මහාවංශය (Great Chronicle of Ceylon) (500) - Page 23

reports of our Chronicles as to the conversion of Ceylon. The fact, in essential respects, holds good, but it is a question of putting it in the right light.

Besides, a hint that Mahinda’s mission was preceded by similar missions to Ceylon is to be found even in Dīp. Dīpavaṃsa and Mah. Mahāvaṃsa, when they relate that Asoka, sending to Devānampiyatissa, with presents for his second consecration as king, exhorted him to adhere to the doctrine of the Buddha.¹

Certainly on chronological grounds this cannot be immediately connected with the notices of the conversion of Ceylon to be found in the inscriptions. But it shows us that, even from the point of view of the Chronicles of Ceylon, Buddhism was not quite unknown in that country already before Mahinda’s time.

3. THE HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS as related in Dīp. and Mah.² receives most striking confirmation in the inscriptions discovered. On the inner lid of the relic-urn which was found in Tope stupa or reliquary mound no. 2 of the Sānchi group there is this inscription: Sapurisa(sa) Majhimasa relics of the pious man Majjhima. On the outer lid is Sapurisa(sa) Kāsapagotasa Hemāvatācariyasa relics of the pious man Kassapagotta (i. e. of the Kassapa clan), the teacher of the Himalaya.³ Now Majjhima is, in fact, named in the Mah. as the teacher who converted the Himalaya region and Kassapagotto thero elder monk appears as his companion in the Dīp.⁴

Again in the superscription of a relic-casket from Tope no. 2 of the Sonāri group the same Majjhima is mentioned.

On another urn from the same Tope we again find the name of Kassapagotta, this time with the epithet Kotiputta and again with the designation ‘Teacher of the whole Himalaya’.

In a third urn-inscription Gotiputta (i. e. Kotiputta Kassapa-

¹ Dīp. 12. 5–6 ; Mah. 11. 34–35 ; Smp. Samantapāsādikā 323^5–8. ² Dīp. 8. 1–13 ; Mah. 12. 1–54. Cf. also Smp. 314¹⁷–318²⁵. ³ See **CUNNINGHAM**, *The Bhilsa Topes*, p. 287. Cf. **RHYS DAVIDS**, *Buddhist India*, pp. 299–301. ⁴ Mah. 12. 6, 41 ; Dīp. 8. 10. Cf. Smp. 317¹⁹ ; Mahābodhivaṃsa (ed. **STRONG**) 115⁵, where also Kassapagotta is mentioned together with Majjhima. Cf. also Mah. Ṭīkā Commentary on the Mahāvaṃsa, 222⁷.