’s coming to the island through the air and this is enhanced by the more probable story narrated by Hiuen Tsang that Mahinda’s missionary work had been directed to the country of Malayakūṭa which is no other than Tāmraparṇī of the Great Epic, situated in the extreme south of the Deccan, below Pāṇḍya or Drāviḍa and Tambapaṇṇi of Asokan edicts (R.E. II and XIII). It is from the country of Malayakūṭa that Mahinda went across to Ceylon, the island of Tambapaṇṇi.

The Pali traditional account of the rise of the eighteen Buddhist sects or schools of thought during the century which elapsed between the reigns of Kālāsoka and Asoka and that of the heterodox views upheld by others, the Brahmans, the Paṇḍaraṅga Parivrājakas, Ājīvikas, and Nirgranthas, who, led by the greed of gain, assumed the garb of monks and stealthily entered the Asokārāma at Pāṭaliputta, are irreconcilable.

It is said that on account of the heresies advocated by them the orthodox monks declined to hold the uposatha or perform other ecclesiastical functions with them for a period of nine years. Asoka deputed a high official to request them to resume the uposatha and other duties, and when they declined to do so, he misunderstanding the intention of the king’s order, beheaded some of them, an action deeply regretted by the king.

To make amends for the blunder committed by his officer, Asoka caused a conference of the monks to be held at Pāṭaliputta for examining the inmates of the local monastery who were maintaining those views. They were examined by the leading Thera called Moggaliputta Tissa, group by group, and batch by batch, in the king’s [61] presence, and those whose views did not tally with the Vibhajjavāda, known as the genuine doctrine of the Buddha, were disrobed and expelled. Thus the undesirable elements were got rid of thereafter the Theras who were the true followers of the Buddha could be persuaded to resume and carry on the uposatha and other ecclesiastical duties as usual.

They convened a council, the third orthodox Buddhist Council at Pāṭaliputta under the presidency of Moggaliputta Tissa. The compilation and canonization of the Kathāvatthu, embodying accounts of the controversies which took place at the preceding conference and their results, formed the outstanding work of this Council, besides the usual rehearsal of the texts of the Buddhavacana as then known to the Buddhist community. The Council was followed by the despatch of Buddhist missions to different countries, situated mostly, if not all, within India. The missions were despatched on the initiative of Moggaliputta Tissa.

In the Kathāvatthu itself the points at issue are not referred to any person or sect. Each of them is discussed on its merit. Buddhaghosa, too, does not suggest that the points discussed arose from the views of any or all of the pre­Asokan eighteen sects. The sects which existed in his time are brought in only as distinct schools of thought who maintained the views that were advocated in Asoka’s time by the outsiders who entered the Asokārāma in the garb of Buddhist monks. The eighteen sects and their later offshoots came to figure prominently in the Indian inscriptions which cannot be dated earlier than the first century B.C. and later than the beginning of the fourth century A.D.

The author of the Nikāyasaṅgraha saw the difficulty and as a way out of it he came to suggest that the outsiders gained admission into the seventeen unorthodox sects after they had failed to enter the Orthodox order of the Theras. This does not solve the problem regarding the rise of the eighteen sects in pre-Asokan times. The chronology suggested in the Pali tradition of Ceylon is not identical with that offered by Vasumitra in his account of the sects. Journal of the Department of Letters, Calcutta University, Vol. I, Masuda, Early Indian Buddhist Schools. The light which may be obtained from the Schism Pillar Edict of Asoka is that there arose in his time certain causes threatening the unity and integrity of the Saṅgha, but these were not of a formidable nature. The king was in a position to state that those causes could be easily removed and the Saṅgha could be rendered ‘whole and entire’ for all times to come. [62]

The tradition concerning the despatch of Buddhist missions to different places in India and to two places outside India deserves more than a passing notice. Unfortunately a similar tradition is not traced in the works of other sects. Hiuen Tsang knew certainly of a tradition that the Thera Mahinda, a brother of Asoka, did his missionary work in the country of Malayakūṭa below Drāviḍa before he went across to the island of Siṁhala. Although the missionaries were sent on the authority of Moggaliputta Tissa, it is found that the places within India to which they are said to have gone are places where Asoka set up his edicts and inscriptions:

The two places or countries which lay according to the chronicles outside India are Suvaṇṇabhūmi and the island of Laṅkā or Tambapaṇṇi. It is shown that the country of Tambapaṇṇi which finds mention in Asoka’s Rock Edicts II and XIII is not necessarily the island of Tambapaṇṇi. It is apparently the country of Tāmraparṇī, modern Tinnevelly district, placed by the Mahābhārata, south of Pāṇḍya or Drāviḍa with Mt. Vaidūryaka as its rocky landmark, in that case it is no other than Hiuen Tsang’s country of Malayakūṭa.

There existed a land route, even till the time of Hiuen Tsang, connecting Aparānta and Karṇāṭa with the lower Kāverī Valley. It is therefore possible that a traveller starting from Vidisā and Ujjayinī could reach the country of Tambapaṇṇi below Pāṇḍya by following this land route along the banks of the Kāverī via Mahiṣamaṇḍala or Mysore. The journey further down to the island of Tambapaṇṇi was a matter of crossing the ferry.

As regards Suvaṇṇabhūmi, it is suggested that probably the original place-name was Suvaṇṇagiri, which was the seat of southern viceroyalty in Asoka’s time in view of the fact [63] that the Dīpavaṁsa description differs materially from that in the Mahāvaṁsa. Dipav., VIII, 11:
Suvaṇṇabhūmiṁ gantvāna Soṇuttarā mahiddhikā |
niddhametvā pisācagaṇe mocesi bandhanā bahu ||
Mahāv., XII, 44-45:
Saddhiṁ Uttaratherena Soṇatthero mahiddhiko |
Suvaṇṇabhūmiṁ agama, tasmiṁ tu samaye pana ||
jāte jāte rājagehe dārake ruddarakkhasī |
samuddato nikkhamitvā bhakkhayitvāna gacchanti ||
Cf. Samantapāsādikā, I, pp. 68ff., where both the descriptions are given without any comment. The earlier chronicle does not place the country on the sea-shore and associates it with the Pisācas.

The chronicles speak of two coronations of Devānaṁpiya Tissa, the second taking place six months after the first, in honour of the presents from Asoka, his distinguished Indian friend and ally. According to Dr. Paranavitana the second coronation of Tissa was the proper form of royal coronation and the so-called coronations prior to that were simple ceremonies of electing popular leaders.

The Dīpavaṁsa alone speaks of two consecrations of Prince Piyadassana, the first under the title of Asoka, four years after his accession to the throne of Bindusāra, and the second under the title of Piyadassi, six years after the first. Dipav., VI, 22-24 Here the Dīpavaṁsa tradition representing ‘Asoka’ as a royal title assumed by Asoka must be preferred to the Divyāvadāna legend representing the same as a personal name given him by his father at the instance of his mother. The truth in the Dīpavaṁsa tradition is borne out by the evidence of the inscriptions of Asoka. Barua, Asoka and His Inscriptions, Pt. I, pp. 16ff.

The tradition of the fratricidal war through which Prince Piyadassana’s way to his father’s throne lay is not clearly supported by the evidence of Asoka’s Rock Edict V. The Divyāvadāna speaks of the killing of one stepbrother, which is a more probable story, while the Ceylon chronicles tell us that Asoka killed all his ninety-nine half-brothers.

The story of Tissarakkhā in the Mahāvaṁsa blackening the history of the closing period of Asoka’s reign was derived evidently from a later Indian source and it reads in some respects like the story of Tisyarakṣitā in Divyāvadāna. The Divyāvadāna story of the Ājīvika guru of Asoka’s mother, predicting her son’s accession to the throne of Magadha, could not have its counterpart in any Pali work of Ceylon earlier than the Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā.

The Dīpavaṁsa agrees with the Divyāvadāna in giving [64] the credit for the conversion of Asoka to the Buddhist faith to an Elder, whether the Thera Nigrodha or Sthavira Samudra, and not to a novice of seven years of age, who is represented in the later chronicle as the posthumous son of Sumana, the elder stepbrother of Asoka. The interest of the Dīpavaṁsa lies also in the fact that it settles once for all the interpretation of Asoka’s statement – saṁghe upayite, which occurs in his Minor Rock Edict.

Though the mystery of the personal relationship of Mahinda and Saṅghamittā with Asoka cannot be solved in the light of Asoka’s own records, there is no valid reason as yet to dispute the fact of their going down to Ceylon for the propagation of Buddhism during the reign of king Devānaṁpiya Tissa. The real foundation of the history of Buddhism in Ceylon may be taken to have been laid through the establishment of the order of monks by Mahinda and that of the order of nuns by Saṅghamittā.

The traditional succession of the Vinaya teachers is expressly traced from Mahinda in the Vinaya Parivārapāṭha compiled in Ceylon by a Thera named Dīpa, and the chronicle account of the Buddhist missions despatched to different countries is corroborated, partly at least, as shown by Geiger, by the relic-casket inscriptions in the Stūpas of Sāñchī and Sonāri, one of which preserves for us also the name of Moggaliputta. The chronicle account of the planting of a Bo-graft in the heart of Ceylon and that of the enshrinement of certain relics of the Buddha in some dagobas built in the time of Devānaṁpiya Tissa nay also be taken to be true.

As shown before the seventeenth chapter of the Dīpavaṁsa commences a new chronicle with these words:

The Dīpavaṁsa presents here only a bare outline of the political history of Ceylon from Muṭasiva to Mahāsena. As for the religious history, the whole of Chap. XVII is devoted to the career of Mahinda which extended over two reigns, namely, that of Devānaṁpiya Tissa and that of Uttiya, his brother and successor.

The Theras of Ceylon were naturally interested in having before them a chronological succession of the leading Vinaya teachers from Mahinda onwards and a similar succession of the leading nuns from the time of Saṅghamittā. Though the first is missed in the chronicles themselves, it is preserved in the Vinaya Parivāra the second is presented in Chap. XVIII of the earlier chronicle. Here the earlier chronicle credits Devānaṁpiya Tissa with the erection of the Tissārāma, an excellent monastery named after him and the planting of a Bodhi graft at Mahāmeghavana.

For a systematic traditional history of Ceylon from Mahāsiva, the younger brother and successor of Uttiya, to Mahāsena, we cannot but depend on the Mahāvaṁsa. The Ṭīkā has hardly anything new to add to the information supplied in the text. The central figure of this part of the chronicle is king Duṭṭhagāmaṇi, the national hero of Ceylon and great builder of Buddhist religious monuments. The chronology of the kings as found in this and the earlier chronicle is now considered workable and generally correct. Wickremasinghe, On Riṭigala Inscriptions, Epigraphia Zeyl., Vol. I, p. 143.

Here the historical position of the chronicles may be partially tested by the evidence of the ancient inscriptions which are written in Asokan and later Brāhmī. Unfortunately, however, none of the names by which the early kings of Ceylon are introduced in these inscriptions is identical with that which occurs in the chronicles. The identifications so far suggested are just tentative. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 141ff.

These inscriptions envisage a political history of Ceylon from Uttiya, the brother and successor of Devānaṁpiya Tissa, to Gajabāhuka Gāmaṇi (A.D. 173-195), more definitely from Saddhā Tissa, the younger brother and successor of Duṭṭhagāmaṇi Abhaya, to Gajabāhuka Gāmaṇi. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 141ff.

The two main heroes, Devānaṁpiya Tissa and Duṭṭhagāmaṇi, are still missed in them. The employment of Devanaṁpiya as a royal honorific goes certainly to prove that the tradition of Asoka was maintained in Ceylon up till the second century A.D., if [66] not still later. Although their language, the Elu, bears all the distinctive characteristics of a dialect once current in the lower Punjab, on the eastern side of the Indus and near about Mansehra, their Brāhmi letter-forms go to connect them first with Asoka’s inscriptions at Isila (Northern Mysore) and subsequently with the Buddhist cave inscriptions of Western India. It will be highly important and interesting to see if they can be connected as well with the old Brāhmī inscriptions of Amarāvatī, Jagayyapeta and Nāgārjunikoṇḍa, particularly those at the last mentioned place.

So far as the ancient inscriptions of Ceylon go, they point to a much simpler state of things than what appears in the chronicles. It is difficult to think that anything of architectural importance and beauty was or could be built in the time of Devānaṁpiya Tissa. The vigorous creative activity of the art and architecture of Ceylon began during the reign of Duṭṭhagāmaṇi and was continued through subsequent reigns. The Dīpavaṁsa accounts are scrapy and in some places clumsy and vague. The Mahāvaṁsa has clarified them in many respects. And yet it seems that the later chronicle has antedated some of the achievements.

According to both the chronicles, Duṭṭhagāmaṇi attained the paramount position in the early history of Ceylon by giving a crushing defeat to the Tamil hordes led by Eḷāra who appeared in the island as a horse-dealer. A graphic description of the battles fought and won is given in the Mahāvaṁsa. The coming of the merchants and traders from India is a fact, which is borne out by some of the ancient inscriptions of Ceylon. But no inscription is found until now to confirm the truth of the battles fought by Duṭṭhagāmaṇi with Eḷāra and his lieutenants.

The Dīpavaṁsa represents Duṭṭhagāmaṇi as the builder of a magnificent palace of nine storeys in height, while Mahā Tissa or Saddhā Tissa, his brother and successor, is given the credit for the erection of the Lohapāsāda or ‘Brazen Palace’. Both of them figure equally as the builders of the Mahāthūpa. In the earlier description and estimation Duṭṭhagāmaṇi’s fame was worthily emulated by Saddhā Tissa. In the later chronicle Duṭṭhagāmaṇi alone is highly extolled as the builder of the Lohapāsāda, the Mahāthūpa, and the Maricavaṭṭivihāra. The fame of Saddhā Tissa fades away before the heightened glory of the achievements of his elder brother.

The Dīpavaṁsa names fourteen Theras who came down from India when the foundation of the Mahāthūpa was laid by Duṭṭhagāmaṇi without mentioning the centres of the Theravāda [67] Buddhism represented by them. Dīpavaṁsa, XIX, vv. 5-10 The list of places is supplied by the Mahāvaṁsa, and it is to all intents and purposes the same as that contained in one of the Nāgārjunikoṇḍa inscriptions.

The disturbed reign of Vaṭṭagāmaṇi, the son and successor of Saddhā Tissa, rightly engages the attention of the chroniclers. He figures prominently also in some of the ancient inscriptions of Ceylon. His fame rests on these three facts: (1) as the vanquisher of the Tamil usurpers, (2) as the king who caused the Pali Canonical texts to be committed to writing, and (3) as the builder of the Abhayagiri monastery. His seven lieutenants heartily co-operated with him in building up a memorable tradition of art and architecture standing as a lasting symbol of piety.

From Vaṭṭagāmaṇi’s son down to Mahāsena one notices a smooth course of political history. The chief event to be noted in the religious history of the period is the rivalry between the Fraternity of the Mahāvihāra and the Abhayagiri Vihāra which led ultimately to the rise of a few Buddhist sects in Ceylon.

The earlier chronicle is unaware of the six later Buddhist sects that arose in India, and of the two sects, the Dhammaruci and the Sāgaliya, that arose in the island. Buddhaghosa, the author of the Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā, was acquainted with the names and doctrines of the later Buddhist sects but with none of the sects in Ceylon.

Buddhaghosa, the author of the Samantapāsādikā, speaks of a serious dispute which arose in the Buddhist community of Ceylon over the legality of certain Vinaya rules. King Bhātika (Bhātu Tissa) heard the two parties in an assembly of the monks called for the purpose and decided the point at issue by the verdict given by his Brahman minister named Dīghakārāyana. Cf. Samantapāsādikā, III, pp. 582-3. The chronicles refer this incident to the reign of Abhaya or Vohārika Tissa, the son and successor of Sirināga. According to the earlier chronicle, the monks against whom Kapila, the minister of Tissa, expressed his judgment are described as ‘wicked’ (pāpabhikkhu), Dīpavaṁsa, XXII, 44. while the later chronicle calls them upholders of Vetullavāda or Vedallavāda. Mahāvaṁsa, XXXVI, 41. The Dīpavaṁsa term is definitely Vitaṇḍavāda. Dīpavaṁsa, XXII, 43.

The Mahāvaṁsa tells us that the rival Abhayagiri Vihāra became a stronghold of the sixty monks preaching the Vetulya heresy, all of whom were banished from the island by [68] Goṭhābhaya Meghavaṇṇa, the reigning king. We are also told that to avenge their cause a powerful Colian monk named Saṅghamitta, well versed in sorcery, witchcraft, and the like (bhūtavijjādi-kovido) came across from the Indian shore. It is said that he defeated the Mahāvihāra defender of the Theravāda by his arguments in an assembly of the monks caused to be called for the purpose by the king at Thūpārāma. The Thera Saṅghapāla was evidently then the head of the Mahāvihāra. Mahāvaṁsa, XXXVI, 110-116. The crusade against the Mahāvihāra was vigorously led by this Saṅghamittā during the reign of Mahāsena, having Soṇa among the royal councillors as his strong lay supporter. Ibid., XXXVII, 28-29. The Dīpavaṁsa makes mention of this mischievous activity and refers it in the same way to the reign of Mahāsena. But the heresies mentioned were not of a serious character, and they tended just to relax two Vinaya rules. Dīpavaṁsa, XXII, 67-74.

Buddhaghosa in his commentary on the Kathāvatthu, has ascribed certain special views to the upholders of the Vetullavāda. The bearing of the Mahāvaṁsa report of the debate held at Thūpārāma between Saṅghamittā and the spokesman of the Mahāvihāra in the presence of king Goṭhābhaya Meghavaṇṇa, father of Mahāsena, and grandfather of Kitti-Siri-Meghavaṇṇa, on the contemporaneity and age of Buddhadatta and Buddhaghosa, the author of the Visuddhimagga, has been fully discussed. The authoritative works of the Vetullavādins mentioned in the Sāratthappakāsinī and the Samantapāsādikā have also been identified. They belonged mostly to the Guhyasamāja sect and the popular form of Mahāyāna. But the more appropriate name of the dreaded doctrine was rather Vedallavāda than Vetullavāda. The University of Ceylon Review, Vol. II.

The Mahāvaṁsa does nowhere clarify the connection of the two Buddhist sects of Ceylon, namely, the Dhammaruci and the Sāgaliya, with the Abhayagiri Vihāra and its seceders. The connection is supplied somewhat ingeniously in the Ṭīkā and the Nikāyasaṅgraha. These later works trace the history of the schisms in the Saṅgha of Ceylon from the days of Vaṭṭagāmaṇi. The author of the Dīpavaṁsa supplement (Chaps. XVII-XXII) had nothing to say regarding the cause which arose for the separation of the monks of Abhayagiri from the Mahāvihāra and the formation of the Dhammaruci sect under the persuasion of an Indian teacher, Dhammaruci of the Vajjiputtaka community of Pallarārāma in South India. [69]

It was during the reign of Vohāra Tissa that the Dhammarucikas of Abhayagiri adopted the Vetulla or Vedalla Piṭaka. The king caused the Vetulla books to be examined by his learned minister, Kapila, and finding that they were not the words of the Buddha, caused them to be burnt and the sinful priests to be disgraced. But from the account given by Buddhaghosa it appears that the difference hinged on a Vinaya point of minor importance. It was apparently a case of controversial nicety (vitaṇḍavāda) as the Dīpavaṁsa puts it. Dīpavaṁsa, XXII, vv. 43-45; Mahāvaṁsa, XXXVI, v. 41.

The ingenuity is evidently carried too far by the compiler of the Nikāyasaṅgraha when it wants us to believe that the Vetulla or Vedalla texts mentioned in the Pali commentaries were the works produced by the six later Buddhist sects of India, which arose in later times:

‘The Hemavata heretics fabricated the Warṇa-piṭaka, giving it a semblance of true doctrine and making it appear as if preached by the Buddha. The Rājagiri heretics composed the Aṅgulimāla-piṭaka, the Siddhārthaka heretics the Gūḍha Vessantara, the Pūrvaśalī heretics the Raṭṭhapālagarjita, the Aparaśailī heretics, the Āḷvaka-garjita, and the Wajraparvata heretics the Gūḍhavinaya. These last also composed the Tantras: Māyājālatantra, Māyājālatantra. Cf. Commentary, Māyājālamahātantra rājaṭikā, Rgyud, LVI, 2; Pañjikā, Rgyud, LVI, 3. Probably the same as Māyājālamahātantra, Nanjio No. 1022, translated by Fa-Hien, A.D. 982-1001. Samājatantra, Mahāsamayattattva, Tattvasaṅgraha, Bhūtacāmara (ḍāmara), Bhūtaḍāmara tantra – probably the same as Bhūtaḍāmaramahātantrarāja, Nanjio No. 1031, translated by Fa-Hien in A.D. 973-981. Cf. Bhūtaḍāmarasādhana and Bhūtaḍāmara-sādhana, P. Cordier, Catalogue Du Fonds, Tibetan, Rgyud, LXX, 164; LXXI, 337 and LXXXIII, 40. Vajrāmta, Vajrāmta. Nanjio (Nos. 372-373) mentions Vajramantra-Dhāraṇī. Cakrasaṁvara, Cakrasaṁvara Cf. Commentary, Cakrasaṁvara tantrarājasaṁvarasamuccaya, Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, VIII, 1. Dvādaśacakra, Bherukādbuda Bherukādbutatantra.Cf. Commentary Heruka-abhyudaya mahāyoginitantrarāja, Cordier, op. cit.Rgyud, VIII, 1. Mahāmāyā, Mahāmāyā. Cf. Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, XXIII, 18. Cf. Mahāmāyā sūtra, Nanjio 382, translated in A.D. 550-577. Padanikṣepa, Catuṣpuṣṭa, Catuṣpuṣṭa. Cf. Commentary, Catuḥpīṭha Gūḍhārthanirdeśa ekadrumapañjikā, Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, XXIII, 7. Parāmarda, Parāmarda. Cf. Paramādi-tantrabhāṣitā pañcadaśāpatti, Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, LXXXV 55 Cf. Paramārthadharmavijaya sūtra and Paramārthasaṁvritinirdeśa sūtra, Nanjio, Nos. 210-211, 1084, 1089 and 1101. Maricudbhava, Sarvabuddhasarvaguhyasamuccaya, Sarvabuddha-Sarvaguhya samuccaya. Cf. Commentaries Sarvakalpasamuccaya nāma Sarvabuddhasamayoga ḍākinījālasambarottarottara tantraṭikā, Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, XXV, 2; Pradīpa, Rgyud, XLV, 24; Sarvaguhyapradīpaṭīkā, Rgyud, XXVIII, 3. etc., and the Kalpaśāstras: [70] Māyāmarīcikalpa, Herambakalpa, Trisamayakalpa, Trisamayakalpa. Cf. Trisamayarājasādhana, Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, LXX, 5; LXXI, 95-96. Rājakalpa, Wajragandhārakalpa, Wajragandhārakalpa. Cf. Vajragāndhārisādhana,Cordier, op. cit., Rgyud, LXX, 123; LXXI, 80. Marīciguhyakalpa, Suddhasamuccaya-kalpa, Nikāyasaṅgraha, p. 9. etc.

We are also told that the Vaitulya heretics composed the Vaitulya Piṭaka, the Andhakas, the Ratnakūṭa Sūtra Nanjio No. 251 – translated by An-shi-kao of the Eastern Han dynasty, A.D. 25-220. Nanjio No. 51, translated by Jñānagupta of the Sui dynasty A.D. 589-618. and other works, and the Anya-mahāsaṅghikas, the Akṣarasāri Akṣarasāri Sūtra, probably same as Akṣaramatinirdeśa sūtra, Nanjio No. 74. Translated by Dharmarakṣa of the Western Tsin dynasty A.D. 265-368. Nanjio No. 77 – translated in the Earlier Sun dynasty A.D. 422-479. and other sutras. Nikāya-saṅgraha, pp. 9ff. The Nikāyasaṅgraha categorically states that despite many divisions that occurred, the religion of the Buddha retained its purity for two hundred and nineteen years from the Third Buddhist Council. Ibid., p. 10.

The list of Buddhist works belonging to the Vetulla or Vedalla Piṭaka grew up gradually. According to the Nikāyasaṅgraha, the Vaitulya works were brought to Laṅkā on three successive occasions and burnt to ashes by sincere rulers. On the fourth occasion they were introduced by a merchant called Pūrṇa 852 years after the establishment of the Buddhist faith in the island during the reign of Devānaṁpiya Tissa and 1088 years after the demise of the Buddha. Ibid., p. 17.

On the first three occasions it was the Dharmarucikas of Abhayagiri who welcomed those texts which were incompatible with the true words of the Buddha. On the fourth occasion, however, the Dhammarucikas persuaded the Sāgaliyas of the Jetavana monastery to welcome them. It is said that during the reign of Aggabodhi I (A.D. 625-58) a Mahāthera named Jyotipāla came down from India to try an issue with the Vaitulya heretics giving them a crushing defeat. Cūḷavaṁsa, 42, 35:
Tadā eko mahāthero Jotipālakanāmako
Parājesi vivādena dipe Vetullavādino.
Cf. Nikāya-saṅgraha, p. 17. Thereafter there were no more converts to the Vetullavāda. It was again during the reign of Sena I (A.D. 887-907) that a Buddhist priest of the Vājiriyā sect came to the island from India and dwelt in an abode called Vīraṅkura. He impressed the reigning king with his ‘secret discourse’, which he called a [71] confidential teaching. It was at this time that the Ratnakūṭa teaching and the like were introduced into Laṅkā. Nikāya-saṅgraha, p. 18.

It will be seen that the Buddhist works mentioned above were all texts on ritual and magic. They were far from giving the Theras of Ceylon a correct idea of the greatness and excellence of Mahāyāna proper, the Bodhisattvanaya or Agranaya form of Mahāyāna. The doctrinal views ascribed by Buddhaghosa and Vasumitra to the Pūrvaśailas, the Aparaśailas, and the rest go only to represent them as advanced thinkers among the Buddhist teachers of the age. Points of Controversy, P.T.S. Tr., pp. xx ff. The
Theras of Ceylon were forgetful of the fact that their Paritta texts were also works on ritual and magic. The authenticity of the Parittas themselves was in dispute, and we have certain findings on this point from the Thera Nāgasena. Milinda, pp. 150ff.

As to the Mahāthera Jotipāla the chronicles leave us in the dark about his identity with the Bhadanta Jotipāla at whose instance Buddhaghosa undertook to write his commentaries on the Saṁyutta and Aṅguttara Nikāyas. B.C. Law, Buddhaghosa, p. 34. As a contemporary of king Aggabodhi I he was unquestionably a later personality.

According to the Māhavaṁsa-Ṭikā the Sāgalikas or Sāgaliyas were seceders from the Dhammarucikas. Their separation from the latter took place during the reign of king Goṭhābhaya and the name of the sect was derived from its leader, the Thera Sāgala. Vaṁsatthappakāsinī, p. 176. The Jetavana-vihāra became the stronghold of this sect.

The Mahāvaṁsa-Ṭīkā leads us to think that the Dhammarucikas and their offshoots, the Sāgalikas, possessed slightly different versions of the Vinaya texts. Ibid., pp. 175-6, 676. The two sects belonging to the parent vihāra of Abhayagiri flourished side by side along with the Mahāvihāra, and continued to receive royal benefactions Cūlavaṁsa, XXXVIII, 75; XXXIX, 15, 41. until all of them were united into one order in the time of Parakkamabāhu I (A.D. 1153-86). Ibid., LXXVIII, 21-27.