On the Chronicles of Ceylon

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III. Historical Position – 87 The same is utilized by the chroniclers of other places for explaining the foundation of Śākya territories elsewhere. 139 I have shown elsewhere that the story of the decimation of the Śākyas in the Buddha’s lifetime is falsified by the Pali canonical representation of the Śākyas of Kapilavatthu as one of the powerful claimants for the bodily remains of the Buddha. 140 The earlier chronicle has nothing more to say than this that the Śākya princess Kaccānā who came to the island from Jambudīpa (India) became the chief queen of Paṇḍuvāsa. The relationship of Paṇḍuvāsa with Vijaya is not mentioned, nor is it said that he came across from India. The Dīpavaṁsa is silent about the territory from which Kaccānā came and the circumstances under which she had to leave her father’s territory. 141 The missing links are ingeniously supplied in the Mahāvaṁsa. We are told that the princess Bhaddakaccānā, too, came in a ship with her retinue, all in the guise of female wandering ascetics (paribbājikā) 142 evidently to evade the risk of being attacked by pirates on the way. The fascination of the number thirty-three for the chronicler lay apparently in the theological motive to suggest that the island was converted into a heaven of the thirty-three gods and goddesses. 139 Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, p. 238. 140 B.C. Law, Some Kṣatriya Tribes of Ancient India, Chap. V. 141 Dīpavaṁsa, X, 1-2. 142 Mahāvaṁsa, VIII, 24: The landing place of the princess is said to have been Goṇagāma apparently at the mouth of the same river called Mahākandara.
III. Historical Position – 88 The chronicles did not stop there. They would bring into the island the seven Śākya prince, all grandsons of Amitodana, a brother of Suddhodana, to figure as seven gāmaṇīs or village headmen. 143 The seven settlements of these princes, all brothers of Bhaddakaccānā, were respectively named after them as Rāmagāma, Tissagāma, Anurādhagāma, Mahāligāma, Dīghāvugāma, Rohiṇīgāma. 144 The Mahāvaṁsa omits the name of Tissa and spells the name of the seventh prince as Rohaṇa. It credits Anurādha also with the excavation of a tank to the south of Anurādhagāma. 145 The parallelism between the two rāja-paramparās is brought out thus in the Dīpavaṁsa: In the ninth year of Ajātasattu’s reign Vijaya came to Ceylon. In the sixteenth year of Udaya’s reign Paṇḍuvāsa was crowned. In the [52] interval between the two kings, Vijaya and Paṇḍuvāsa, the island had no king for one year. In the twenty-first year of Nāgadāsa, Paṇḍuvāsa died and Abhaya was crowned. In the fourteenth year of Candagutta king Pakuṇḍaka died and his son Muṭasiva was consecrated. In the eighteenth year of Asoka king Muṭasiva died to be succeeded by his son Devānaṁpiya Tissa. 146 Pakuṇḍaka of the Dīpavaṁsa is the same king as Paṇḍuka Abhaya of the Mahāvaṁsa, father of Muṭasiva and grandfather of Tissa. The identity of the two is suggested in the Dīpavaṁsa itself. 147 143 Dīpavaṁsa, X, 6-7; Mahāvaṁsa, IX, 15. 144 Dīpavaṁsa, Chap. X. 145 Mahāvaṁsa, Chap. IX, vv. 9-11. 146 Dīpavaṁsa, XI, 8-14. 147 Ibid.,X, 9; XI, 1-2
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