Rasavāhinī

Rasavāhinī, the “Stream of Flavour” — a collection of 103 tales in ten chapters, called Madhurasavāhinī in manuscripts from Southeast Asia. 1200s CE.

Its author signs himself, and signs for two books at once. In the closing verses Vedeha — a pupil of Ānanda Araññaratana, the same teacher as the author of the Pajjamadhu — names himself as the author of this and of the Samantakūṭavaṇṇanā alike, which is also in this collection.

And it says outright that it is not original. Its own introductory verses rest it on an earlier collection of stories by Raṭṭhapāla of the Guttavaṅka monastery, which Matsumura has identified as the Sahassavatthuppakaraṇa; the Pali catalogue still assigns the work to Raṭṭhapāla under the older title. The arrangement is geographical — the first part gathers the stories that originate in Jambudīpa, the second those from Ceylon — and this volume closes at the end of the Indian half: Ettāvatā jambudīpuppattikathā samattā.