A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s5.127

v2.c19.s5.127

¹ The title signifies "history of the Buddhas; " for the Pāli word Vaṃsa (Sanskrit vaṃśa) means "line of a pedigree, or genealogy," hence also the "chronicle" or the "history" of a race, dynasty, line of teachers and so on; hence the meaning was extended to embrace any "history" going back to earliest beginnings, in such titles as Buddhavamsa, Dīpavaṃsa, Mahāvaṃsa, Thūpavaṃsa, Dāṭhāvaṃsa, etc., similarly in the Sanskrit titles Harivaṃśa, Raghuvaṃśa, etc.