thanks for your kind reply and detailed explanation. I do not
dispute the importance place the commentaries have in the Theravada
tradition. My points are:
1. The suttas should be regarded as the authorities to the Buddha's
word.
2. The commentaries may be "closed" and voluminous, but they may not
thorough in the treatment of Buddha's teachings. That is why there
are sub-commentaries(?). Please correct me if I am wrong.
3. As Piya said, it is not impossible to understand the suttas
without the commentaries, even though it may refer to just a small
handful of people.
4. The great works of the theras, theris and lay teachers are a
display of wisdom and their accumulated effort in preserving the
right understanding of the Buddhadhamma. These are all important
cultural assets. I consider the commentaries an important subset of
these works, and I advocate to its preservation. I understand that
without these works, we would all be struggling to understand even
the basic principles in Buddhism. The same applies to maths and
science, kids in schools are learning about pythagorus theorem, mass
and volume, based on works by ancient Greeks. If these works were
completely destroyed, we would be at least 1000 years backwards in
technological development. Similarly, without the commentaries, we
would certainly see more websites on the Internet giving inaccurate
representation of the Buddhist doctrine.
However, these efforts have culminated in Buddhagosa, who decided to
compile and put them into writings. I would suggest standing on the
shoulders of these giants, rather than living in their shadows. I
base this on two points mentioned by the Buddha.
(1) Whatever the Buddha taught is only a small fraction of His
unlimited knowledge.
(2) We make a clear distinctions between conventional wisdom and
ultimate wisdom.