The sovereigns who succeeded Maha Sen are distinguished as the “Sulu-wanse,” the “lower race,” and the story of their line occupies the continuation of this extraordinary chronicle, the second portion of which was written by order of the illustrious king Prakrama Bahu, about the year A.D. 1266, and the narrative was carried on, under subsequent sovereigns, down to the year A.D. 1758, the latest chapters having been compiled by command of the King of Kandy, Kirti-Sri, partly from Singhalese works brought back to the island from Siam (whither they had been carried at former periods by priests dispatched upon missions), and partly from native histories, which had escaped the general destruction of such records in the reign of Raja Singha I., an apostate from Buddhism, who, about the year A.D. 1590, during the period when the Portuguese were in occupation of the low country, exterminated the priests of Buddha, and transferred the care of the shrine on Adam’s Peak to Hindu Fakirs.

But the Mahawanso, although the most authentic, and probably the most ancient, is by no means the only existing Singhalese chronicle.  Between the 14th and 18th centuries several historians recorded passing events; and as these corroborate and supplement the narrative of the greater work, they present an uninterrupted Historical Record of the highest authenticity, comprising the events of nearly twenty-four centuries.[1]

[Footnote 1:  In 1833 Upham published, under the title of The Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, translations of what professed to be authentic copies of the Mahawanso, the Rajaratnacari, and Rajavali; prepared for the use of Sir Alexander Johnston when Chief-Justice of the island.  But Turnour, in the introduction to his masterly translation of the Mahawanso; has shown that Sir Alexander had been imposed upon, and that the alleged transcripts supplied to him are imperfect as regards the original text and unfaithful as translations.  Of the Mahawanso in particular, Mr. Turnour says, in a private letter which I have seen, that the early part of Upham’s volume “is not a translation but a compendium of several works, and the subsequent portions a mutilated abridgment.”  The Rajavali, which is the most valuable of these volumes, was translated for Sir Alexander Johnston by Mr. Dionysius Lambertus Pereira, who was then Interpreter-Moodliar to the Cutchery at Matura.  These English versions, though discredited as independent authorities, are not without value in so far as they afford corroborative support to the genuine text of the Mahawanso, and on this account I have occasionally cited them.]