While literature is often thought to be a product of culture, the writing of history in medieval Sri Lanka was predicated upon the belief that texts themselves are productive of culture and capable of making people virtuous. This dissertation examines the Pāli and Sinhala Thūpavamsas , two distinct histories with the same basic narrative written around the thirteenth century C.E., to show how they were conceived and designed to effect an ethical transformation in their readers and listeners. In short, these texts employ language in ways that make an audience feel implicated in the narrative, evoking emotional responses that, in turn, condition moral awareness and agency.
Although the Thūpavamsas reflect somewhat different styles of composition and literary expression, both texts work to situate their readers and listeners in a relationship of dependence and intimacy with the Buddha. In recalling what the Buddha and other virtuous agents did in the past, the Thūpavamsas present history as a record of events undertaken for the benefit of later generations. An audience is thus led to develop a moral subjectivity marked by feelings of serene joy and gratitude for the fact that their needs were anticipated and their welfare already accomplished. This study argues that the Thūpavam˙sas are “Buddhist” histories because they presume to be able to generate emotions and effects that Buddhists in medieval Sri Lanka valued as conducive to attaining conditions of worldly and world-transcending happiness.
Scholars who have taken the “problem” of Buddhist history to be one of demythologizing its imaginative excesses or demystifying its ideological sleights of hand have effectively overlooked how its narratives work to give rise to habits of thought and emotional dispositions that entail obligations to venerate the Buddha. By examining how the Thūpavamsas were produced and composed as literary works that affect how an audience thinks, feels, and acts in the world, we will see how two Buddhist histories were envisioned to transform readers and listeners into virtuous persons who recall the past and act in accordance with their ascribed status as the beneficiaries of history.
