re he conceived the idea that he
was a Buddha, an idea which had not been entirely absent from the
minds of Alompra and Hsin-byu-shin. It is to the credit of the Theras
that, despite the danger of opposing an autocrat as cruel as he was
crazy, they refused to countenance these pretensions and the king
returned to his palace as an ordinary monarch.

If he could not make himself a Buddha, he at least disposed of the Ekamsika
dispute, and was probably influenced in his views by Nanabhivamsa, a monk
of the Parupana school whom he made his chaplain, although Atula was still
alive. At first he named a commission of enquiry, the result of which was
that the Ekamsikas admitted that their practice could not be justified from
the scriptures but only by tradition. A royal decree was issued enjoining
the observance of the Parupana discipline, but two years later Atula
addressed a letter to the king in which he maintained that the Ekamsika
costume was approved in a work called Culaganthipada, composed by
Moggalana, the immediate disciple of the Buddha. The king ordered
representatives of both parties to examine this contention and the debate
between them is dramatically described in the Sasanavamsa. It was
demonstrated that the text on which Atula relied was composed in Ceylon by
a thera named Moggalana who lived in the twelfth century and that it quoted
mediaeval Sinhalese commentaries. After this exposure the Ekamsika party
collapsed. The king commanded (1784) the Parupana discipline to be observed
and at last the royal order received obedience.

It will be observed that throughout this controversy both sides
appealed to the king, as if he had the right to decide the point in
dispute, but that his decision had no compelling power as long as it
was not supported by evidence. He could ensure toleration for views
regarded by many as heretical, but was unable to force the views of
one party on the other until the winning cause had publicly disproved
the contentions of its opponents. On the other hand the king had
practical control of the hierarchy, for his chaplain was _de facto_
head of the Church and the appointment was strictly personal. It was
not the practice for a king to take on his predecessor's chaplain and
the latter could not, like a Lamaist or Catholic ecclesiastic, claim
any permanent supernatural powers. Bodopaya did something towards
organizing the hierarchy for he appointed four elders of repute to
be Sangharajas or,