On coming to Sri Lanka, he went to Anurádhapura, the royal capital, and set himself to study. He seems to have lived and worked there during the whole of his stay in the island, though we do not know how long that stay lasted. To render his own words: “I learned three Sinhalese commentaries—the Mahá-attha-[kathá], Mahápaccarì, Kurundì—from the famed elder known by the name of Buddhamitta, who has expert knowledge of the Vinaya. Set in the grounds of the Mahá Meghavana Park [in Anurádhapura] there is the Great Monastery graced by the [sapling from the] Master’s Enlightenment Tree. A constant supporter of the Community, trusting with unwavering faith in the Three Jewels, belonging to an illustrious family and known by the name of Mahánigamasámi (Lord of the Great City), had an excellent work-room built there on its southern side accessible to the ever virtuously conducted Community of Bhikkhus. The building was beautifully appointed, agreeably endowed with cool shade and had a lavish water supply. The Vinaya Commentary was begun by me for the sake of the Elder Buddhasiri of pure virtuous behaviour while I was living there in Mahánigamasámi’s building, and it is now complete. It was begun by me in the twentieth year of the reign of peace of the King Sirinivása (Of Glorious Life), the renowned and glorious guardian who has kept the whole of Lanka’s island free from trouble. It was finished in one year without mishap in a world beset by mishaps, so may all beings attain…’’ (Vin-a Epilogue).
Mostly it is assumed that he wrote and “published” his works one by one as authors do today. The assumption may not be correct. There is an unerring consistency throughout the system of explanation he adopts, and there are cross references between works. This suggests that while the Visuddhimagga itself may perhaps have been composed and produced first, the others as they exist now were more likely worked over contemporaneously and all more or less finished before any one of them was given out. They may well have been given out then following the order of the books in the Tipiþaka which they explain. So in that way it may be taken that the Vinaya Commentary came next to the Visuddhimagga; then the Commentaries on the four Nikáyas (Collections of Suttas), and after them the Abhidhamma Commentaries. Though it is not said that the Vinaya Commentary was given out first of these, still the prologue and epilogue contain the most information. The four Nikáya Commentaries all have the same basic prologue; but the Samyutta Nikáya Commentary inserts in its prologue a stanza referring the reader to “the two previous Collections” (i.e. the Dìgha and Majjhima Nikáyas) for explanations of the names of towns and for illustrative stories, while the Anguttara Nikáya Commentary replaces this stanza with another referring to “the Dìgha and Majjhima” by name for the same purpose. The point may seem laboured and even trivial, but it is not irrelevant; for if it is assumed that these works were written and “published” in some historical order of composition, one expects to find some corresponding development of thought and perhaps discovers what one’s assumption has projected upon them. The more likely assumption, based on consideration of the actual contents, is that their form and content was settled before any one of them was given out.
Sometimes it is argued that the commentaries to the Dhammapada and the Játaka may not be by the same author because the style is different. But that fact could be accounted for by the difference in the subject matter; for these two commentaries consist mainly of popular stories, which play only a very minor role in the other works. Besides, while this author is quite inexorably consistent throughout his works in his explanations of Dhamma, he by no means always maintains that consistency in different versions of the same story in, say, different Nikáya Commentaries (compare for instance, the version of the story of Elder Tissabhúti given in the commentary to AN 1:2.6, with that at M-a I 66; also the version of the story of the Elder Mahá Tissa in the A-a, same ref., with that at M-a I 185). Perhaps less need for strictness was felt with such story material. And there is also another possibility. It may not unreasonably be supposed that he did not work alone, without help, and that he had competent assistants. If so, he might well have delegated the drafting of the Khuddaka Nikáya commentaries— those of the Khuddakapátha and Suttanipáta, Dhammapada, and the Játaka—or part of them, supervising and completing them himself, after which the official “postscript” was appended. This assumption seems not implausible and involves less difficulties than its alternatives. These secondary commentaries may well have been composed after the others.
The full early history of the Pali Tipitaka and its commentaries in Sinhalese is given in the Sri Lanka Chronicle, the Dìpavaṁsa, and Mahávaṁsa, and also in the introduction to the Vinaya Commentary. In the prologue to each of the four Nikāya Commentaries it is conveniently summarized by Bhadantácariya Buddhaghosa himself as follows: “[I shall now take] the commentary, whose object is to clarify the meaning of the subtle and most excellent Long Collection (Dìgha Nikáya) … set forth in detail by the Buddha and by his like [i.e. the Elder Sáriputta and other expounders of discourses in the Sutta Piþaka]—the commentary that in the beginning was chanted [at the First Council] and later re-chanted [at the Second and Third], and was brought to the Sìhala Island (Sri Lanka) by the Arahant Mahinda the Great and rendered into the Sìhala tongue for the benefit of the islanders—and from that commentary I shall remove the Sìhala tongue, replacing it by the graceful language that conforms with Scripture and is purified and free from flaws. Not diverging from the standpoint of the elders residing in the Great Monastery [in Anurádhapura], who illumine the elders’ heritage and are all well versed in exposition, and rejecting subject matter needlessly repeated, I shall make the meaning clear for the purpose of bringing contentment to good people and contributing to the long endurance of the Dhamma.”
There are references in these works to “the Ancients” (poráná) or “Former Teachers” (pubbácariyá) as well as to a number of Sinhalese commentaries additional to the three referred to in the quotation given earlier. The fact is plain enough that a complete body of commentary had been built up during the nine centuries or so that separate Bhadantácariya Buddhaghosa from the Buddha. A good proportion of it dated no doubt from the actual time of the Buddha himself, and this core had been added to in India (probably in Pali), and later by learned elders in Sri Lanka (in Sinhalese) as references to their pronouncements show (e.g. XII.105 and 117).
This body of material—one may guess that its volume was enormous—Bhadantácariya Buddhaghosa set himself to edit and render into Pali (the Tipitaka itself had been left in the original Pali). For this he had approval and express invitation (see, e.g., the epilogue to the present work, which the Elder Saṅghapála invited him to compose). Modern critics have reproached him with lack of originality: but if we are to judge by his declared aims, originality, or to use his own phrase “advertising his own standpoint” (XVII.25), seems likely to have been one of the things he would have wished to avoid. He says, for instance, “I shall expound the comforting Path of Purification, pure in expositions, relying on the teaching of the dwellers in the Great Monastery” (I.4; see also epilogue), and again “Now, as to the entire trustworthiness (samantapásádikatta) of this Samantapásádika: the wise see nothing untrustworthy here when they look—in the chain of teachers, in the citations of circumstance, instance and category [in each case], in the avoidance of others’ standpoints, in the purity of [our] own standpoint, in the correctness of details, in the word-meanings, in the order of construing the text, in the exposition of the training precepts, in the use of classification by the analytical method— which is why this detailed commentary on the Vinaya … is called Samantapásádika (Vin-a epilogue). And then: “The commentary on the Pátimokkha, which I began at the request of the Elder Soṇa for the purpose of removing doubts in those uncertain of the Vinaya, and which covers the whole Sinhalese commentarial system based upon the arrangement adopted by the dwellers in the Great Monastery, is finished. The whole essence of the commentary and the entire meaning of the text has been extracted and there is no sentence here that might conflict with the text or with the commentaries of the dwellers in the Great Monastery or those of the Ancients” (Pátimokkha Commentary epilogue). Such examples could be multiplied (see especially also XVII.25).
By Bhikkhu Ñānamoli