EAP756/2/7/4

Sāsanālaṅkāra cā tamʻʺ is a historiographical work compiled in 1831 by a former head of the court monastic hierarchy, the first Moṅʻʺ thoṅʻ Charā toʻ Ñāṇa, now disrobed and bearing the lay title Mahādhammasaṅkraṁ. It was written in response to a royal request to provide a comprehensive account of the transmission of the sāsana. The author, however, used this opportunity to write a self-apology. Selectively appropriating textual materials from earlier sources, Mahādhammasaṅkraṁ reframed them to prove that a monastic faction he represented from the 1780s to the 1810s constituted the only group in the saṅgha that was worthy of lay support. The text was well received and became the most commonly copied religious chronicle in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its success, most likely, being due to the fact that it summarized and thus supplanted earlier literature on the subject. The excerpt from the Sāsanālaṅkāra cā tamʻʺ found in this particular exemplar deals with the three synods and the sending of missionaries. It terminates in the middle of the phrase suggesting either that the scribe has incidentally copied more textual material than initially intended, or that the source exemplar was an incomplete manuscript similarly transmitting an excerpt rather than a complete work.

Extent and format of original material: 1 fascicle of 7 inscribed folios.