Buddhadatta
Buddhadatta (fl. c. 5th-century CE) was a prominent scholar of the Pali tradition best known as the author of the Abhidhammāvatāra, an early Abhidhamma manual.[1]
Buddhadatta was from the town of Uragapura in the Chola kingdom of South India.[2][1]
According to tradition, he traveled to the Anurādhapura Mahāvihāra in Sri Lanka, to study and to translate the Sinhalese commentaries from Sinhalese to Pali.[2] He was unable to complete the task of translating the Sinhalese commentaries, but while returning to India, he is said to have met Buddhagosa who was on his way to Sri Lanka to attempt the same task. Buddhadatta asked Buddhagosa to send him his translations of the commentaries when they were finished.[2]
Buddhadatta wrote several of his works in the Bhūtamangalagāma monastery in the Chola kingdom,[1][3] and his patron was Accutavikkanta of the Kalamba dynasty.[3]
Buddhadata best known work, the Abhidhammāvatāra (Pali: “The Coming of the Abhidhamma”), is a systematized overview of the doctrines in the Pali Abhidhamma Pitaka, written in twenty-four verse chapters.[1]
Buddhadatta's other works include the Vinaya-Vinicchaya (“Analysis of the Vinaya”), the Uttara-Vinicchaya, the Rūpārūpa-Vibhāga.[1]
Some authorities also attribute the Madhuratthavilasini and the Jinalankara to Buddhadatta.[1]
Notes
Sources
Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University- Law, Bimala Churn (1976), Geographical Essays Relating to the Ancient Geography of India, Bharatiya Publishing House
- Potter, Karl H, ed. (2003), Buddhist Philosophy from 350 to 600 A.D., Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, IX, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers
External links
Buddhadatta, Wikipedia
