Text · Pali dynastic chronicle · Sri Lanka
Mahāvaṃsa
Also known as Mahavamsa, Great Chronicle, Culavamsa, Prince Vijaya
The Pali chronicle of Sri Lanka, compiled by the monk Mahanama in the fifth or sixth century from earlier monastic records, and continued afterwards as the Culavamsa. It is the longest unbroken historical record in South Asia and the source for almost everything known about the island before the colonial period.
- Date
- 400–600
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Confidence
- Not assessed
Worth knowing
Its origin story has Prince Vijaya, a grandson of a lion and a human princess, exiled from Sinhapura in the Lala country of eastern India and landing on the island on the day of the Buddha's death. The descendants of the same line are placed in what is now Odisha and West Bengal, and the lion of the story is where Sinhala takes its name from.
A monastic chronicle with a doctrinal purpose: its early chapters are foundation legend, and its chronology is reliable only from roughly the third century BCE.
Connections (2)
- Life routeTamralipta / Tamluk
The Mahavamsa has Prince Vijaya exiled from Sinhapura in the Lala country of eastern India and landing on the island on the day of the Buddha's death, and places the descendants of the same line in what is now Odisha and West Bengal. Tamralipta at the Ganges mouth is the port that coast sailed from, and the chronicle's own lion ancestor is where the word Sinhala comes from.
- Canonised by textAnurādhapura
Almost everything known about Sri Lanka before the colonial period comes from this chronicle, and Anuradhapura is the capital it was compiled at, in the Mahavihara. It records Mahinda's mission, Sanghamitta bringing the Bodhi cutting, the reign lists and the tank-building, and it is the only South Asian historical record that runs unbroken for two thousand years.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Mahavamsa”. The Mahāvaṃsa, trans. Wilhelm Geiger (1912), chapters VI–VII on Vijaya; R.A.L.H. Gunawardana on the chronicle's uses.
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