The Life and Work of Buddhaghosha

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I SET down here at the author's request a few words of introduction to his book on Buddhaghosa and his works, But Mr. Bimala Charan Law as an investigator in that unharvested field, needs no introduction. By me lies his prolegomenon to it, published over two years ago, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In that way, he drew up a list of 14 questions on his present subject. All were of historical interest. All would have to be discussed in any critical history of Buddhaghosa's work He had there no scope to deal with any one of them. Here the titles of his chapters taken together virtually cover those 14 questions.

His book will be by no means a last word on the subject. It will be relatively easy for European scholars, less un- daunted than Mr. Law, to carry forward their work when we get all that has been ascribed to Buddhaghosa printed in Roman letter. But the book is all the more needed now as a very useful compendium of what we yet know of Buddhaghosa, both from his own works and from other documents. Theories about the great commentator are crop- ping up. They rest on a more or less slender basis of evidence from lack of more historical prolegomena such as this book affords. We have recently assisted in publishing Mr. Nagai's theory that "the Visuddhi-magga is in reality a revised version of Upatissa's Vimutti-magga." (J.P.T.S., 1917-19, p. 8o.) And M. Louis Finot has lately drawn attention to the plausibility of the conclusion, that in 'Buddhaghosa' we may have no historical man, but a myth of the name, a myth of Buddhavacana,' on which are fathered the works usually ascribed to the person who was the con- temporary of Buddhadatta. The disciple, it would seem, is to undergo, for a time, a fate analogous to that which befel his Master. Mr. Law has gone deeper into the works ascribed to Buddhaghosa than any other English-writing author; he has gone deeper into the works referring to Buddhaghosa than most men. And for him, the great commentator is still a historically real man, teaching and writing in the fifth century AD. In Ceylon, as he may now be teaching and writing, it may be on earth, it may be in another world.

BUDDHAGHOSA was the most celebrated commentator of the Theravada School of Buddhism. An attempt has been made in the present treatise to build up a connected history of the life and labours of the distinguished exegete. In the 6rst chapter, I have attempted to put together the materials for a life-history of Huddhaghosa as culled from his own works as well as from Dhammakitti's account recorded in the Mahavamhsa. The second chapter deals with the legends which grew about our commentator as mentioned in the Buddhaghosuppatti, the Sasanavathsa and similar works. Much importance cannot be attached to these legends as they are of little value from the historical point of view. The third chapter treats of the origin and development of Buddhist commentaries, and an important branch of the Buddhist literature, namely, that of the Poranas has been examined in it. I am indeed thankful to Mrs. Rhys Davids. For kindly drawing my attention to this point. In the fourth chapter dealing with the works of Buddhaghosa, I have discussed about the ascription of the authorship of the Dhammapada commentary to our commentator. A Sanskrit poem, Padyacadamani, attributed to Buddhaghosa and lately published by the Government of Madras, has also been noticed in it. I have omitted the Jataka commentary from my list of the works of Buddhaghosa although this may appear to be somewhat astounding to many. A careful comparison of the style and language of the Jataka commentary with the style and language of the works of Buddhaghosa shows convincingly that the Jataka commentary was not the composition of Buddhaghosa. I agree with T. W. Rhys Davids when he says that the date of this Jataka commentary is unknown. I am not prepared to accept the native tradition in Ceylon that the original Jataka book was written in Sinhalese and was translated into Pali by Buddhaghosa; and the Sinhalese original was afterwards lost as Cowell says in his preface to the first volume of the Jätaka.

**Contents and Sample Pages**