මහාවංශය (Great Chronicle of Ceylon)

1. First as to the LIST OF INDIAN KINGS BEFORE ASOKA, 1 the statements concerning Bimbisāra and Ajātasattu as contemporaries of the Buddha agree with the canonical writings and, in respect of the names, with those of the Brahmanic tradition.

The Jaina-tradition has other names; this, however, does not affect the actual agreement. There can be no doubt that the nine Nandas as well as the two forerunners of Asoka: Candagutta and Bindusāra, were altogether historical personages. Here also, in the number of years of Candagutta's reign the Ceylonese tradition agrees completely with the Indian. V. A. SMITH, 2 too, does not hesitate to accept the number 24 as historical.

Besides the renowned counsellor of Candagutta, the brahman Cāṇakka Sanskrit: Cāṇakya is known to the Ceylonese Chronicles. In respect of the length of Bindusāra's reign their statements differ from those of the Purāṇas by three years, in respect of that of Asoka by only one year. The Ceylonese tradition concerning Indian history since the Buddha is, therefore, not unsupported.

2. The CONVERSION OF CEYLON is, according to Dīp. and Mah., and finally, according to the unanimous tradition of the country itself, the work of Mahinda, a son of Asoka, and his sister Saṃghamittā. V. A. SMITH calls the stories relating to this in the Chronicles "a tissue of absurdities." 3 Asoka himself mentions Ceylon, as he explains, twice in his Inscriptions: in the Rock-Edict XIII, among the countries to which he despatched missionaries, and in Rock-Edict II, among those in which he provides for distribution of medicines. 4 Since these Edicts belong to the thirteenth year

1 Cf. the tables to § 9.
2 Early History of India, pp. 115-118. Cf. also Asoka, p. 95.
3 Asoka, p. 45. OLDENBERG also (ibid., p. 46) considers the tradition a pure invention.
4 Cf. the translations in V. A. SMITH'S Asoka, pp. 129-133 and pp. 115-116. The expression cikisakā remedies (= Sanskrit cikitsā, Pali tikicchā), which SENART translates as remèdes remedies, is rendered by BÜHLER (see Z.D.M.G. 48, 1894, p. 50) as "hospitals".