Conclusion
Conclusion
THE PĀLI Mahāvaṃsa has survived through fifteen hundred years of history to become a seminal text of Sri Lankan Buddhism. It has survived thanks in part to the scribes who were charged along the way with copying it (palm-leaf manuscripts do not hold up indefinitely in the Sri Lankan climate). It survived the early translation performed by George Turnour and the consequent attention it garnered from Western Orientalists. And it survived through numerous other intervening interpretations, finally making its way into the hands of modern interpretive communities and scholars alike. Modern scholars must be grateful to all these scribes and interpreters, without whom the text may not have survived at all. Yet we must not forget the work that these interpretations have exerted on our modern understanding of the text. As I hope to have shown by now, key operative facets of this text—its literary form, function, and aims as well as the emotionally provocative, religious work it can perform on the primed reader—warrant a reorientation of modern scholarship on this monumental text....
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