studied in the Mahavihara and eventually requested permission
to translate the Sinhalese commentaries. To prove his competence for
the task he composed the celebrated Visuddhi-magga, and, this being
considered satisfactory, he took up his residence in the Ganthakara
Vihara and proceeded to the work of translation. When it was finished
he returned to India or according to the Talaing tradition to Thaton.
The Buddhaghosuppatti adds two stories of which the truth and meaning
are equally doubtful. They are that Buddhaghosa burnt the works
written by Mahinda and that his knowledge of Sanskrit was called in
question but triumphantly proved. Can there be here any allusion to a
Sanskrit canon supported by the opponents of the Mahavihara?

Even in its main outline the story is not very coherent for one would
imagine that, if a Buddhist from Magadha went to Ceylon to translate
the Sinhalese commentaries, his object must have been to introduce
them among Indian Buddhists. But there is no evidence that Buddhaghosa
did this and he is for us simply a great figure in the literary and
religious history of Ceylon. Burmese tradition maintains that he was a
native of Thaton and returned thither, when his labours in Ceylon were
completed, to spread the scriptures in his native language. This
version of his activity is intelligible, though the evidence for it is
weak.

He composed a great corpus of exegetical literature which has been
preserved, but, since much of it is still unedited, the precise extent
of his labours is uncertain. There is however little doubt of the
authenticity of his commentaries on the four great Nikayas, on the
Abhidhamma and on the Vinaya (called Samanta-pasadika) and in them[78]
he refers to the Visuddhi-magga as his own work. He says expressly
that his explanations are founded on Sinhalese materials, which he
frequently cites as the opinion of the ancients (porana). By this word
he probably means traditions recorded in Sinhalese and attributed to
Mahinda, but it is in any case clear that the works which he consulted
were considered old in the fifth century A.D. Some of their names are
preserved in the Samanta-pasadika where he mentions the great
commentary (Maha-Atthakatha), the Raft commentary (Paccari, so
called because written on a raft), the Kurundi commentary composed at
Kurunda-Velu and others.[79] All this literature has disappeared and
we can only judge of it by Buddhaghosa's reproduction which is
proba