The historical narrative is similar in all three works. After the Council of Pataliputra, Moggaliputta, who had presided over it, came to the conclusion that the time had come to despatch missionaries to convert foreign countries. Sinhalese tradition represents this decision as emanating from Moggaliputta whereas the inscriptions of Asoka imply that the king himself initiated the momentous project. But the difference is small. We cannot now tell to whom the great idea first occurred but it must have been carried out by the clergy with the assistance of Asoka, the apostle selected for Ceylon was his[26] near relative Mahinda who according to the traditions of the Sinhalese made his way to their island through the air with six companions. The account of Hsüan Chuang hints at a less miraculous mode of progression for he speaks of a monastery built by Mahinda somewhere near Tanjore.
The legend tells how Mahinda and his following alighted on the Missaka mountain[27] whither King Devânampiya Tissa had gone in the course of a hunt. The monks and the royal cortege met: Mahinda, after testing the king's intellectual capacity by some curious dialectical puzzles, had no difficulty in converting him.[28] Next morning he proceeded to Anuradhapura and was received with all honour and enthusiasm. He preached first in the palace and then to enthusiastic audiences of the general public. In these discourses he dwelt chiefly on the terrible punishment awaiting sinners in future existences.[29]
We need not follow in detail the picturesque account of the rapid conversion of the capital. The king made over to the Church the Mahâmegha garden and proceeded to construct a series of religious edifices in Anuradhapura and its neighbourhood. The catalogue of them is given in the Mahâvamsa[30] and the most important was the Mahâvihâra monastery, which became specially famous and influential in the history of Buddhism. It was situated in the Mahâmegha garden close to the Bo-tree and was regarded as the citadel of orthodoxy. Its subsequent conflicts with the later Abhayagiri monastery are the chief theme of Sinhalese ecclesiastical history and our version of the Pali Piṭakas is the one which received its imprimatur.