________________
154
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JUNE, 1906.
the statements sound. Similarly, as we approach the time of the anthors, their credibility increases. Even the later sections, however, naturally demand historic criticism.
Whoever may write the history of Ceylon, has to extract the kernel of the actual from these traditions. The literary historian will, however, rejoice in the very veil in which the myths have clothed events. He will trace the origin of epic tradition, its development, and its survival in later literature. These are the problems to whose solution we would apply the following investigation.
We are here in the almost unique position of tracing how an epic sets out on a literary course. We are in a position to form for ourselves a picture of the contents and form of the chronicle which was the ground-work of the epic poem, and of the diverse elements out of which it was composed. We can still observe the traces and signs of the originally oral tradition, which, however, lies far back in time, and the co-mingling of prosaic and metrical forms. The Dipavamsa represents the first clumsy effort to fashion an epic poem out of the material already available. It is a document which arouses our attention, from the very incompleteness of its composition and its inherent defects of style. We stand as yet on the very threshold of the epic. In like manner, the stiff outlines of the Apollo of Tenea are more interesting for the historian of art than many a far-famed example of the fully developed art of Greece.
The Mahavamsa deserves at once the name of a real epic. It is the acknowledged work of a poet. And we are enabled in some measure to watch this poet at work in his workshop. Accordingly, dependent as he is on his model, to which he is at pains to cling as closely as possible, he also passes criticism on it, realizes its faults and inequalities, and seeks to improve and equalize them.
Not only has the Mahāvamen found continuators who have brought down the chronicle to their own time, but the old work itself was submitted to revision. This took place because the redactor of the poem, without reference even to essential rearrangements, inserted episodes at places where it seemed to him suitable or necessary, and thus almost doubled the extent of the poem. The sources from which he took these episodes are as a rule assignable. The revision is accordingly accomplished on literary lines. It is not " The People" who tacks on to or changes the composition, but an individual who does not follow the dictates of free fancy but takes over fixed material and with artistic ingenuity adapts it to new requirements.
Finally, we can observe how the epic material passes into later literature, assuming a historic character, and is enriched here and there, in small measure of course, by new accretions from a tradition standing apart from the epos. These additions and amplifications shew in many ways by their folk-tale and legendary character their origin in popular tradition. It can hardly however be maintained that they were taken from tales orally transmitted. This certainly is not impossible, but it is not necessary. Perhaps, they differed in individual cases, and may very well have had their origin in literary sources which are no longer or not yet accessible.
We will not assert that the development of the epos, as we observe it in Ceylon, is typical. It need not necessarily have been the same at all times and among all nations. But wherever the epic question is raised, the Dipavamsa and the Mabávam sa will serve as valuable analogies, first for the Indian epic, but also for those of other nations. Its chief value consists in the fact that in the case of the Ceylonese epics we have not to deal with possibilities and bypothetical constructions, but we can follow the actual process of development. The foundation, it is true, is unfortunately no longer accessible, and must be inferred. There are, however, valuable means of help at our disposal, and the epos itself lies before us in three stages of
