Buddhism’s Oldest History Revisited: A New Text of the <i>Dīpavaṃsa</i>
The <i>Dīpavaṃsa</i> (<i>Dīp</i>), the first historical account of the Buddhist religion that has survived in Pali, is widely known through Oldenberg’s late-19th century edition (designated hereafter O). The editor himself admitted it was faulty due to the quality of his Sri...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-05-01
|
| Series: | Religions |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/5/593 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | The <i>Dīpavaṃsa</i> (<i>Dīp</i>), the first historical account of the Buddhist religion that has survived in Pali, is widely known through Oldenberg’s late-19th century edition (designated hereafter O). The editor himself admitted it was faulty due to the quality of his Sri Lankan manuscript sources, all of which he thought were derived from a faulty Burmese exemplar. This problematic edition prompted new printed editions of <i>Dīp</i> in Sri Lanka and Myanmar in the 1920s, but Western scholarship established it as a ‘problem’ text, and it was thus generally neglected in favour of the later <i>Mahāvaṃsa</i>. A new edition of <i>Dīp</i> has long been a desideratum, and in 2004 Frasch pointed out the existence of a Burmese manuscript of a different text of the work, which, for the purposes of the present discussion, we designate B1. The present authors identified two further mss. of this version and have begun editing a new edition based on this in comparison to Oldenberg and other Burmese mss. The Burmese sources reveal an occasionally faulty but widely disseminated text, designated B2, that is not dissimilar to O, plus the rather ‘better’ text of B1. In addition, we have also identified the so-called ‘Dīpavaṃsa-ṭīkā’, properly named the <i>Sāsanajotikā</i>, as a commentary on B1 by the major 19th century Burmese scholar Jāgara. The present article will give details of this analysis. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |