lationship between practices and vehicles continued to
be problematic so that as new practices arose, their pre-
cise placement and the shifting theoretical dynamic be-
tween the vehicles were extended topics of discussion.
Particularly in Tibet, there tended to be a proliferation
of vehicles, so that genres of literature came to repre-
sent new vehicles in the pages of some authors, al-
though this was decidedly a minority opinion, found
especially among the RNYING MA(NYINGMA).
See also:Tantra
Bibliography
Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social His-
tory of the Tantric Movement.New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 2002.
Lessing, Ferdinand D., and Wayman, Alex, trans. Mkhas Grub
Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Trantras.The Hague and
Paris: Mouton, 1968.
Snellgrove, David L. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists
and Their Tibetan Successors, 2 vols. Boston: Shambhala, 1987.
Sobisch, Jan-Ulrich. The Three-Vow Theories in Tibetan Bud-
dhism: A Comparative Study of Major Traditions from the
Twelfth through Nineteenth Centuries.Wiesbaden, Germany:
Reichert, 2002.
Strickmann, Michel. “The Consecration Sutra: A Buddhist Book
of Spells.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha., ed. Robert E.
Buswell, Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme
tantrique en Chine.Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
RONALDM. DAVIDSONVAMSA
The Pali word vamsaliterally refers to “lineage” or
“bamboo,” but it acquired the technical meaning of a
“chronicle” early in the first millennium C.E. among
THERAVADABuddhists on the island of Sri Lanka.
While many historical texts authored by Theravada
Buddhists in the ancient and medieval periods include
the word vamsain their titles, not all narrative accounts
of the past are referred to in this way, nor do all vamsas
share the same style and content. The Mahavamsa
(Great Chronicle) is arguably the best-known vamsain
modern times, yet its open-ended narrative, which has
been periodically extended since the fifth century C.E.,
deviates from many other Theravada vamsaswhose
narratives follow a discernible plot and reach a point
of closure.
Modern scholars deduce that the vamsagenre of
Buddhist literature grew out of ancient commentaries
written on the Pali CANON. The Theravada tradition
holds that these commentaries were brought to Sri
Lanka by a monk named Mahinda in the third century
B.C.E. Within a few centuries, excerpts dealing with the
history of Buddhism in India and the events sur-
rounding its establishment in Lanka were crafted into
independent vamsasthat recount events connected
with the life of the Buddha and the historical instanti-
ation of his teaching ( ́assana; Pali, sasana). While Pali
vamsasappear well-suited to legitimate monastic lin-
eages and inspire devotion in Buddhist communities,
European scholars in the nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries valued these texts for their detailed and
fairly reliable accounts of South and Southeast Asian
history. Still, many scholars point out that these texts
mix historical facts with legendary embellishments.
Theravada vamsas typically convey information
about the life and death of the Buddha, the transmis-
sion of the dharma, and the establishment of the
SAN ̇GHA(community of monks) and relics in other
lands. Pious and sometimes heroic kings such as
Dutthagaman (161–137 B.C.E.) in Sri Lanka and
Tilakapanattu (1495–1525 C.E.) in Thailand are regu-
larly extolled, suggesting that the vamsasalso provided
images of virtuous and powerful Buddhist kings for
later individuals to emulate. The oldest extant vamsas,
the Mahavamsaand its fourth-century predecessor the
Dlpavamsa(Chronicle of the Island), recount the es-
tablishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Other Sri
Lankan vamsaswritten between the tenth and four-
teenth centuries, such as the Mahabodhivamsa(Chron-
icle of the Bodhi Tree) and the Thupavamsa(Chronicle
of the Relic Shrine), often focus their narratives on
particular relics of the Buddha that were purportedly
brought from India and enshrined in Sri Lanka. The
Anagatavamsa(Chronicle of the Future Buddha) is dis-
tinguished by the fact that it narrates future events
connected with the coming of the next Buddha MAI-
TREYA(Pali, Metteyya). Several of these vamsaswere
subsequently translated into a literary form of the ver-
nacular Sinhala language, and their narratives were
often substantially revised in the process.
The vamsagenre was passed along from Sri Lanka
to the Buddhist lands of Southeast Asia, fulfilling
many similar functions in legitimating Theravada
monastic lineages, deepening piety, and extolling
kings. The sixteenth-century Pali chronicle titled
Jinakalamall (Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of
the Conqueror) details some of the historical eventsVAMSA