Mahāvaṃsa

Common card · No. 360731

Mahāvaṃsa (Pali: මහාවංස, romanized: Mahāvaṃsa Sinhala: මහාවංශ, romanized: Mahāvansha) is the historical chronicle of Sri Lanka until the period of Mahasena of Anuradhapura. It was written in the style of an epic poem written in the Pali language. It relates the history of Sri Lanka from its legendary beginnings up to the reign of Mahasena of Anuradhapura covering the period between the arrival of Prince Vijaya from India in 543 BCE to his reign and later updated by different writers. It was first composed by a Buddhist monk named Mahānāma at the Mahavihāraya Temple in Anuradhapura in the 5th or 6th-century. The Mahāvaṃsa first came to the attention of Western researchers around 1809, when Sir Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of the British Ceylon, sent manuscripts of it and other Sri Lankan chronicles (written in mainly Sinhala language being the main language of Sri Lanka) to Europe for translation and publication. Eugène Burnouf produced a Romanized transliteration and translation into...

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