This shows clearly that Turnour made a mistake in translating this exceedingly involved, yet perfectly intelligible, passage, and that so far from proving that the author of the commentary was the same person as the author of the text[1], it proves the very contrary. Nay, I feel bound to add, that we might now argue that as the commentator must have lived later than 601 A.D., the fact that he too breaks off at verse 48 of chapter 37, seems to show that at his time also the Mahavamsa did not extend as yet beyond that verse. But even then, the fact that with the restoration of the Mahavihara of Anuradhapura an interest in historical studies revived in Ceylon, would clearly show that we may trust the date of Buddhaghosa, as fixed by the second part of the 37th chapter of the Mahavamsa, at all events till stronger evidence is brought forward against such a date.

Now I am not aware of any such evidence[2]. On the contrary, making allowance for a difference of some ten or twenty years, all the evidence which we can gain from other quarters tends to confirm, the date of

[1. Dr. Oldenberg informs me that the commentator quotes various readings in the text of the Mahavamsa.

2. The passage, quoted by Professor Minayeff from the Sasanavamsa, would assign to Buddhaghosa the date of 930-543 = 387 A.D., which can easily be reconciled with his accepted date. If he is called the contemporary of Siripala, we ought to know who that Siripala is.]

p. xxi Buddhaghosa[1]. I therefore feel no hesitation in here reprinting that story, as we find it in the Mahavamsa, not free from legendary ingredients, it is true, yet resting, I believe, on a sound foundation of historical fact.