[28] The Mahâvaṃsa implies that he had already some acquaintance with Buddhism. It represents him as knowing that monks do not eat in the afternoon and as suggesting that it would be better to ordain the layman Bhandu.
[29] The chronicles give with some slight divergences the names of the texts on which his preaching was based. It is doubtless meant that he recited the Sutta with a running exposition.
[30] Mahâvaṃ. xx. 17.
[31] Many other places claimed to possess this relic.
[32] Of course the antiquity of the Sinhalese Bo-tree is a different question from the identity of the parent tree with the tree under which the Buddha sat.
[33] Mahâvaṃ. XVIII.; Dîpavaṃ. XV. and XVI.
[34] But he says nothing about Mahinda or Sanghamittâ and does not support the Mahâvaṃsa in details.
[35] Duṭṭha, meaning bad, angry or violent, apparently refers to the ferocity shown in his struggle with the Tamils.
[36] Dîpavaṃsa XIX. 1. Mahâvaṃsa XXVII. 1-48. See Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Architecture, 1910, pp. 238, 246. I find it hard to picture such a building raised on pillars. Perhaps it was something like the Sat-mahal-prasâda at Pollanarua.
[37] Parker, Ancient Ceylon, p. 282. The restoration of the Ruwanweli Dagoba was undertaken by Buddhists in 1873.