Acariya Anuruddha

Ācariya Anuruddha is credited as the author of three Pali commentaries:

• Abhidhammattha Sangaha
• Nāmarūpa-pariccheda, and
• Paramattha-vinicchaya

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha is regarded as one of the most important texts in the Theravada tradition.

Regarding the author, Bhikkhu Bodhi states:

Detailed information about the author of the manual, Acariya Anuruddha, is virtually non-existent. He is regarded as the author of [the three manuals] cited above, and it is believed in Buddhist countries that he wrote altogether nine compendia, of which only these three have survived. The Paramattha-vinicchaya is written in an elegant style of Pali and attains a high standard of literary excellence. According to the colophon, its author was born in Kaveri in the state of Kañcipura (Conjeevaram) in South India. Acariya Buddhadatta and Acariya Buddhaghosa are also said to have resided in the same area, and the subcommentator Acariya Dhammapala was probably a native of the region. There is evidence that for several centuries Kañcipura had been an important center of Theravada Buddhism from which learned bhikkhus went to Sri Lanka for further study.

It is not known exactly when Acariya Anuruddha lived and wrote his manuals. An old monastic tradition regards him as having been a fellow student of Acariya Buddhadatta under the same teacher, which would place him in the fifth century. According to this tradition, the two elders wrote their respective books, the Abhidhammattha Sangaha and the Abhidhammavatara, as gifts of gratitude to their teacher, who remarked: "Buddhadatta has filled a room with all kinds of treasure and locked the door, while Anuruddha has also filled a room with treasure but left the door open." Modern scholars, however, do not endorse this tradition, maintaining on the basis of the style and content of Anuruddha's work that he could not have lived earlier than the eighth century, more probably between the tenth and early twelfth centuries.

In the colophon to the Abhidhammattha Sangaha Acariya Anuruddha states that he wrote the manual at the Mulasoma Monastery, which all exegetical traditions place in Sri Lanka. There are several ways to reconcile this fact with the concluding stanzas of the Paramattha-vinicchaya, which state that he was born in Kañcipura. One hypothesis is that he was of South Indian descent but came to Sri Lanka, where he wrote the Sangaha. Another, advanced by G.P. Malalasekera, holds that he was a native of Sri Lanka who spent time at Kañcipura (which, however, passes over his statement that he was born in Kañcipura). Still a third hypothesis, proposed by Ven. A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera, asserts that there were two different monks named Anuruddha, one in Sri Lanka who was the author of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha, another in Kañcipura who wrote the Paramattha-vinicchaya.