NRLF GIFT OF THE MAHAVAMSA OR THE GREAT CHRONICLE OF CEYLON i 3Te.tt THE MAHAVAMSA OR THE GREAT CHRONICLE OF CEYLON TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY WILHELM PH D., GEIGER, : PROFESSOR OF INDOGERMANIC PHILOLOGY AT ERLANGEN UNIVERSITY ASSISTED BY MABEL HAYNES BODE, Pn.D. LECTURER ON PALI AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CEYLON OLonfcon PUBLISHED FOR THE PALI TEXT SOCIETY BY HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1912 M3 . : OXFORD * .. I I'*: '..'PRINTED BY HORACE HART A* THE UNIVERSITY PRESS EDITOR'S PREFACE A PEW words are necessary to explain how the present work written and one or two should be men- came to be ; points tioned regarding- the aims it is hoped to achieve. Early in 1908 the Government of Ceylon were contemplating a new and revised edition of Tumour's translation of the Maha- vamsa, published in 1837 and reprinted in L. C. Wijesinha's Mahavamsa published in 1889, and were in correspondence on the subject with the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Society appointed a numerous and influential 1 Committee, and recommended myself as Editor for Europe. By their letter of July 18, 1908, the Government of Ceylon requested me to undertake that post. I took the opportunity at the Congress of Orientalists held at Copenhagen in August, and again at the Congress on the History of Religions held in September at Oxford, to consult my colleagues on the best plan for carrying out the proposed revision. They agreed that the method most likely to lead to a satisfactory result within a reasonable time was to entrust the work to one competent critical scholar who could, if necessary, consult members of the Ceylon Committee, but who should be himself responsible for all the details of the work. I reported to Government accordingly, and recom- mended that Prof. Geiger, who had just completed his edition of the text, should be asked to undertake the task. The Government approved the plan, and asked me to make the necessary arrangements. Those arrangements have resulted in the publication of the present volume. Professor Geiger has made a translation into German of his own revised critical edition published by the Pali Text Society 1 See the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xxi, no. 61, pp. 40-42, 70, 86. 4631^,; vi Editors Preface added the in 1908 ; and necessary introduction, appendices, and notes. Mrs. Bode has translated the German into and Professor has then revised the English ; Geiger English translation. The plan has been to produce a literal translation, as nearly correct of the as possible an absolutely reproduction statements recorded in the Chronicle. It is true there is considerable literary merit in the original poem, and that it may be possible "hereafter to attempt a reproduction also, in English unrhymed verse, of the literary spirit of the poem. But a literal ver- sion would still be indispensable for historical purposes. For similar reasons it has been decided to retain in the translation certain technical terms used in the Buddhist Order. In a translation aiming at literary merit some English word more or less analogous in meaning might be used, regardless of the fact that such a word would involve implications not found in ' ' the original. Thus bhikkhu has often been rendered priest ' or monk*. But a bhikkhu claims no such priestly powers as are implied by the former term, and would yield no such as is in the other to all obedience implied ; and discuss the similarities and differences between these three ideas would require a small treatise. There are other technical terms of the same kind. It is sufficient here to explain that when such terms are left, in the present translation, untranslated, it is because an accurate translation is not considered possible. Most of them are, like bhikkhit, already intelligible to those who are likely to use this version. But they are shortly in foot-notes and a list of with explained ; them, further interpretation, will be found at the end of the volume. The Ceylon Government has defrayed the expense of this, as it did of the previously published translations of the Maha- vamsa. T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ix Abbreviations Ixiv I. The Visit of the Tathagata .... 1 II. The Race of Mahasammata . .10 III. The First Council 14 IV. The Second Council 19 V. The Third Council 26 VI. The Coming of Vijaya . .51 VII. The Consecrating- of Vijaya . .55 VIII. The Consecrating of Panduvasudeva . 62 IX. The Consecrating of Abhaya ... 65 X. The Consecrating of Pandukabhaya . 68 XI. The Consecrating of Devanampiyatissa . 77 XII. The Converting of Different Countries . 82 XIII. The Coming of Mahinda .... 88 XIV. The Entry into the Capital .... 91 XV. The Acceptance of the Mahavihara . 97 XVI. The Acceptance of the Cetiyapabbata-vihara. 114 XVII. The Arrival of the Relics . .116 XVIII. The Receiving of the Great Bodhi-tree . 122 XIX. The Coming of the Bodhi-tree . .128 XX. The Nibbana of the Thera .... 136 XXI. The Five Kings .... .142 XXII. The Birth of Prince Gamani . .146 XXIII. The Levying of the Warriors . .155 XXIV. The War of the Two Brothers . .164 XXV. The Victory of Dutthagamani . .170 XXVI. The Consecrating of the Maricavatti-vihara . 179 XXVII. The Consecrating of the Lohapasada . 182 viii Table of Contents CHAPTER PAGB XXVIII. The Obtaining of the Wherewithal to build the Great Thupa 187 XXIX. The Beginning of the Great Thupa . 191 XXX. The Making of the Relic-Chamber . 198 XXXI. The Enshrining of the Relics . .209 XXXII. The Entrance into the Tusita-Heaven . 220 XXXIII. The Ten Kings 228 XXXIV. The Eleven Kings 238 XXXV. The Twelve Kings 246 XXXVI. The Thirteen Kings 256 XXXVII. King Mahasena 267 APPENDICES A. The Dynasty of Mahasaramata . .273 B. The Buddhist Sects 276 C. Campaigns of Pandukabhaya and Dutthagamani . 288 D. List of Pali Terms occurring in the Translation . 292 INDEXES A. List of Geographical and Topographical Names . 298 B. List of Terms explained in the Notes . 299 ADDENDA 300 MAPS Ancient Ceylon ..... Toface page 1 Anuradhapura 137 INTRODUCTION 1. Literary questions concerning Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa. THE LITERARY QUESTIONS connected with the Mahavamsa and the development of the historical tradition in Ceylon have been thoroughly discussed in my book Dipavamsa and Mahdvamsa. 1 I believe that I have there demonstrated that the two Ceylonese Chronicles are based upon older materials and for this reason should claim our attention as sources of history. Now, however, R. O. FRANKE has taken a decided stand 2 against my inferences. He disputes the existence of an older historical work as foundation of Dip. and Mah. The former appears to him to be only a botched compilation of Pali quotations from the Jatakas and other canonical works. But the author of the Mah. has merely copied the Dip. and the same applies to Buddhaghosa and his historical introduction to the Samanta-Pasadika. I have however, I hope, succeeded in combating the doubts and objections raised by FRANKE. 3 The defects of the Dip., which naturally neither can nor should be disputed, concern the outer form, not the contents. 1 Dip. und Mah. und die geschichtliche Vberlieferung in Ceylon, Leipzig, 1905. Translated into English by E. M. COOMARASWAMY, Dip. and Mah., Colombo, 1908. Quotations in the following pages follow the English edition. I may also refer here expressly to OLDEN- BERG'S remarks, Dtp., ed. Introd., p. 1 foil. (1879), as the starting- point for my own. 2 Dip. und Mah. in the Wiener Zeitschr. f. d. Kunde des Morgenl. foil. 21, pp. 203 ; 317 foil. 3 Noch einmal Dip. und Mah. ; Zeitschr. d. D. morgenl. Gesettsch. 63, p. 540 foil. I note that OLDENBERG in the Archivf. Religionswissensch. 13. p. 614, agrees with my inferences against FRANKE. * Introduction But that the author of the Dip. simply invented the contents of his chronicle is a thing impossible to believe. Thus it is our task to trace the sources from which he drew his material. This is made possible for us by the Maha- vamsa-Tika, i. e. the native commentary on our chronicle which, under the title Vamsatthappakasini, was composed by an unknown author. I will then here briefly sum up the principal results of my labours, referring, for confirmation in detail, to my earlier works. 1. In Ceylon there existed at the close of the fourth century A.D., that is, at the time in which the Dipavamsa was composed, an older work, a sort of chronicle, of the history of the island from its legendary beginnings onwards. The work constituted part of the Atthakatha, i. e. the old commentary-literature on the canonical writings of the Buddhists which Buddhaghosa took as a basis for his illu- minating works. It was, like the Atthakatha, composed in Old-Sinhalese prose, probably mingled with verse in the Pali language. 2. This Atthakathd-Mahdvamsa existed, as did the Attha- katha generally, in different monasteries of the island, in various recensions which diverged only slightly from one another. Of particular importance for the further develop- ment of the tradition was the recension of the monks of the Mahavihara in Anuradhapura, upon which the author of the Mah. Tika drew for his material. 3. The chronicle must originally have come down only to the arrival of Mahinda in Ceylon. But it was continued later and indeed, to all appearance, down to the reign of Mahasena (beginning of the fourth century A. D.), with which reign the Dipavamsa as well as the Mahavamsa comes to an end.