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Concept
Cūḷavaṃsa
Summary
The Cūḷavaṃsa or Chulavamsa (Pāli: "Lesser Chronicle") is a historical record, written in the Pali language, of the monarchs of Sri Lanka. It covers the period from the 4th century to 1815. The Cūḷavaṃsa was compiled over many years by Buddhist monks, and displays a variety of epic styles. It is generally considered to be a sequel to the Mahavamsa ("Great Chronicle") written in the 6th century by the monk Mahanama. The Mahavamsa and the Cūḷavaṃsa are sometimes thought of as a single work (referred to as the "Mahavamsa") spanning over two millennia of Sri Lankan history.
The Cūḷavaṃsa is a continuation of the Mahavamsa. But unlike the Mahavamsa it was written by different authors at different periods. The Cūḷavaṃsa is divided into two parts.
The first part, chapters thirty-seven to seventy-nine, begins with the 4th century arrival of a tooth relic of Siddhartha Gautama to Sri Lanka and continues to the reign of Parakramabahu the Great (1153–1186) in the 12th century, and was written in the 13th century. While the authorship of the first part is traditionally ascribed to the Buddhist monk Thera Dhammakitti, many historians now believe it to be a collaborative effort, written by a number of monks.
The second part, whose author remains unknown, records Sri Lankan history from the 12th century, with the reign of Vijayabahu II and continues the history of the Sinhalese monarchy to that of Parakramabahu IV (Chaps. 80-90). Within the second part the section of the chronicle which deals with the period from Parakramabahu IV to the death of Kirti Sri Rajasinha was compiled by Tibbotuvāve Sumangala Thera, while the last chapter was continued to 1815 by Hikkaduve Siri Sumangala. This portion of the chronicle has not been assigned a definite authorship and is generally considered inferior, both in style and in factual reliability, to Dhammakitti’s portion.
Tradition has it that the work was compiled by the monk Dhammakitti, whom Geiger regards as 'a man of literary culture ... acquainted with Indian Niti literature'.
Official source
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