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MAHAVAVSA

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 395 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MAHAVAVSA , the See also:

Great See also:Chronicle, a See also:history of See also:Ceylon from the 5th See also:century B.C. to the See also:middle of the 5th century A.D., written in See also:Pali See also:verse by Mahanama of the Dighasanda Hermitage, shortly after the See also:close of the See also:period with which it deals. In point of See also:historical value it compares well with See also:early See also:European See also:chronicles. In See also:India proper the decipherment of early See also:Indian See also:inscriptions was facilitated to a very great extent by the data found only in the Mahavamsa. It was composed on the basis of earlier See also:works written in Sinhalese, which are now lost, having been supplanted by the chronicles and commentaries in which their contents were restated in Pali in the course of the 5th century. The particular one on which our Mahavamsa was mainly based was also called the Mahavamsa, and was written in Sinhalese See also:prose with Pali memorial verse interspersed. The extant Pali See also:work gives legends of the See also:Buddha and the See also:genealogy of his See also:family; a See also:sketch of the history of India down to See also:Asoka; an See also:account of See also:Buddhism in India down to the same date; a description of the sending out of missionaries after Asoka's See also:council, and especially of the See also:mission of Mahinda to Ceylon; a sketch of the previous history of Ceylon; a See also:long account of the reign of Devanam-piya Tissa, the See also:king of Ceylon who received Mahinda, and established Buddhism in the See also:island; See also:short accounts of the See also:kings succeeding him down to Duttha Gamiin (Dadagamana or Dutegemunu); then a long account, amounting to an epic poem, of the adventures and reign of that See also:prince, a popular See also:hero, See also:born in adversity, who roused the See also:people, and drove the Tamii invaders out of the island. Finally we have short notices of the subsequent kings down to the author's See also:time. The Mahavamsa was the first Pali See also:book made known to See also:Europe. It was edited in 1837, with See also:English See also:translation and an elaborate introduction, by See also:George Turnour, then colonial secretary in Ceylon. Its vocabulary was an important See also:part of the material utilized in Childer's Pali See also:Dictionary. Its relation to the See also:sources from which it See also:drew has been carefully discussed by variousscholars and in especial detail by Geiger. It is agreed that it gives a reasonably See also:fair and correct presentation of the tradition preserved in the lost Sinhalese Mahavamsa; that, except in the earliest period, its See also:list of kings, with the years of each reign, is See also:complete and trustworthy; and that it gives throughout the view, as to events in Ceylon, of a See also:resident in the Great See also:Minster at See also:Anuradhapura.

See The Mahavamsa, ed. by Geo. Turnour (See also:

Colombo, 1837) ; ed. by W. Geiger (See also:London, 19o8); H. Oldenberg, in the introduction to his edition of the Dipavamsa (London, 1879) ; O. Franke, in Wiener Zeitschrift fib, See also:die Kunde See also:des Morgenlandes (1907) ; W Geiger, Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa (See also:Leipzig, 1905, trans. by Ethel M. Coomaraswamy, Colombo, 1908). (T. W. R.

End of Article: MAHAVAVSA

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