the conversion of Ceylon and the immediately subsequent period,
and the three works appear to be rearrangements of a single
source known as the Aṭṭhakathâ, Sihalaṭṭhakathâ, or the words of the
Porâṇa (ancients). These names were given to commentaries on the
Tipiṭaka written in Sinhalese prose interspersed with Pali verse and
several of the greater monasteries had their own editions of them,
including a definite historical section.[21] It is probable that at the
beginning of the fifth century A.D. and perhaps in the fourth century
the old Sinhalese in which the prose parts of the Atthakathâ were
written was growing unintelligible, and that it was becoming more and
more the fashion to use Pali as the language of ecclesiastical
literature, for at least three writers set themselves to turn part of
the traditions not into the vernacular but into Pali. The earliest and
least artistic is the unknown author of the short chronicle called
Dîpavamsa, who wrote between 302 A.D. and 430 A.D.[22] His work is weak
both as a specimen of Pali and as a narrative and he probably did little
but patch together the Pali verses occurring from time to time in the
Sinhalese prose of the Atthakathâ. Somewhat later, towards the end of
the fifth century, a certain Mahânâma arranged the materials out of
which the Dîpavamsa had been formed in a more consecutive and artistic
form, combining ecclesiastical and popular legends.[23] His work, known
as the Mahâvamsa, does not end with the reign of Eḷâra, like the
Dîpavamsa, but describes in 15 more chapters the exploits of
Duṭṭhagâmaṇi and his successors ending with Mahâsena.[24] The third
writer, Buddhaghosa, apparently lived between the authors of the two
chronicles. His voluminous literary activity will demand our attention
later but so far as history is concerned his narrative is closely
parallel to the Mahâvamsa.[25]

The historical narrative is similar in all three works. After the