BUDDHAGHOSA, a celebrated Buddhist writer, was a Brahman by birth and was born at Budh Gaya in north India about A.D. 39o. His teacher, Revata, induced him to go to Ceylon, where the commentaries on the Scriptures had been pre served in the Sinhalese language, with the object of translating them into Pali. He went accordingly to Anuradhapura, studied there under Sanghapala, and, with the leave of the fraternity, translated the commentaries. The Visuddhi Magga (the Path of Purity, a lengthy summary of Buddhist doctrine) is one of his earlier works. When he had completed his labours he returned to the neighbourhood of the Bodhi tree in north India. Before he went to Ceylon he had already written a book entitled Nano daya (the Rise of Knowledge), and had commenced a commen tary on the principal psychological manual contained in the Pitakas. This latter work he afterwards rewrote in Ceylon. As the original commentaries in Sinhalese are now lost his voluminous works are the only evidence we have of the traditions then handed down in the Buddhist community. The main source of our information about Buddhaghosa is the Maheivamsa, written in Anuradhapura about 5o years after he was working there. But there are numerous references to him in Pali books on Pali litera ture ; and a Burmese author of unknown date, but possibly of the 15th century, has compiled a biography of him, the Buddliaghos' Uppatti, of little value and no critical judgment.
See Mahavamsa, ch. xxxvii. (ed. Tumour, Colombo, 1837) ; "Gandhavamsa," p. 59, in Journal of the Pali Text Soc. (1886) ; Sumangala Vilasini, edited by T. W. Rhys Davids and J. E. Carpenter, vol. i. (Pali Text Soc., i886) ; Buddhghosuppatti (text and trans. ed. by E. Gray, 1893) .