As regards Ceylon, there is an important fact to be stated. It appears that until the year of religion 454, the knowledge of the Pitagat was transmitted by means of oral tradition. The heads of monasteries required from their pupils to know the whole collection by heart. It is probable that one portion of the scriptures was learned by one section of the community, and another by another. In this manner the whole Pitagat was known in each monastery, and could be rehearsed in full by the inmates. This state of things lasted two hundred years. The great inconvenience necessarily attending it was soon felt so keenly that some means had to be devised in order to render the study of the sacred books surer and easier. In the reign of King Watakamani five hundred religious assembled in the village of Mallaya, and wrote the whole Pitagat in Sanscrit, and with the Sanscrit characters. Under the reign of that monarch a great dearth prevailed all over the island. Numerous Buddhist religious crossed over to the continent, and established religion in many parts of the southern portion of the peninsula. That prince also built the famous Bayagiri monastery. With the Mahawihara already existing, and the Dzetawon monastery subsequently erected, there sprung up three distinct schools. The latter was erected in 811, in the time of King Mathena of Ceylon. But the teaching of the Mahawihara was the only one truly orthodox. After a protracted existence, they were all merged in the Mahawihara school, under the reign of Thiri Singa-bodiparanna-maba, in the year of the Pouppa-dzau era (Pagan era), 522; of religion, 1714 = to 1161 A.D.