IJSRP, Volume 9, Issue 7, July 2019 Edition [ISSN 2250-3153]
Dr. Nadeesha Gunawardana
Abstract:
The S?halavatthuppakara?a is one of the oldest surviving sources, the credit of discovering this goes to Mr. K. D. Somad?sa, the assistant librarian of the University of Ceylon. When he was making a list of palm leaves that were in the monasteries of the Southern province, received the initial copy of S?halavatthu in Burmese. Mr. K. D. Somadasa handed over it to the Ven. Polvatte Buddhadatta for transliteration in Sinhalese characters. When the book was found, it was crumbled down owing to the dilapidated state of the manuscript. Having translated the manuscript Ven. Polvatte Buddhatta published an article in the Silumina newspaper. After reading, the newspaper article by Ven. Hunupitiye Saddhammaa??lankara handed over a copy in Burmese, which was in his possession. When he was in Burma in 1923 copied the above manuscript. Due to the untiring effort of the Ven. Polvatt? Buddhadatta another Burmese manuscript of S?halavatthuppakara?a has found from the Mah?kappinna Mudalind?r?maya in Vlithara in Sri Lanka (Buddhadatta thera Polvatte, 2014: viii). Following the due clarification, Rev. Polvatt? Buddhadatta is credited to have published this manuscript. This was a Pali work written in Burmese (Buddhadatta thera Polvatte, 1959: ix). This can be illustrated as one of the oldest books available right now and further, the way in which the P?li language is used in this particular book proves the above fact. This book recalls us where P?li, as a language was not highly used for writing. Further, the book seems to have many grammatical errors. However, Sirima Wikramsinghe in the book of the
Anur?dhapura era mentions that D?pava?sa, written before the 5th century A.C., was the first attempt, to write the Sri Lankan history by way of traditional historical reports (2014:2). It should be noted that S?halavatthuppakara?a is much older than the D?pava?sa.