href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16847@[email protected]#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[16] if not true in detail, are probably true in spirit in so far as they imply that the Sinhalese kept up intercourse with India and were familiar with the principal forms of Indian religion. Thus we are told[17] that King Paṇḍukâbhaya built religious edifices for Nigaṇṭhas (Jains), Brahmans, Paribbâjakas (possibly Buddhists) and Âjîvikas. When Devânampiya Tissa ascended the throne (circ. 245 B.C.) he sent a complimentary mission bearing wonderful treasures to Asoka with whom he was on friendly terms, although they had never met. This implies that the kingdom of Magadha was known and respected in Ceylon, and we hear that the mission included a Brahman. The answer attributed to Asoka will surprise no one acquainted with the inscriptions of that pious monarch. He said that he had taken refuge in the law of Buddha and advised the King of Ceylon to find salvation in the same way. He also sent magnificent presents consisting chiefly of royal insignia and Tissa was crowned for the second time, which probably means that he became not only the disciple but the vassal of Asoka.

In any case the records declare that the Indian Emperor showed the greatest solicitude for the spiritual welfare of Ceylon and, though they are obviously embellished, there is no reason to doubt their substantial accuracy.[18] The Sinhalese tradition agrees on the whole with the data supplied by Indian inscriptions and Chinese pilgrims. The names of missionaries mentioned in the Dîpa and Mahâvamsas recur on urns found at Sanchi and on its gateways are pictures in relief which appear to represent the transfer of a branch of the Bo-tree in solemn procession to some destination which, though unnamed, may be conjectured to be Ceylon.[19] The absence of Mahinda's name in Asoka's inscriptions is certainly suspicious, but the Sinhalese chronicles give the names of other missionaries correctly and a mere argumentum ex silentio cannot disprove their testimony on this important point.

The principal repositories of Sinhalese tradition are the Dîpavamsa, the Mahâvamsa, and the historical preface of Buddhaghosa's Samanta-pâsâdikâ.[20] All later works are founded on these three, so far as concerns the conversion of Ceylon and the immediately subsequent period, and the three works appear to be rearrangements of a single source known as the Aṭṭhakathâ, Sihalaṭṭhakathâ, or the words of the Porâṇa (ancients). These names were given to commentaries on the Tipiṭaka written in Sinhalese prose interspersed with Pali verse and several of the greater monasteries had their own editions of them, including a definite historical section.[21] It is probable that at the beginning of the fifth century A.D. and perhaps in the fourth century the old Sinhalese in which the prose parts of the Atthakathâ were written was growing unintelligible, and that it was becoming more and more the fashion to use Pali as the language of ecclesiastical literature, for at least three writers set themselves to turn part of the traditions not into the vernacular but into Pali. The earliest and least artistic is the unknown author of the short chronicle called Dîpavamsa, who wrote between 302 A.D. and 430 A.D.[22] His work is weak both as a specimen of Pali and as a narrative and he probably did little but patch together the Pali verses occurring from time to time in the Sinhalese prose of the Atthakathâ. Somewhat later, towards the end of the fifth century, a certain Mahânâma arranged the materials out of which the Dîpavamsa had been formed in a more consecutive and artistic form, combining ecclesiastical and popular legends.[23] His work, known as the Mahâvamsa, does not end with the reign of Eḷâra, like the Dîpavamsa, but describes in 15 more chapters the exploits of Duṭṭhagâmaṇi and his successors ending with Mahâsena.[24] The third writer, Buddhaghosa, apparently lived between the authors of the two chronicles. His voluminous literary activity will demand our attention later but so far as history is concerned his narrative is closely parallel to the Mahâvamsa.[25]

The historical narrative is similar in all three works. After the Council of Pataliputra, Moggaliputta, who had presided over it, came to the conclusion that the time had come to despatch missionaries to convert foreign countries. Sinhalese tradition represents this decision as emanating from Moggaliputta whereas the inscriptions of Asoka imply that the king himself initiated the momentous project. But the difference is small. We cannot now tell to whom the great idea first occurred but it must have been carried out by the clergy with the assistance of Asoka, the apostle selected for Ceylon was his[26] near relative Mahinda who according to the traditions of the Sinhalese made his way to their island through the air with six companions. The account of Hsüan Chuang hints at a less miraculous mode of progression for he speaks of a monastery built by Mahinda somewhere near Tanjore.

The legend tells how Mahinda and his following alighted on the Missaka mountain[27] whither King Devânampiya Tissa had gone in the course of a hunt. The monks and the royal cortege met: Mahinda, after testing the king's intellectual capacity by some curious dialectical puzzles, had no difficulty in converting him.[28] Next morning he proceeded to Anuradhapura and was received with all honour and enthusiasm. He preached first in the palace and then to enthusiastic audiences of the general public. In these discourses he