A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s5.63

v2.c19.s5.63

⁴ He tells us himself (in the introduction to the Samantapāsādikā) that he not only translated the commentaries of the Mahāvihāra from the Singhalese, but compared them with the commentaries of other monasteries, abbreviated and freely revised them. Burlingame (JAOS 38, 1918, 267 f.) pronounces the tradition according to which the Attha-Kathās were translated from Pāli into Singhalese, and translated back again from Singhalese into Pāli by Buddhaghosa and others, to be "unreliable and misleading," because Buddhaghosa and the compiler of the commentary on the Dhammapada availed themselves of common Pāli originals though independently of each other, and because both Dhamma-pāla and the compiler of the Jātaka commentary copied from Buddhaghosa's commentaries. Nevertheless, it is possible, indeed probable, that the 5th century translators, though translating from the Singhalese, used available Pāli texts as well (*e g.*, of legends and tales).