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Chronicle

එළු අත්තනගලු වංසය

Not translated into English

Anonymous · 1380

Synopsis

Sirisangabo, king of Anuradhapura in the third century, gives up his throne rather than shed blood when Gothabhaya seizes it. He withdraws to Attanagalla, and the usurper puts a price on his head. A poor man then crosses the path of the deposed king. The chronicle links the founding of the monastery of Attanagalla to these events, and traces its history.

Context

The Sinhalese text is the early translation of a Pali chronicle of the thirteenth century, composed in eleven chapters in the last years of the reign of Parākramabāhu II, and attributed to a pupil of the monk Anomadassi. The Sinhalese version is dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. James De Alwis gave an English translation of the Pali chronicle in Colombo in 1866, then published in 1878 the Pali text with its early Sinhalese translation; a new English translation appeared in 2026.

Who it is for

A short chronicle in classical Sinhala; the English-speaking reader can read its Pali source in the 1866 translation or in the 2026 one.

Prizes and reception

One of the two classical Sinhalese texts that give the legend of King Sirisangabo in detail.

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