In force from 2026

Terms of use

Short version: read it, quote it, cite it, teach from it. Do not take the whole thing and pass it off as your own, and do not treat a draft as though it were settled.

What this library is

An English draft translation of the Pali aṭṭhakathā, published by Dhammacakka Foundation Trust so that it can be read and checked. It is served free of charge, with no account and no subscription, and we intend to keep it that way.

It is a draft, and nothing in it has been reviewed

Every rendering here is the project's own first pass. No part of it has yet been confirmed by an independent scholar. It may contain mistakes of grammar, of doctrine and of judgement. Check any passage against the Pali beside it before you rely on it, and cite it as a draft with the date you read it. We give no warranty of accuracy or fitness for any purpose, and we are not liable for what follows from relying on it.

Copyright

The underlying Pali is the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition (CST4) published by the Vipassana Research Institute. Rights in that text are not ours and we make no claim to them.

What you may do

Read, search and print for your own study or teaching.
Quote passages — in an article, a book, a sermon, a lesson, a thesis — with attribution to Dhammacakka Research Center and a link or a reference to the volume and paragraph.
Link to any page here, including deep links to a single paragraph.

What we ask you not to do

Republish the corpus, or a substantial part of it, elsewhere.
Sell it, or put it behind a charge or a login.
Use it as training data for a machine-learning model.
Harvest it automatically. The site is served at reading speed and requests that go faster are refused — see the note below.
Present it as reviewed, authorised or final, because it is none of those.

If you want any of these, ask. The Trust exists to put this literature into the world, and permission for scholarly and non-commercial use is usually given for the asking.

If you want the whole thing

Write to research@dhammacakka.in and we will send you the database. That is far better for you than scraping it a page at a time, and far better for this small server.

Rate limits

Each address is allowed a generous but finite number of pages and searches. Ordinary reading never reaches the ceiling; automated collection does, and is then made to wait. Nothing about this depends on who you are — we do not know who you are.

Corrections and complaints

If a passage is wrong, tell us: that is the whole reason the draft is public. If you believe something here infringes your rights, write to research@dhammacakka.in with the page and what the matter is, and we will answer.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of India, and the courts at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh have jurisdiction. Dhammacakka Foundation Trust is a public charitable trust registered under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882, at Sarnath, with recognition under sections 12A and 80G of the Income-tax Act.