From the data furnished by these, and from corroborative sources,[1] Turnour, in addition to many elaborate contributions drawn from the recesses of Pali learning in elucidation of the chronology of India, was enabled to prepare an Epitome of the History of Ceylon, in which he has exhibited the succession and genealogy of one hundred and sixty-five kings, who filled the throne during 2341 years, extending from the invasion of the island from Bengal, by Wijayo, in the year B.C. 543 to its conquest by the British in 1798.  In this work, after infinite labour, he has succeeded in condensing the events of each reign, commemorating the founders of the chief cities, and noting the erection of the great temples and Buddhist monuments, and the construction of some of those gigantic reservoirs and works for irrigation, which, though in ruins, arrest the traveller in astonishment at their stupendous dimensions.  He thus effectually demonstrated the misconceptions of those who previously believed the literature of Ceylon to be destitute of historic materials.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Besides the Mahawanso, Rajaratnacari, and Rajavali, the other native chronicles relied on by Turnour in compiling his epitome were the Pujavali, composed in the thirteenth century, the Neekaasangraha, written A.D. 1347, and the Account of the Embassy to Siam in the reign of Raja Singha II., A.D. 1739-47, by WILBAAGEDERE MUDIANSE.]

[Footnote 2:  By the help of TURNOUR’S translation of the Mahawanso and the versions of the Rajaratnacari and Rajavali, published by Upham, two authors have since expanded the Epitome of the former into something like a connected narrative, and those who wish to pursue the investigation of the early story of the island, will find facilities in the History of Ceylon, published by KNIGHTON in 1845, and in the first volume of Ceylon and its Dependencies, by PRIDHAM, London, 1849.  To facilitate reference I have appended a Chronological List of Singhalese Sovereigns, compiled from the historical epitome of Turnour.  See Note B. at the end of this chapter.]

Besides evidence of a less definite character, there is one remarkable coincidence which affords grounds for confidence in the faithfulness of the purely historic portion of the Singhalese chronicles; due allowance being made for that exaggeration of style which is apparently inseparable from oriental recital.  The circumstance alluded to is the mention in the Mahawanso of the Chandragupta[1], so often alluded to by the Sanskrit writers, who, as Sir William Jones was the first to discover, is identical with Sandracottus or Sandracoptus, the King of the Prasii, to whose court, on the banks of the Ganges, Megasthenes was accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator, about 323 years before Christ.  Along with a multitude of facts relating to Ceylon, the Mahawanso contains a chronologically connected history of Buddhism in India from B.C. 590 to B.C. 307, a period signalized in classical story by the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, and by the Embassy of Megasthenes to Palibothra,—­events which in their results form the great link connecting the histories of the West and East, but which have been omitted or perverted in the scanty and perplexed annals of the Hindus, because they tended to the exaltation of Buddhism, a religion loathed by the Brahmans.