• Ariyavamsa

1. Ariyavamsa. A compilation, probably of the life-histories of men eminent in the Buddhist Order, made in Ceylon and read aloud publicly for the edification of the people. The reading of the Ariyavamsa seems once to have been a regular feature of gatherings in the Buddhist vihāras on feast days. King Vohāraka-T1ssa made endowments for the giving of alms throughout Ceylon on the occasions when the Ariyavamsa was read (Mhv.Xxxvi.38; Mhv.trans.258, n.6). A sutta called Ariyavamsa Sutta is mentioned in the Commentaries (DA.i.50; MA.i.14) as an example of a discourse preached by the Buddha on his own initiative (attajjhāsaya). This perhaps refers to the sermon on the four Ariyavamsā in the Anguttara Nikāya (A.ii.27). See also Mahā-Ariyavamsa.

2. Ariyavamsa. A celebrated teacher and author of the fifteenth century. He came from Pagan and was a member of the Chapata sect. He was a pupil of the famous Ye-din ("water-carrier") of Sagaing (for an account of him see Bode, op. cit., 41f), and with great zeal and enthusiasm learnt the Abhidhammattha-vibhāvanī from his teacher. Later, Ariyavamsa wrote a commentary on this work and called it the Manisāramañjūsā. A charming anecdote is related of how he read the work to his colleagues and readily accepted their corrections with gratitude.

Among his other works are the Manidīpa, a Tīkā on the Atthasālinī, a grammatical treatise, the Gandhābharana, and a study of the Jātakas called the Jātakavisodhana.

Ariyavamsa spent only a part of his life at Sagaing and afterwards taught at Ava, where the king was sometimes among his listeners. He was among the first of Burmese litterateurs to write a metaphysical work in the vernacular - an Anutīkā on the Abhidhamma (Sās. p.41ff). The Gandha-Vamsa (64-5) attributes to him another work, the Mahānissara (Mahānissaya?), but no mention is made of it in the Sāsanavamsa.