________________
JUXE, 1906.)
TAE DIPAVAMSA AND THE MAHAVAMSA.
159
P. 33.
The author of this manuscript calls himself Mogguins. Of his date we can say nothing
with certainty, but from certain clerical errors in the text we infer that it was 33 copied from an originaliu Singhalese. Other indications suggest that the anthor lived in Ceylon. In this connection it inity be mentioned that in the later Mahāvansa, LXXVIII. 9. A priest is introduced who lived in the 12th century under Parakkama bāha the Great, and clearly was one of the then prominent ecclesiastics. II. THE DIPAVAMSA AND TRE MAHAVAMSA IN RELATION TO
THEIR SOURCES. 4.- The Commentary and the author of the Mahāvansa. Turnour's identification of the author of the Mahavamsa with that of the Commentary
rests on a wrong interpretation of the closing words of the Commentary. In Pp. 3436..
.. tbe Commentary, the author of the Malāvamsa is designated as a artyo dyan acariyo, “the teacher, master or savant," A difference in time is clearly indicated in the Commentary, 417, 26, on Mahāvaṁsa, XXXIII. 53, where it is said that the samagalla mentioned in the Mahāvamsa was now (idāni), i.e., in the time of the writer of the Commentary, called Moragalla. More important for fixing a date is the passage (referred to by Snyder) at V.13 where the Dhammaruchi and the Sāgaliya are mentioned as schismatic secte. In commenting on this, the Commentary mentions later monastic strifes which took place in the reign of Dāthopatissa, "the nephew." The author of the Commentary, then, lived after the reign of Dāthopatissa II., i. e., roughly speaking, after 670 A. D. Stiil narrower limits are drawn if the Mabābodhivamsakathā is identical with the Mahābod bivainsa. This, as I can prove, is a work not of the fifth century, as bas been hitherto assumed, but of the end of the tenth. The Commentary on the Mahāramsa therefore. cannot have been written before the beginning of the eleventh century. A lower limit is fixed from the fact that the author of the Commentary did not know
the later continuation of the Mahavamsa, and so mast have lived before the P. 37. second half of the thirteenth century; also notably from the fact that the Pāli Thūpavamsa, which was composed in the middle of this century, is made abundant use of in the Commentary. The date then for the Commentary is 1000--1250.
As regards contents, the Commentary adds to the Malāvamsa, apart from exegetic and dogmatic statements, & mass of historical and legendary material, folklore, and romance. It bears the same relation to the Mahāvamsa as the Mabāvamsa does to the Dipavamsa; so that the Mahāvansa had not exhausted the store of available epic material.
From legendary sources comes the history of the earlier Buddhas, which serves in the P. 38.
Commentary, 35 ff., as an elucidation of Mahavamsa, I. 6 ff., where only the
names are given. The history of Gotama-Baddha is treated more in detail than in the epic. These Buddha-legends undoubtedly come down from the church tradition, and we may assume the same authority for the different notes which amplify the account of the festival at the laying of the foundation-stone of the Great Tope. Another history bearing the stamp of genuine monastic tradition is that of Nanduttara, an earlier incarnation of Soņuttara who was entrusted with the collection of relics for the Great Tope. The same holds good of the history of the relics and the dialogue between the dying Dutthagamani and the monk Theraputtābhaya, as spun out in the Commentary. In the Commentary there is no lack, however, of passages which seem to be derived from
popular tradition. Quite a romance is formed by the tale of the love of Pp. 39-44.
* Sālirājakumāra, a son of Dutthagamani, for a Candāla maiden. The Mahavamsa merely states that the prince, for the sake of this girl, bad resigned the throne, and that the two had been united in a previous state of existence. The Commentary elucidates this in . longer narrative. Other outlines are similarly supplemented, notably those of the Indian
