The King Who Gave His Head

Among the Pali chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Hatthavanagallavihāravaṃso tells one story and tells it whole: the life and death of King Sirisaṅghabodhi, who ruled in the third century and who, rather than let his people be killed in a war fought over his own throne, walked away from it — and in the end gave his head to a poor man so that the bounty on it might feed him.

The chronicle was composed in the thirteenth century in careful Pali prose and verse, and belongs to the same monastic literary world as the Pūjāvaliya and the Rasavāhinī. It is the founding history of the monastery at Hatthavanagalla, raised on the site where the king died.

This edition presents the chronicle in modern English, with an introduction placing the text in its history and notes on the Pali where the wording matters.