There is one difficulty still remaining with regard to the date of the historian Mahanama which might have perplexed Turnour's mind, and has certainly proved a stumbling-block to myself. Turnour thought that the author of the commentary on the Mahavamsa, the Vamsatthappakasini, was the same as the author of the Mahavamsa, viz. Mahanama. The date of that commentary, however, as we know now, must be fixed much later, for it speaks of a schism which took place in the year 601 A.D., during the reign of Agrabodhi (also called Dhatapatisso). Turnour[1] looked

[1. Introduction, p. liii.]

p. xviii upon that passage as a later interpolation, because he thought the evidence for the identity of the author and the commentator of the Mahavamsa too strong to be set aside. He trusted chiefly to a passage in the commentary, and if that passage had been correctly rendered, the conclusion which be drew from it could hardly be resisted. We read in the Mahavamsa (p. 254):

'Certain members of the Moriyan dynasty, dreading the power of the (usurper) Subho, the balattho, had settled in various parts of the country, concealing themselves. Among them there was a certain landed proprietor Dhatusena, who had established himself at Nandivapi. His son named Dhata, who lived at the village Ambiliyago, had two sons, Dhatusena and Silatissabodhi, of unexceptional descent. Their mother's brother (Mahanama), devoted to the cause of religion, continued to reside (at Anuradhapura) in his sacerdotal character, at the edifice built by the minister Dighasandana. The youth Dhatusena became a priest in his fraternity, and on a certain day, while he was chaunting at the foot of a tree, a shower of rain fell, and a Naga, seeing him there, encircled him in his folds, and covered him and his book with his hood. . . . Causing an image of Maha Mahinda to be made, and conveying it to the edifice (Ambamalaka) in which the thera's body had been burnt, in order that be might celebrate a great festival there, and that he might also promulgate the contents of the Dipavamsa, distributing a thousand pieces, he caused it to be read aloud[1].'

If we compare with this extract from the Mahavamsa a passage from the commentary as translated by Turnour, we can well understand how he arrived at the conclusion that it was written by the same person who wrote the Mahavamsa.

Turnour translates (p. liv):

'Upon these data by me, the thera, who had, with due

[1. Mr. Turnour added a note in which he states that Dipavamsa is here meant for Mahavamsa, but whether brought down to this period, or only to the end of the reign of Mahasena, to which alone the Tika extends, there is no means of ascertaining (p. 257).]