C90 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Pali commentaries upon the 27 canonical works : namely, the com- 

 mentaries of Buddhaghosa (17), 34 Dhaminapala (7), Upasena (1), 

 Mahanama (1), and Buddhadatta (1). All of these commentaries 

 are constantly and very naturally spoken of by Buddhist writers as 

 "commentaries upon" or "explanations of" this or that work; but 

 they nearly all have also each a fanciful name, by which it has become 

 usual to designate them in the Occident. Some may raise the objec- 

 tion that it is premature to settle upon the best short designations of 

 these commentaries now, while only so few are accessible to Pali 

 scholars in European editions. In reply I say (as I have already said, 

 p. 679), that we must look into the future. At present only numbers 

 1 (part), 6 (part), 10, 11, 13, 14, 20 (extracts), 21, 23, and 25 have 

 been published in Europe. But the Burmese editions either include, 

 or will doubtless soon include, so many of these commentaries, and it 

 will be so easy to make reprints of them in Roman letters, that we 

 may well hope soon to have a large part of them available for easy use 

 in good Roman type. And what more useful preliminary for a lexicon 

 can there be than a systematic and careful exploitation of Buddha- 

 ghosa's glosses, as given in his commentaries 1 It is highly important, 

 therefore, to settle, promptly and rightly and once for all, upon a 

 system of brief designations of these valuable sources of lexicography. 



To do this, we must see these fanciful Pali titles set in a list, with 

 their nearest English equivalents. They may best be put in tabular 

 form, with the designation proposed by me at the left of the author- 

 names, and with a number for convenient reference. All are ascribed 

 to Buddhaghosa, 35 excepting ten. Of these ten commentaries, six 

 (to wit, numbers 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13), all bearing the title Paramattha- 

 dlpani, and no. 19, are ascribed to Dhammapala, 36 and the remaining 

 three are ascribed, one (no. 15) to Upasena, 37 one (16) to Mahanama, 37 

 and one (18) to Buddhadatta. 38 



The following list accords with that of Childers, Dictionary, p. 67, ex- 

 cept at numbers 8 and 13. To the Itivuttaka-commentary (no. 8) he 

 gives the name Abhidhammattha-dlpam, and he omits the Therlgatha- 

 commentary (no. 13), perhaps by oversight. 



34 Or 13, if we count the eomm's on the last five of the seven books of the 

 Abhidhamma as one; or 11, if we count all seven as one. 



38 Gnvn., pp. 59, 68. 36 Gnvn., pp. 69, 60. 



37 Gnvn., pp. 70, 61. 38 Gnvn., pp. 59-60. 



