Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v1.c23.1072

v1.c23.1072

The chief event in the reign of Devānampiyatissa was the arrival of Mahinda in Ceylon. He arrived at the head of a mission in the year of the king's second coronation. Mahinda met the king hunting on the full-moon day of Jeṭṭha. The king welcomed him with great honour and speedily embraced the new religion, to which Asoka had already drawn his attention. His conversion was the direct result of Mahinda's preaching of the Cūlahatthipadopama Sutta. His earlier religion is not known, it may have been Jainism. His example was followed by a large number of his subjects, many of whom entered the Order. Devānampiyatissa dedicated to their use the Nandana park and the Mahāmeghavana, which he himself had laid out a little earlier. In the Mahāmeghavana he built the famous Mahā-Vihāra which, for many centuries, remained the centre of the orthodox religion in Ceylon. The dedication of the Mahā-Vihāra took place in the two hundred and thirty-sixth year after the death of the Buddha. The king's next pious work was the erection of the Cetiyapab-bata-vihāra and he, later, built the Thūpārāma, containing the Buddha's right collar-bone.