Hi Jim and Folks,

>
> I generally accept the traditional authorship of Pali works. I haven't
> worked much with Dhp-a, but from my reading of some of the
> word-by-word glosses, it never occurred to me that they were of low
> quality.

So far I haven't looked at them much, since I'm focussing on the
narratives. But since you say the above, I'll try to keep an open mind
about them.

> It could be that they are different from Buddhaghosa's style
> in the Visuddhimagga. I haven't studied the introductory verses of
> Dhp-a, so I'm not sure if the same applies there, but my understanding
> is that these commentaries of Buddhaghosa are translations from old
> Sinhalese commentaries and so the word-by-word glosses probably don't
> originate with Buddhaghosa himself.

Good point. I just had a quick look at the introductory verses and they
do seem to say that the text is translated from Sinhala (diipabhaasa)
into Pali (tantibhaasa). However it does also seem to say (now from
Burlingame's translation) that the author/translator intends to
embellish the translation with his own explanations when necessary,
though sticking to the spirit of the original.

> In my opinion, the a.t.thakathaas
> originated with the a.t.thakathaacariyas, all of whom were arahants
> belonging to the first few centuries of the saasana.
>

Do you place any truck in the idea that works composed within a school
or tradition, often are ascribed to the founder of the school, even if
composed much later? (like a trademark, or a way of giving the text
more authority) So that elaborate works, which on linguistic grounds
couldn't have been composed in the first few centuries of the Sasana,
could still have originated in an earlier form at that time?

> Later, I'll have a look at the line you quoted from Dhp-a in your
> subsequent post which I found very interesting.

I hope you have time to do so as it's been puzzling me a lot. Thanks
for your response.

best regards,

--Rett