A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s5.122

v2.c19.s5.122

The monks in the monasteries of Ceylon were not, however, merely occupied with the collection of legends and the explanation and elucidation of the canonical texts. From the earliest times onwards, they made it their business also to record in the form of chronicles the chief events in the h· of the Buddhist monastic community. The account of the councils in the Culla-Vagga of the Vinayapiṭaka already betokens historical interest. The commentary on the Kathāvatthu¹ contains an account of the sects and schools, which is of paramount importance for the history of the schisms in the earliest Buddhist community. Moreover, the Singhalese Aṭṭhakathās, already mentioned several times, which were studied with much diligence by Buddhaghosa and were utilised by Dhammapāla too, contained sections on ecclesiastical history. These sections presumably formed the introductions to the Aṭṭhakathās, which deal with the Vinaya. Buddhaghosa followed them and drew upon them when he prefaced his Samanta-Pāsādikā, the commentary on the Vinayapiṭaka, by an historical introduction.² The same Aṭṭhakathās are also the sources from which the historical and epic Pāli poems of Ceylon are derived; for the Pāli chronicles of Ceylon, the Dīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa,³ cannot be termed actual histories, but only "historical poems."