Hi, yes, I'd suggest going over robertk's discussion several times as it has quite a bit of detail that might be overlooked due to it's length.TheDhamma wrote: I have done some more looking over at RobertK's discussion and this is what he (RobertK) posted:
I'll reproduce here the whole bit about it from robertk's discussion as it seems useful to get different perspectives on the translation:TheDhamma wrote:I found this in the attakattha to the Dhammasangani (first book of the Abhidhamma) the Atthasalini, (from the introductory discourse):
"The ancient commentary therof was sang By the First council, Mahakassapa Their leader, and later again by seers, Mahinda bought it to the peerless isle, Ceylon,.."
Robert then goes on to say that he is not sure which "commentary" is referred to by Buddhaghosa.
Robert:
I found this in the attakattha to the Dhammasangani (first book of the Abhidhamma) the Atthasalini, (from the introductory discourse):
"The ancient commentary therof was sang By the First council, Mahakassapa Their leader, and later again by seers, Mahinda bought it to the peerless isle, Ceylon,.." endquote.
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I am not sure, but I believe this is referring to the actual > Dhammasangani[not the commentary].
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Robert:
I asked a friend, who is a pali scholar, to look over the passage in the atthasalini. He wrote that it is indeed a reference to the ancient commentary:
The Pali of verse 13 on page 1 is:
13. Yaa Mahaakassapaadiihi vaasiih'a.t.thakathaa puraa
sa"ngiitaa anusa"ngiitaa pacchaa pi ca isiihi yaa
My translation runs like this:
"The commentary which was earlier recited by the residents beginning with Mahaakassapa and later recited again by the sages also . . ."
This is only part of a long sentence. The mulatika interprets "anusa"ngiitaa" as meaning: recited again at the second and third councils. It is not yet clear to me which commentary was being recited and how much of
it is preserved in the Atthasalini or other texts. I understand that the ancient commentaries were handed down and ended up surviving in Sinhalese texts which Buddhaghosa then restored back into their Pali originals with some editing and cleaning up. I notice that on page 109 at the beginning of part III of The Expositor, there's a reference to the Great Commentary as the source of the Discourse on Doors but I don't know if this is the same commentary recited at the first council.
TheDhamma wrote: Buddhaghosa wrote that commentary around 4th to 5th century CE (AD).
As far as I know, in scholarly terms - commentaries, suttas and everything else was brought to Sri Lanka starting with Mahinda (3 century BCE), and then written down on palm leaves around the 1st century BCE. Whether it was done in Pali or Sinhala or both, I don't know. Either way, when Buddhagosha was translating and editing that written material into Pali in the 4-5 century CE, he kept referring to "The great commentary", which was, supposedly, the exact same commentary that was written down with the suttas and everything else. The great commentary is now considered lost, so we can't know for sure in scholarly terms anymore. Perhaps Buddhagosha did such a good job that the old version simply fell into disuse. Kind of like when Bhikkhu Bodhi does the editing of the suttas or ACM, and then nobody reads the old translations by Narada or Rhys Davids anymore.TheDhamma wrote: do you know the dating of that atthakatha?
TheDhamma wrote:Does anyone know of any other references, if any, that might suggest a First Council reciting?
There were those three mentioned in robert's post as far as I could notice - Atthasalini, the Tibetan source and the Chinese source. I'll try and see if there's anything else in the next few days, and I'll ask on dsg about the [first] insertion, whether it's really there in Pali or not.
Best wishes