An Introduction to Līnatthasūdanī Saddabindu Purāṇa-ṭīkā, One of the Unedited Pali Grammatical Text

Abstract

The Saddabindu, the smallest Compendium of the Kaccāyana school of Pali grammar was written in 1777 BCE and the author of this compendium was Dhammarājaguru. It is not clear whether the author is a bhikkhu or a lay man as seen in the text. According to the Saddabindu Purāṇa-ṭīkā, he is a bhikkhu. The Saddabindu consists of twenty one verses in short forms. There are two commentaries on the Saddabindu, namely Līnatthasūdanī Saddabindu Purāṇa- ṭīkā and Saddabindu Abhinava-ṭīkā. The first one belongs to Burma and the second to Thailand. According to the Ven. Polvatte Buddhadatta, the second one has been published in Burma. But unfortunately Saddabindu Purāṇa-ṭīkā has not been published yet and is available only in very ancient Ola-leaf Manuscripts written in Sinhalese scripts. Saddabindu Purāṇa-ṭīkā has not yet been recognized by any scholar. The ṭīkā used by Ven. Horaṇa Kahaṭapiṭiye Rāhula is in the form of an Ola-leaf manuscript. There are forty three copies of the text in the K. D. Somadasa’s work on Lankāve Puskoḷapot Nāmāvaliya. For this study, we were able to find seven Ola-leaf manuscripts from Sri Lankan temples and libraries. In the colophon of the text, it has been said that it was compiled by Ven. ¥āṇavilāsa Mahā thera in Ghaṭīkārāmaya of Arimaddana town in Burma. There are six bhaṇavaras which is considered as the text. The objective of this paper is to give a brief introduction about it.