Re: Sadd: some responses to Jim's comments

Dear Lance,

> It has long been thought that Ap-a is much the latest of the extant
> commentaries - no other commentary or early .tiikaa refers to it. As
> far as I know, no text before the Gandhava.msa mentions a commentary
> on Apadaana by Buddhaghosa. If Buddhaghosa did write such a
> commentary, then it must have been a predecessor of the one still
> extant. Note that the introduction and conclusion to Ap-a does not
> attribute it to Buddhaghosa.

In the CPD bibliography there is listed a .tiikaa on Ap-a (Pi.t-sm
226). But it reads like it's no longer extant. If it were, information
on the authorship of Ap-a might be found therein. The authorship of
Ap-a is given in CPD as (: Buddhaghosa !). The exclamation mark
suggests the compiler doesn't accept it though. The writer of the
Gandhava.msa might have had a source(s) that is no longer available on
which he could state that Buddhaghosa was the author.

As you know, I'm not one for disputing the traditional authorships or
dates of early texts even though there is no way I can be sure of
them. But at least I can accept them until I'm absolutely convinced
otherwise. One advanatage of believing that the great Kaccayana is the
source of the grammar is that one is more likely to take the study of
traditional Pali grammar more seriously and with greater respect. If
you take it as a work of a later Kaccayana from no earlier than the
7th century, then that could leave the impression that it might be
just some mediocre grammar by a third-rate author not so deserving of
study.

> I think we have to discard all the post-ninth century information
> about Buddhaghosa. It is clearly legendary. Four centuries is quite
> long enough for all sorts of legends to develop. (In fact, I myself
> would date Buddhaghosa to the fourth century A.D.)

I'd be interested in knowing what you base a 4th cent. dating on. The
mid-5th cent. (when he worked on the texts) is what I'm more familiar
with.

> I can't believe that Buddhaghosa translated a Canon in Sinhalese
> Prakrit to what we call Pali. The Buddhaghosuppatti is the only text
> to say this but it is a very late text, perhaps 15th century. How
> could Buddhaghosa speak of the paa.libhaasaa 'language of the
> scriptures', if the scriptures were written in the Sinhalese dialect
> of the time ?

Well, if Buddhaghosa was an Indian native who came to Sri Lanka at a
later time, there is the possibility that he could have mastered the
Maagadhabhaasaa elsewhere before coming to the island to set things
straight.

Best wishes,
Jim