The Mahavihara of Anuradhapura

Who holds it

Name

not pinned for 1200 (Mahakassapa and Sariputta are the heads of the 1165 reform; neither is known to be alive in 1200)

Title

The head of the Mahavihara line of the united Sangha

Since

not known

Born

not known

Confidence

low

Overlord

The crown (Lilavati), which appoints the head and protects the order

What it holds

• Monastic estates round Anuradhapura
• The Ruwanwelisaya, the Sri Maha Bodhi and the Thuparama as shrines
• The tradition and chronicle of the Mahavihara (the Culavamsa is its work)

Allies and rivals

The crown (Lilavati), which appoints the head and protects the order

How things stand that morning

Honoured but diminished; the Sangha's centre of gravity is at Polonnaruwa.

Wealth

Estates and gifts.

Military

No armed force is recorded for the house.

Threats

• A Hindu conqueror (Magha, 1215, later)
• Decay of the tanks

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry mahavihara-anuradhapura, ruwanwelisaya and sri-maha-bodhi are the monastery and its two great shrines: accepted.
• The assignment asks for the Mahavihara and the Abhayagiri as separate fraternities. After Parakramabahu I's reform of 1165 there is one order; we keep two records for the two sites.

Evidence: The shrine or community is real, but what it held and who ran it in 1200 is inferred from general or later accounts; no page we read dates anything about it to 1200.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Drawn as a small disc round the shrine; the real estates were scattered villages.

Primary sources for Lanka (Polonnaruwa)

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Lesser Chronicle (the continuation of the Mahavamsa), Dhammakitti and later monks of the Mahavihara tradition (the first continuation about the 13th century (chapters 37 to 79), carried on in stages to the 18th century). The only narrative source for Lanka in 1200. Read online
• Epigraphia Zeylanica: lithic and other inscriptions of Ceylon, Various (the Polonnaruwa kings' chanceries), edited by D. M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, H. W. Codrington and S. Paranavitana (inscriptions of the 3rd century BC to the 18th century; the series ran from 1904). Prints with translation the stone records of the Polonnaruwa kings who held or lost the throne around 1200. Read online
• South Indian Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India), Various (Chola, Pandya and other chanceries and temple scribes), edited by E. Hultzsch, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri and successors (inscriptions of the 7th to 17th centuries; the series ran from 1890). The temple inscriptions printed here are the primary record of the Tamil country in 1200. Read online
• The Book of Roger (the Pleasure of Him who Longs to Cross the Horizons), Muhammad al-Idrisi (completed 1154 at Palermo). The nearest Arabic geography in time to 1200 for the Indian Ocean. Read online
• A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online