PREFACE
THIS book is a revised version of my thesis, "Contemporary
Sinhalese Buddhism in its relation to the Pali Canon', approved
for the D.Phil. degree at Oxford University. The thesis was sub-
stantially written in the university vacations of 1966-7. On sab-
batical leave in Ceylon in the latter half of 1969 I took the oppor-
tunity to make some changes, but although I hope to have elimi-
nated some mistakes, I could not entirely bring it up to date, or
profit by all the publications which have appeared since I started
writing. Rather than delay publication still further I am letting it
go forward now, for revision is a process which can never be
completed. In particular, however, I must mention that Chapter 8
was written before I had read <1Homo Hierarchicus>1 by Louis Dumont
(Gallimard, Paris, 1966); I would formulate most of the first half
of the chapter very differently today, but I have let it stand because
I do not think that my conclusions have b . . .
