Dbk-a Dasabodhisattuppattikathā aṭṭhakathā
Dbu Dasabodhistta uddesa
M-a Majjhimanikāya- aṭṭhakathā
D-a Dīghanikāya- aṭṭhakathā
D-ṭ Dīghanikāya- ṭīkā
The book entitled “Dasabodhisattuppattikathā Aṭṭhakathā” (Dbk-a) is of one hundred and thirty six (136) pages. The author of the above work, Ven. Medagampitiye Wijithadhamma, professor in pali at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, himself introduces that it is a pali commentary. The Dbk-a was published by S. Godage and Brothers (PVT) LTD, Colombo 10, Sri Lanka in 2017 in two scripts; Sinhalese and Romanized.
The introduction and the back cover of the book assert that the author’s expectation, by writing this commentary, was prolong existence of Pali …show more content…
They are non-other than misinterpretations and misinformation. Describing ten perfections, Prof. Wijithadhamma says that certain people who introduced six perfections were Mahayanists. Apparently, this attests that he is not aware of six number of perfections in the Pali commentarial literature, particularly, that coming in the Cp-a. Again, in the page number 66, he defines “hattha” to be “gem”. This is a complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation. I presume that he understands the interpretation that come across in the D-ṭ “maṇibandhato” as “gem” and applied it in the Dbk-a. In fact, “maṇibandhato” means “from the wrist” but not “gem”. It is obvious that his interpretation is misleading. Repeatedly, he made another misinterpretation when the clans of the elephants were interpreted. As the author of the Dbk-a, he should have known how this was detailed in the M-a as ten before referring to the lexicon ‘Abhidhānappadīpikā’ in which it is defined to be eight (8) groups. Additionally, the information given in the Dbk-a about committing suicide of a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka two years back was not a result of politics. Hence, it is doubtless that such misinformation affect negatively to the trustworthiness of the text. And, the author’s incapability to refer to the original source is leading for the misinterpretations. For instance, he, describing Rāhu, has traced a verse the D-ṭ that contains four lines only. Nevertheless, the original verse in the Mahāsamaya-sutta of the Dīghanikāya has six lines. As the author of the Dbk-a refers to the D-ṭ in this regard and consequently he also misses the last two lines as same as the