Sāratthamañjūsā

The Sāratthamañjūsā on the Aṅguttara commentary, covering the Books of Fives to Sevens.

Sāriputta is the first author in this collection who can be dated to a reign rather than to a bracket. He worked in Ceylon under Parakkamabāhu I — 1153–1186 CE — in a building the king had raised for him inside the Jetavana monastery, and his subcommentaries open by naming that king and his reunification of the Saṅgha. His teacher was the Anuthera Sumedha.

Two neighbouring attributions do not survive inspection, and it is worth knowing which. Hinüber holds that this is the only Suttanta subcommentary actually by Sāriputta. Dhammapāla's Aṅguttara subcommentary, he says, “if it ever existed, does not seem to survive” (Hinüber 1996, p. 167, §357); and the Sāratthamañjūsā sometimes reported on the Dīgha, Majjhima and Saṃyutta subcommentaries “seems to be a fiction” (Hinüber 1996, p. 173, §376).