One of the 64 new pieces of documentary history to be placed on the Memory of the World (MoW) International Register by UNESCO in 2023 is the Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka, or “Mahavamsa.”
The historical records of Sri Lanka from the sixth century BCE to the year 1815 CE are covered in “Mahavamsa.”
The ‘Mahavamsa’, one of the world’s longest uninterrupted histories, is the first of its type in South Asia and launched a sophisticated historiographic tradition by chronicling Sri Lanka’s history chronologically beginning in the 6th century BCE.
Through archaeological studies done in India and Sri Lanka, it has been determined that the information in the document is real.
It is a significant historical document in South Asia that provides key details regarding the Buddha’s life, the reign of Emperor Asoka, and the emergence of Buddhism as a major world religion.
The book significantly helped to the spread of Buddhism throughout Southeast Asia and made Emperor Asoka famous in Indian history.
Numerous copies of “Mahavamsa” manuscripts are known to survive in various nations, and the book has been transliterated and translated into a variety of Southeast Asian and European languages, demonstrating its enormous historical, cultural, literal, linguistic, and scholarly worth.
The Director-General of UNESCO and the International Advisory Committee both suggested and supported the documentary heritage listed in the Memory of the World Register as meeting the selection criteria for outstanding universal value and global relevance.
