bly not a translation but a selection and rearrangement. Indeed
his occasional direct quotations from the ancients or from an
Atthakatha imply that the rest of the work is merely based on
the Sinhalese commentaries.

Buddhaghosa was not an independent thinker but he makes amends for his
want of originality not only by his industry and learning but by his
power of grasping and expounding the whole of an intricate subject.
His Visuddhi-magga has not yet been edited in Europe, but the extracts
and copious analysis[80] which have been published indicate that it is
a comprehensive restatement of Buddhist doctrine made with as free a
hand as orthodoxy permitted. The Mahavamsa observes that the Theras
held his works in the same estimation as the Pitakas. They are in
no way coloured by the Mahayanist tenets which were already prevalent
in India, but state in its severest form the Hinayanist creed, of
which he is the most authoritative exponent. The Visuddhi-magga is
divided into three parts treating of conduct (silam), meditation
(samadhi) and knowledge (panna), the first being the necessary
substratum for the religious life of which the others are the two
principal branches. But though he intersperses his exposition with
miraculous stories and treats exhaustively of superhuman powers, no
trace of the worship of Mahayanist Bodhisattvas is found in his works
and, as for literature, he himself is the chief authority for the
genuineness and completeness of the Pali Canon as we know it.

When we find it said that his works were esteemed as highly as the
Pitakas, or that the documents which he translated into Pali were
the words of the Buddha,[81] the suspicion naturally arises that the
Pali Canon may be in part his composition and it may be well to review
briefly its history in Ceylon. Our knowledge appears to be derived
entirely from the traditions of the Mahavihara which represent Mahinda
as teaching the text of the Pitakas orally, accompanied by a
commentary. If we admit the general truth of the narrative concerning
Mahinda's mission, there is nothing improbable in these statements,
for it would be natural that an Indian teacher should know by heart
his sacred texts and the commentaries on them. We cannot of course
assume that the Pitakas of Mahinda were the Pali Canon as we know
it, but the inscriptions of Asoka refer to passages which can be found
in that canon and therefore parts of it at any rate must have been
accepted as