මහාවංශය (Great Chronicle of Ceylon)

Introduction

The interpretation hitherto given: that this is an allusion to a public recitation of the Dīp. must then be abandoned. But this dīpikā, which was composed by order of Dhātusena, is identified by FLEET with our Mahāvaṃsa. Thus, at the same time, the date of its origin is more precisely fixed. Dhātusena reigned, according to calculations which are to be confirmed further on, at the beginning of the sixth century after Christ. About this time the Mahāvaṃsa was composed.

§ 2. The Trustworthiness of the Ceylon Chronicles.

After these preliminary observations the Ceylonese Chronicles should now be judged particularly with respect to their value as HISTORICAL SOURCES, and the historical data drawn from them should be brought together.

In their character of historical sources the Dīp. and Mah. have been very differently appreciated.

FRANKE goes the furthest in scepticism. If he did in the beginning at least admit the POSSIBILITY 1 that the author of the Dīp. had some document or other before him, he has lately said most positively: ‘in the absence of any sources, the last-named work (i. e. the Dīpavaṃsa) must be considered as standing unsupported on its own tottering feet.’ 2 And therefore according to him no historical value can be conceded to the Dīp. nor to the Mah. nor finally to the Smp. Samantapāsādikā. FRANKES’s scepticism, to which I shall return in discussing the history of the councils, ceases to be well founded as soon as we accept the thesis that the Ceylonese Chronicles are based on the Aṭṭhakathā. With this the tradition recedes several centuries, and the probability that it contains historical recollections is correspondingly reinforced, and that thesis must, as I have explained above, be considered as confirmed.

KERN 3 too expresses himself with great caution on the historical value of Dīp. and Mah. He indeed says in his Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 9, ‘. . . the chronicles

1 Literary Central Journal, 1906, No. 37, column 1275, l. 2.
2 Journal of the Pali Text Society 1908, p. 1.
3 Buddhism, German translation by Jacobi, ii, p. 283.