the
throne.

The tooth is now preserved in a temple at Kandy. The visitor looking
through a screen of bars can see on a silver table a large jewelled
case shaped like a bell. Flowers scattered on the floor or piled on
other tables fill the chamber with their heavy perfume. Inside the
bell are six other bells of diminishing size, the innermost of which
covers a golden lotus containing the sacred tooth. But it is only on
rare occasions that the outer caskets are removed. Worshippers as a
rule have to content themselves with offering flowers[73] and bowing
but I was informed that the priests celebrate _puja_ daily before the
relic. The ceremony comprises the consecration and distribution of
rice and is interesting as connecting the veneration of the tooth with
the ritual observed in Hindu temples. But we must return to the
general history of Buddhism in Ceylon.

3

The kings who ruled in the fifth century were devout Buddhists and
builders of viharas but the most important event of this period, not
merely for the island but for the whole Buddhist church in the south,
was the literary activity of Buddhaghosa who is said to have resided
in Ceylon during the reign of Mahanama. The chief authorities for his
life are a passage in the continuation of the Mahavamsa[74] and the
Buddhaghosuppatti, a late Burmese text of about 1550, which, while
adding many anecdotes, appears not to come from an independent
source.[75] The gist of their account is that he was born in a Brahman
family near Gaya and early obtained renown as a disputant. He was
converted to Buddhism by a monk named Revata and began to write
theological treatises.[76] Revata observing his intention to
compose a commentary on the Pitakas, told him that only the text
(palimattam) of the scriptures was to be found in India, not the
ancient commentaries, but that the Sinhalese commentaries were
genuine, having been composed in that language by Mahinda. He
therefore bade Buddhaghosa repair to Ceylon and translate these
Sinhalese works into the idiom of Magadha, by which Pali must be
meant. Buddhaghosa took this advice and there is no reason to distrust
the statement of the Mahavamsa that he arrived in the reign of
Mahanama, who ruled according to Geiger from 458 to 480, though the
usual reckoning places him about fifty years earlier. The fact that
Fa-Hsien, who visited Ceylon about 412, does not mention Buddhaghosa
is in favour of Geiger's chronology.[77]

He first