Buddhaghosa

Buddhaghosa is the most important commentator in the Theravāda tradition. The Sri Lankan chronicles say that he was born a Brahmin near Bodh Gayā in India, converted to Buddhism, and travelled to Sri Lanka in the fifth century CE to study the Sinhalese commentaries kept at the Mahāvihāra, the great monastery of Anurādhapura. The account is late, and some scholars have suggested a South Indian origin, but his fifth-century date and his work at the Mahāvihāra are generally accepted.

At the Mahāvihāra he wrote the Visuddhimagga, “The Path of Purification”, a comprehensive manual of Theravāda doctrine and practice organized around the three trainings of ethics, concentration and wisdom. The monks are said to have tested him with two verses, and to have accepted him when he answered with the whole of the Visuddhimagga. He then rendered the old Sinhalese commentaries into Pali, producing the commentaries (aṭṭhakathā) on much of the canon that remain authoritative.

Through these works Buddhaghosa fixed the standard interpretation of the Pali canon for the Theravāda world, in Sri Lanka and later in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Modern scholars read him both as an indispensable guide and as one interpreter among others of the early texts.