Original - Ordo Fratres Lucis

INTRODUCTION. XV
wimfma wastu prakaranaya, PH suddba Saka rfg a waru-.
shayen ekwii dahas sasiya de ami weni warshayehi dl kota
nimawana ladi.
This SiDghalese version of the Wimfma Wastu consisting
of over 175 verses, 18 hfmawaras, 4,G75 granthas, and
1,496,000 letters, was completed in the year of King Saka,
1692, by Katnapftla Sthavira proficient in Prosody,
Grammar, Botany, Mathematics, and various other
sciences born of the Gahapati race in the village
Gammulla, in the vicinity of Waggullena in the Asgiri
Korale of the Mfitula district, and pupil of the venerable
Sangha raja s pupil, Dhammarakkhita Sthavira, High
Priest of the Uposatha Temple, whose virtues were
resplendent in various parts as the rays of the sun, living
of His
.at the Puspfiriima Temple, and on the bounty
Majesty, at the request of the faithful, wise, and zealous
Thera Indajoti, of Gahgedara, for the benefit of those
religious and virtuous persons, unable to preach in
Singhalese from Pali.
There is hardly anything to be said as regards the style
of the Yimiina Yatthu. Being a small treatise of questions
and answers, it is in easy and intelligible language, which
to be akin to the other text-books of the Khuddaka
appears
Nikaya.
I had to encounter great difficulties in securing a correct
copy of the work. Not being
a book that is often read or
quoted, it had not undergone a recent revision, and the
careless and perfunctory manner in which it had been
handled by the copyists, who, as a rule, are ignorant of the
language also, had altered the version so considerably, that
but for the kind assistance that I derived from His Royal
Highness, the Siamese Prince Bhfumrangsi, who greatly
obliged me by presenting me with a correct copy of the
Text and Commentary in the Cambodian characters, I am
doubtful whether I should have succeeded in editing this
work. In the Ceylon copies several of the stories were