The History of the Buddha's Relic Shrine: A Translation of the Sinhala Thupavamsa (Aar Texts and Translations) PDF
Preview The History of the Buddha's Relic Shrine: A Translation of the Sinhala Thupavamsa (Aar Texts and Translations)
the history of the buddha’s relic shrine texts and translations series series editor Mark Csikszentmihalyi,University of Wisconsin-Madison A Publication Series ofThe American Academy ofReligion and OxfordUniversity Press THESABBATHJOURNALOF Translated,withanIntroduction JUDITHLOMAX bySimonKaplan EditedbyLauraHobgood-Oster IntroductoryessaybyLeoStrauss Introductoryessaysforthesecondeditionby THEANTICHRISTLEGEND StevenS.SchwarzchildandKennethSeeskin AChapterinJewishandChristianFolklore WilhelmBousset DURKHEIMONRELIGION TranslatedbyA.H.Keane E´mileDurkheim IntroductionbyDavidFrankfurter EditedbyW.S.F.Pickering LANGUAGE,TRUTH,AND ONTHEGLAUBENSLEHRE RELIGIOUSBELIEF TwoLetterstoDr.Lu¨cke StudiesinTwentieth-CenturyTheory FriedrichD.E.Schleiermacher andMethodinReligion TranslatedbyJamesDuke EditedbyNancyK.Frankenberry andFrancisFiorenza andHansH.Penner HERMENEUTICS BETWEENHEGELAND TheHandwrittenManuscripts KIERKEGAARD FriedrichD.E.Schleiermacher HansL.Martensen’sPhilosophyofReligion EditedbyHeinaKimmerle TranslationsbyCurtisL.Thompson TranslatedbyJamesDukeandJackForstman andDavidJ.Kangas THESTUDYOFSTOLENLOVE IntroductionbyCurtisL.Thompson TranslatedbyDavidC.Buck EXPLAININGRELIGION andK.Paramasivam CriticismandTheoryfromBodintoFreud THEDAOISTMONASTICMANUAL J.SamuelPreus ATranslationoftheFengdaoKejie DIALECTIC LiviaKohn or,TheArtofDoingPhilosophy SACREDANDPROFANEBEAUTY AStudyEditionofthe1811Notes TheHolyinArt FriedrichD.E.Schleiermacher GarardusvanderLeeuw TranslatedwithIntroduction PrefacebyMirceaEliade andNotesbyTerenceN.Tice TranslatedbyDavidE.Green THESOURCEOFHUMANGOOD Withanewintroductionandbibliography HenryN.Wieman byDianeApostolos-Cappadona WithanIntroductionbyMarvinC.Shaw THEHISTORYOFTHEBUDDHA’S RELIGIONOFREASON RELICSHRINE OutoftheSourcesofJudaism ATranslationoftheSinhalaThu¯pavamsa _ HermannCohen StephenC.Berkwitz X the history of the buddha’s relic shrine A Translation of the Sinhala Thu¯pavamsa _ Stephen C. Berkwitz 1 2007 1 OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,publishesworksthatfurther OxfordUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellence inresearch,scholarship,andeducation. Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright#2007byTheAmericanAcademyofReligion PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ParakramaPandita,13thcent. [SinhalaThupavamsa.English] ThehistoryoftheBuddha’srelicshrine:atranslationoftheSinhalaThupavamsa/ StephenC.Berkwitz. p. cm.—(AmericanAcademyofReligiontextsandtranslationsseries) TranslatedfromSinhalese. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN-13978-0-19-530139-7 ISBN0-19-530139-0 1. Ruwanweliseya(Anuradhapura,SriLanka)—History. 2. Buddhism—SriLanka—History. 3. GautamaBuddha—Relics—SriLanka— Anuradhapura—History. I. Berkwitz,StephenC.,1969– II. Title. III. Series. BQ6333.A582R887132006 294.3'435095493—dc22 2006046363 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper Dedicated with my deep appreciation and respect to Professor W. S. Karunatillake and Professor G. D. Wijayawardhana This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments TheproductionofTheHistoryoftheBuddha’sRelicShrine,fromtheinitial translation through its publication, was a long process that depended on thekindassistance andencouragementofmanypeople.Thisworkgrew outofdoctoralresearchthatIconductedinSriLankabetween1995and 1997 under the auspices of a Fulbright Junior Fellowship and the Uni- versityofKelaniya,whichservedasmyhostinstitutionatthattime.Tissa Jayatilaka of the U.S.-S.L. Fulbright Commission was instrumental in facilitating the arrangements that allowed me to spend many months in Sri Lanka learning to read Classical Sinhala one page at a time. I was extremely fortunate to have been assigned to work with Professor W. S. Karunatillake at Kelaniya, who generously committed to working with me forseveralmonthsand provided invaluable encouragement and sup- port with this project. Mygood fortunecontinued when Professor G.D. Wijayawardhana agreed to assist me with my work. I undertook this translation under the guidance of these two professors, although I am solelyresponsibleforanyerrorsordeficienciesherein.Bothprofessorsare truly extraordinary scholars and wonderful human beings. I feel a tre- mendous amount of gratitude to them for opening up the rich corpus of classical Sinhalaliterature tome. I must also acknowledge the support and encouragement I received formyworkontheSinhalaThu¯pavamsafrommydissertationcommittee: _ viii acknowledgments NinianSmart,GeraldJ.Larson,BarbaraHoldrege,andCharlesHallisey. Charles Hallisey played a particularly important role in turning my at- tention to this particular Sinhala text and persuading me to focus more narrowly on a single vamsa text, rather than on the entire genre of Bud- _ dhisthistoricalwriting.Itisunlikelythatthistranslationwouldhaveever been made, much less published, if it were not for the guidance of these four scholars. Their respective examples and confidence in me continues to be inspiring. Thepublicationprocesshasbeenlong,butultimatelyworthwhile.Pre- paring a complete English translation of a lengthy, thirteenth-century Sinhala history is not easy, especially since there are precious few con- ventionsandstandardstouse.Andgiventhelimitedfamiliaritywiththis literature in the West, it was not easy finding a publisher. Thus I am extremely grateful to Cynthia Read at Oxford University Press for her interest,patience,andsupportconcerningthiswork.WorkingwithCyn- thia,JuliaTerMaat,LindaDonnelly,MargaretCase,andmanyothersat OUP has been a delightful experience. Likewise, I owe a great deal of thanks to Mark Csikszentmihalyi, former editor of the American Acad- emyofReligion’sTextsandTranslationsSeriesandthepersonwhofirst expressedinterestinmyworkandthenshepherdeditthroughthereview process.Theanonymousreviewersofmytranslationdevotedtheirtimeto going through my manuscript and making numerous suggestions for its improvement.Iwishtothankthemforcommittingthemselvestotheoften thanklessjobofreviewingabookmanuscript. Brill Academic Publishers, the publisher ofmy book Buddhist History intheVernacular:ThePowerofthePastinLateMedievalSriLanka(2004), generously allowed me to reproduce many quotations here that also ap- pear in my book-length study of Buddhist history writing as a form of religiousandethicalpractice.Inthisearlierwork,Ianalyzeandtheorize about the writing of historical narratives in Sri Lankan Buddhism. Al- though some of the arguments from Buddhist History in the Vernacular appearintheintroductiontothistranslation,Iencouragereaderstocon- sult this work in its entirety to see how I interpret works such as the Sinhala Thu¯pavamsa. _ Finally, as always, I wish to acknowledge my family and friends for believing in me and not questioning my sanity while I dedicated many yearstothetaskofreadingandtranslatingSinhalatexts.Mywife,Imali, has been a constant and invaluable source of encouragement, while my acknowledgments ix daughter, Rashmi,reminds meofthe satisfaction to begainedoutside of mywork.Myparents,RobertandPamelaBerkwitz,andmyparents-in- law, Somasiri and Sumanaseeli Dabare, gave me their support and took pleasureinmyaccomplishmentsalongtheway.Andtherehavebeenmany otherswhohavecontributedtothiswork,includingsomewhoprobablydo notevenrealizeit.Sufficeittosay,Iamgratefultoallthosewhoshowedan interestinmytranslationandthosewhohelpedmetoaccomplishit.
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