at a council was held not by the whole clergy of
Ceylon but by the monks of the Mahavihara at which they committed to
writing their own version of the canon including the Parivara. This book
forms an appendix to the Vinaya Pitaka and in some verses printed at the
conclusion is said to be the work of one Dipa. It is generally accepted
as a relatively late production, composed in Ceylon. If such a work was
included in the canon of the Mahavihara, we must admit the possibility
that other portions of it may be Sinhalese and not Indian.

But still the _onus probandi_ lies with those who maintain the Sinhalese
origin of any part of the Pali Canon and two strong arguments support
the Indian origin of the major part. First, many suttas not only show an
intimate knowledge of ancient Indian customs but discuss topics such as
caste, sacrifice, ancient heresies, and the value of the Veda which
would be of no interest to Sinhalese. Secondly, there is no Sinhalese
local colour and no Sinhalese legends have been introduced. Contrast
with this the Dipa-and Maha-vamsa both of which open with accounts of
mythical visits paid by the Buddha to Ceylon[637].

In Ceylon versions of the scriptures other than that of the Mahavihara
were current until the twelfth century when uniformity was enforced by
Parakrama Bahu. Some of these, for instance the Pitaka of the
Vetulyakas, were decidedly heretical according to the standard of local
orthodoxy but others probably presented variations of reading and
arrangement rather than of doctrine. Anesaki[638] has compared with the
received Pali text a portion of the Samyuktagama translated by
Gunabhadra into Chinese. He thinks that the original was the text used
by the Abhayagiri monastery and brought to China by Fa Hsien.

The Sinhalese ecclesiastical history, Nikaya-Sangrahawa, relates[639]
that 235 years after the Buddha's death nine heretical fraternities were
formed who proceeded to compose scriptures of their own such as the
Varnapitaka and Angulimala-Pitaka. Though this treatise is late (_c_.
1400 A.D.) its statements merit attention as showing that even in
orthodox Ceylon tradition regarded the authorized Pitaka as one of
several versions. But many of the works mentioned sound like late
tantric texts rather than compositions of the early heretics to whom
they are attributed.

Ecclesiastical opinion in Ceylon after centuries of discussion ended by
accepting the edition of the Mahavihara as the bes