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BUDDHAGHOSA, A
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See also:BUDDHAGHOSA, A celebrated Buddhist writer. He was a Brahmin by See also:birth and was See also:born near the See also:great Bodhi See also:tree at Budh Gaya in See also:north See also:India about A.D. 390, his See also:father's name being Kesi. His teacher, Revata, induced him to go to See also:Ceylon, where the commentaries on the scriptures had been preserved in the Sinhalese See also:language, with the See also:object of translating them into See also:Pali. He went accordingly to See also:Anuradhapura, studied there under Sanghapala, and asked leave of the fraternity there to translate the commentaries. With their consent he then did so, having first shown his ability by See also:writing the See also:work Visuddhi Magga (the Path of Purity, a See also:kind of See also:summary of Buddhist See also:doctrine). When he had completed his many years' labours he returned tothe neighbourhood of the Bodhi tree in north India. Before he came to Ceylon he had already written a See also:book entitled Nanodaya (the Rise of Knowledge), and had commenced a commentary on the See also:principal psychological See also:manual contained in the Pitakas. This latter work he afterwards rewrote in Ceylon, as the See also:present See also:text (now published by the Pali Text Society) shows. One See also:volume of the Sumangala Vilasini (a portion of the commentaries mentioned above) has been edited, and extracts from his comment on the Buddhist See also:canon See also:law. This last work has been discovered in a nearly comtemporaneous See also:Chinese See also:translation (an edition in Pali is based on a comparison with that translation). The See also:works here mentioned See also:form, however, only a small portion of what Buddhaghosa wrote. His See also:industry must have been prodigious. He is known to have written books that would fill about 20 See also:octavo volumes of about 400 pages each; and there are other writings ascribed to him which may or may not be really his work. It is too See also:early therefore to See also:attempt a See also:criticism of it. But it is already clear that, when made acceptable, it will be of the greatest value for the See also:history of See also:Indian literature and of Indian ideas. So much is uncertain at present in that history for want of definite See also:dates that the voluminous writings of an author whose date is approximately certain will afford a See also:standard by which the See also:age of other writings can be tested. And as the See also:original commentaries in Sinhalese are now lost his works are the only See also:evidence we have of the traditions then handed down in the Buddhist community. The See also:main source of our See also:information about Buddhaghosa is the Mahavamsa, written in Anuradhapura about fifty years after he was working there. But there are numerous references to him in Pali books on Pali literature; and a Burmese author of unknown date, but possibly of the 15th See also:century, has compiled a See also:biography of him, the Buddhagkos' Uppatti, of little value and no See also:critical See also:judgment. See Mahavamsa, ch. See also:xxxvii. (ed. Turnour, See also:Colombo, 1837) ; " Gandhavamsa," p. 59, in See also:Journal of the Pali Text Society (1886) ; Buddhghosuppatti (text and translation, ed. by E. See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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