Page:The Mahāvaṃsa or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon.djvu/16

xii Introduction The interpretation hitherto given : that this is an allusion to a public recitation of the Dip. must then be abandoned. But this dipika, which was composed by order of Dhatusena, is identified by FLEET with our Mahavamsa. Thus, at the same time, the date of its origin is more precisely fixed. Dhatusena reigned, according to calculations which are to be confirmed further on, at the beginning of the sixth century after Christ. About this time the Mahavamsa was composed.

After these preliminary observations the Ceylonese Chronicles should now be judged particularly with respect to their value as HISTORICAL SOURCES, and the historical data drawn from them should be brought together.

In their character of historical sources the Dip. and Mah. have been very differently appreciated.

FRANKE goes the furthest in scepticism. If he did in the beginning at least admit the POSSIBILITY 1 that the author of the Dip. had some document or other before him, he has lately said most positively : * in the absence of any sources, the last- named work (i. e. the Dipavamsa) must be considered as standing unsupported on its own tottering feet/ 2 And there- fore according to him no historical value can be conceded to the Dip. nor to the Mah. nor finally to the Smp. FRANKE'S scepticism, to which I shall return in discussing the history of the councils, ceases to be well founded as soon as we accept the thesis that the Ceylonese Chronicles are based on the Atthakatha. With this the tradition recedes several centuries, and the probability that it contains historical recollections is correspondingly reinforced, and that thesis must, as I have explained above, be considered as confirmed.

KERN S too expresses himself with great caution on the historical value of Dip. and Mah. He indeed says in his Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 9, ' ... the chronicles

1 Literarisches Centralblatt, 1906, No. 37, column 1275, 1. 2.

2 Journal of the Pali Text Soc. 1908, p. 1.

3 Buddhismus, German translation by Jacobi, ii, p. 283.