¹ Catalogue of Pali, Sinhalese, and Sanskrit manuscripts in the temple libraries of Ceylon, published posthumously, Colombo, 1885, 20Google Scholar. See too de Zoysa, 's Reports on the inspection of temple libraries, Colombo, 1875, 12.Google Scholar

² Recherches sur le bouddhisme, Paris, 1892, 63, 68–71, 189, 208–9, 231–2, 273.Google Scholar

³ Manual of Indian Buddhism, Strassburg, 1896, 9.Google Scholar

⁴ ‘Ein Beitrag zur Frage ob Dhammapāla’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlāndischen Gesellschaft, LI, 1897, 105–27.Google Scholar

⁵ Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, trans. Coomaraswamy, E. M., Colombo, 1908, p. 87, n.Google Scholar

⁶ The Pali literature of Ceylon, London, 1928, p. 80Google Scholar, n. See too Malalasekera, 's Dictionary of Pali proper names, London, 1960, I, p. xvii.Google Scholar

⁷ See Ray's acknowledgement of his heavy debt to Bode, in his introduction, pp. xii–xiii.Google Scholar

⁸ Spiro, Melford E., Buddhism and society, London, 1971, ch. xiii, xviGoogle Scholar; Lester, Robert C., Theravāda Buddhism in Southeast Asia, Ann Arbor, 1973, ch. ivGoogle Scholar. See too inter alia E. Mendelson, Michael, ‘Buddhism and the Burmese establishment’, Archives de Sociologie des Religions, 17, 1964, 85–95Google Scholar, and Sarkisyanz, E., Buddhist backgrounds of the Burmese revolution, The Hague, 1965CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for material drawn from the Sāsanavaṃsa.

⁹ For Paññāsāmi's biography, see Bode, , The Pali literature of Burma, London, 1909, 91 ffGoogle Scholar. Burmese is romanized in this article according to Okell, John's system of ‘conventional transcription with accented tones’Google Scholar. My thanks to Mr. Okell for his ready assistance.

¹⁰ Paññāsāmi, , The history of the Buddha's religion (Sāsanavaṃsa), trans. Law, B. C., London, 1952, p. xvGoogle Scholar. The term Sāsanavaṃsa seems to be an abbreviation for the full title which we und being used as early as de Zoysa's reports. For the background to the Sinhalese missions (there were several), see Paññāsāmi, , op. cit., 159–61Google Scholar, and Bode, , ‘The author of the Sāsanavaḥsa’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1899, 674–6.Google Scholar

¹¹ See the discussion of multiple Pali and Burmese sources for the Sāsanavaṃsa in Bode's introduction to her 1897 edition, and in Law's introduction to his 1952 translation. De Zoysa, in his 1885 Catalogue, recognized the work was compiled chiefly from ‘annals in the Burmese language’, but he too assumed that this compilation was original with Paññāsāmi.

¹² All references to the Tha-thana-wun-thá sa-dàn tha-thana-lin-ga-yá kyàn are from the edition published at Rangoon in 1897 under the abbreviated title Tha-thana-lin-ga-yá kyàn. Unless otherwise noted, all references to the Sāsanavaṃsa are from Law's 1952 translation.

¹³ Gombrich, Richard, correspondence, 22 02, 1975Google Scholar. Gombrich has suggested that the phrase vitthāravācanā maggā Bode's 1897 edition, p. 1, 1. 8, ‘may refer to the formal arrangement of the Burmese work—i.e. he may be saying that its subdivisions are very long—and is in contrast with his statement in 1. 12 that he is arranging his work in “books”, i.e. chapters’. The Venerable M. Vajiragnana, whose assistance was obtained through the good offices of the Pali Text Society, has suggested that in Il. 11 and 12, Paññāsāmi may be saying that he is collating divergent MBS of the T to obtain a reliable version. Vajiragnana, however, agrees with Gonabrich that porāṇehi refers to authors not in ancient India, but in Burma. Here is the Venerable M. Vajiragnana's translation (presented 5 March 1975).

‘Requested by the monks who have come to a foreign land from the island of Sīhala, I will compose the Sāsanavaṃsappadīpikā. A Sāsanavaṃsappadīpikā with an elaborate method of narration and analysis was indeed composed by men of old. But as it was written only in the Mramma language, it does not convey the meaning well to the dwellers of other islands. Therefore I will write it in the original language, collating it with other books (i.e. manuscripts). May good people consider it.’

J. P. Losty, Assistant Keeper, Dep. of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library, has offered a third translation which agrees that Paññāsāmi was presenting himself as the editor and translator of an extant Burmese chronicle.

¹⁴ I am grateful to Professor Hla Pe of SOAS for sharing with me his unexcelled knowledge of Burmese literature. References consulted include Atwìn-wun, Maìng-khaing, Pí-takat-thamaing sa-dàn, Rangoon, 1915Google Scholar; ‘List of books cited’, in Stewart, J. A. and Dunn, C. W. (comp.), A Burmese-English dictionary, Rangoon, 1940Google Scholar; Bá-thaùng, , Sa-hso-daw-myà ahtouk-pat-tí, Rangoon, 1971Google Scholar. The question still remains, however, as to why Paññāsāmi entitled his work Sāsanavaṃsappa-dīpikā, if the 1831 text was entitled Tha-thana-wun-thá tha-thana-lin-ga-yá kyàn. Three possible explanations present themselves.

(a) When Paññāsāmi wrote that ‘A Sāsanavaṃsappadīpikā … was indeed composed by men of old’, he may have been saying in elliptical fashion that the work which served as the basis of his own Sāsanavaṃsappadīpikā and the title of which is not given, was composed by men of old.

(b) The text officially known as Tha-thana-wun-thá sa-dàn tha-thana-lin-ga-yá kyàn may have been popularly known by the name Tha-thana-umn-thá-padi-pí-ka, which title Paññāsāmi took over for his 1861 edition. Discrepancies between official titles and popular names for various books are not uncommon in Burmese literature.

(c) The 1831 book may have been popularly known as the Tha-thana-wun-thá. (Sāsanavaṃsa), and Paññāsāmi added the word dīpikā ‘torch’ to show that his work was intended as a commentary or illumination on the original text.

¹⁵ T, 10–11. Bá-gyì-daw's envoy, who may himself have devised the arguments presented to Maha-damá-thìn-gyan, was the Atwìn-wun Mìn-gyì Thi-rí-nan-dá-thìn-gyan. On this official, see Ya-za, Mìngyaw, ‘Wun-gyì-hmù-gyì-myà akyaùng’, Journal of the Burma Research Society, XLV, 2, 1962, 156–7Google Scholar. For Maha-damá-thìn-gyan's biography, see Nat-shin, Dagon, Sa-pyú sa-hso pouk-ko-gyaw-myà ahtouk-pat-tí, Rangoon, 1955, 118–20Google Scholar. Among the committee of scholars whom Bá-gyì-daw appointed in 1829 to write the famous Hman-nàn-ya-za-win-daw-gyì, the ex-monk Maha-damá-thìn-gyan seems to have done most of the actual composition.

¹⁶ Though not supported by modern scholarship, the identification of Yonaka and Aparanta with portions of imperial Burma was a common-place assumption of Burmese authors. Usually the Burmese divided Upper Burma into Thú-na-paran-ta, the region west of the Irrawaddy, and Tan-padi-pa, the region east of the river, but in the Sāsanavaṃsa, Aparanta is used to designate the whole area outside Lower Burma. See Bode, 1897 edition, introduction, 5–10, and Malala-sekera, , Dictionary of Pali proper names, I, 117–18Google Scholar; II, 699, 1210–11. For the identification of Suvaṇṇabhūmi with Lower Burma, which has more historical justification, see Bode, , op. cit., 4Google Scholar, and Malalasekera, , op. cit., II, 1262–3.Google Scholar

¹⁷ At the same time, the S expanded two quotations from the Samanta-pāsādikā which appear in shorter form in the T. Cf. Samanta-pāsādikā. Bāhira nidāna vaṇṇana, trans. Godahewa, P., Ambalangoda, 1954, 32–3, 50.Google Scholar

¹⁸ cf. S, 46–8, 50; T, 62, 64, 66; and Ko, Taw Sein (tr.), The Kalyānī inscriptions, Rangoon, 1892, 56, 60, 69 ff., 75.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For Paññāsāmi's arguments, see S, 13, and for Maha-damá-thìn-gyan's, T, 110. Paññāsāmi shows his indebtedness to the T even here, for 21 lines are identical to T, 109–10.

²⁰ Ten pages in T which appear immediately before the section on Prome (i.e. T, 100–9) and which deal with the monastic succession at Ava and Taung-ngu, have been broken up in the S and shifted to other positions or else omitted (see table 1). This makes the chronology slightly more coherent. Yet since the discussion of sixteenth-century Taung-ngu still precedes that of fourteenth-century Ava, the change may have been accidental (palm-leaves could have become disordered) or capricious without editorial significance. In general, S and T both suffer from a distressing tendency to treat small sections as discrete entities without due regard for the over-all narrative.

²¹ T, 1–12.

²² T, 21–6.

²³ T, 145, 148–9, 153, 155–8, 166.

²⁴ T, 151–2, 160–1.

²⁵ T, 211 ff.

²⁶ See T, 31, 96–7, 132, 144, 148.

²⁷ S, 79.

²⁸ S, 106.

²⁹ S, 5, 8, 11. Other brief homilies appear in S, 38–9, 51, 73, 109, 119, 126.

³⁰ S, 139–44.

³¹ The other major interpolations concern: the Buddha's career, S, 1–3 (source not determined); the monastic succession in ancient India, S, 14–17 (cf. Mahāvaṃsa, trans. Geiger, Wilhelm, repr., Colombo, 1960, vGoogle Scholar; and Dīpavaṃsa, trans. Oldenberg, H., London, 1879, v)Google Scholar; the Buddha's visits to Ceylon, S, 18 (cf. Mahāvaḥsa, I)Google Scholar; attributes of proper monks, S, 22–3 (perhaps original); and Sín-gu's role in the robe-wrapping dispute, S, 133 (source undetermined).

³² S, 147–61.

³³ ‘These three regions which we have just mentioned, namely Aparan-tá, Thú-wun-ná-bu-mí, and Yàw-naká, constitute the imperial possessions over which many generations of Burmese kings of solar race have ruled. Therefore… in our Burmese empire the noble Faith has come down to us after three distinct foundings’ (T, 23).

³⁴ Three pages of preface plus 172 of narrative.

³⁵ Bode, introduction to 1897 edition, and Law, , op. cit., p. x.Google Scholar

³⁶ Aung, Htin (tr.), Burmese monk's tales, New York, 1966, 15–17.Google Scholar

³⁷ cf. T, 10–11; Tin, Pe Maung, and Luce, G. H. (ed. and tr.), Glass Palace Chronicle, London, 1923, p. ix.Google Scholar

³⁸ Significantly perhaps Maha-damá-thin-gyan said that the religion in Ceylon in recent years had been brought low by such ‘heretics’ as the Portuguese, Armenians, English, and Dutch, T, 37. As we have seen, Bá-gyì-daw's fear of heresy prompted his sponsorship of the T.

³⁹ cf. T, 149, S, 105.

⁴⁰ cf. T, 188, S, 126. See pp. 144–5, nn. 21–6, for other deleted material.

⁴¹ Numerical errors have been found on S, 49, 52, 56, 62, 63, 100, 106, 117. Obviously mistranslated passages appear on S, 50, 51, 56, 89, 99, 104, 108, 111, 117, 122, 134.

⁴² S, 104.

⁴³ T, 147.

⁴⁴ S, 122.

⁴⁵ T, 184.

⁴⁶ Other examples of translated proper names are ‘King Dabbimukhajātassara’ (S, 122) as the Pali form of ‘Wùn-bè-ìn-san Mìn-tayà’ (T, 184), ‘the king who dwelled at the lake of the duck’ (i.e. Mìn-yè-kyaw-din, , 1672–1698)Google Scholar; and the town identified in S, 105 as ‘Pabbatabbhantara’, a poor translation for the Burmese, ‘Taung-dwìn-gyì’Google Scholar, meaning ‘inside the great mountain’.

⁴⁷ Thus in the quotations identified by nn. 44 and 45 above, the Burmese, ‘Nyaung-yàn’Google Scholar has been metamorphosed into ‘Ṅo-ṅa-ra-māḥ’ instead of ‘Ñṅ-raṃḥ’, which would accord with Bode's system of romanization. Bode herself was aware of the problem for in the preface to her 1897 edition, she observed, ‘Many sounds in Burmese are not adequately represented by the Siñhalese (Pāli) alphabet and copyists appear to have been sometimes at a loss, for Burmese letters are even wedged in here and there among the Siñhalese’. Law did not attempt to improve on Bode's work, but used her printed text as his source.

⁴⁸ For example, two key figures in the Restored Taung-ngu dynasty—the Yei-nè-nat-set-yaung hpòn-gyì and the Twìn-thìn-hmù-gyì—appear in the S (123, 125), but I did not recognize them until I read the corresponding passages in T (185, 188). Then too, who would recognize the ‘Jalumas’ (S, 83) as Shans? or ‘King Chattaguhinda’ (S, 75) as the famous Kyan-zit-thà?

⁴⁹ The Burmese term athi, referring to a particular category of tax-payers (T, 135) is poorly translated as ‘householders’ (S, 95). Similar confusion over the term for ‘vehicle tax’ may explain the muddled passage identified in p. 148, n. 42.