rary with the events alluded to, certainly transmit genuine historical tradition.
The chronicles of Ceylon in the Pali language, of which the Dipavamsa, dating probably from the fourth century A. D., and the Mahavamsa are the best known, offer several discrepant versions of early Indian traditions, chiefly concerning the Maurya dynasty. These Sinhalese stories, the value of which has been sometimes overestimated, demand cautious criticism at least as much as do other records of popular and ecclesiastical tradition.
The most systematic record of Indian historical tradition is that preserved in the dynastic lists of the Puranas. Five out of the eighteen works of this class, namely, the Vayu, Matsya, Vishnu, Brahmanda, and Bhagavata, contain such lists. The Brahmanda and Bhagavata Puranas being comparatively late works, the lists in them are corrupt, imperfect, and of slight value. But those in the oldest documents, the Vayu, Matsya, and Vishnu, are full, and evidently based upon good authorities. The latest of these three works, the Vishnu, is the best known, having been completely translated into English; but in some cases its evidence is not so good as that of the Vayu and Matsya. It was composed, probably, in the fifth or sixth century A. D., and corresponds most closely with the theoretical definition that a Purana should deal with "the five topics of primary creation, secondary creation, genealogies of gods and patriarchs, reigns of various Manus, and the histories of the old dynasties of kings." The Vayu seems to go
