The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c32.29

v1.c32.29

In the month Jeṭṭha of the year of Devānampiya's coronation (c. 246 B.C.) the Buddhist apostle Mahinda², son of the Maurya King Açoka (Dhammāsoka), miraculously travelled to Ceylon in company with the four friars Iṭṭhiya, Uttiya, Sambala, and Bhaddasāla and the novice Sumana, son of his sister Saṅghamittā. He alighted at Mahindatala³, where he met Devānampiya and converted him and his people (*Mhv.* XIII, XIV). The Mahāmegha-vana, a park south of Anurādhapura, was assigned to the service of the new Church, and the buildings erected in it were known afterwards as the Mahāvihāra (*Mhv.* XV). On the spot where Mahinda had alighted was built the Chetiyapabbata-vihāra (*Mhv.* XVI). A *thūpa* (Skt. *stūpa*) and a monastery in connection with it, the Thūpārāma, were constructed at the south of Anurādhapura to receive the collar-bone of the Buddha (*Mhv.* XVII), and the southern branch of the famous Bodhi-tree of Gayā was brought and planted at Anurādhapura in the eighteenth year of Asoka's reign (*Mhv.* XVIII–XX).