The Mahavamsa, or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon

The Mahavamsa is the Pali chronicle of Sri Lankan Buddhist history, and this is Wilhelm Geiger's standard scholarly English translation, published jointly by the Pali Text Society and the Ceylon Government Information Department in 1912. As a careful translation of the chronicle itself it is the correct source for what the Mahavamsa actually records, in Geiger's rendering, rather than a secondhand summary of Sri Lankan Buddhist history. Its limit is what any chronicle of this kind carries, the Mahavamsa was compiled by Buddhist monks generations after many of the events it narrates, blending historical record with religious and dynastic legitimizing purpose, so a claim resting on the chronicle's earliest, most legendary material should be weighed against independent archaeological or epigraphic evidence where it exists.