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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
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date a considerable time before Buddhaghosa.' The Kathavatthu which according to traditiou belongs to the 3rd century B.C. contains many quotations of verses, some of which can be found only in the Dhammapada, and not in any other canonical texts, but none of the sources of the quotations are mentioned. The same remark holds true of the Nettipakarana and the Petakð. padesa, which like the Kathāvatthu abound in quotations from the canonical works with this difference that in the former two works some of the sources are mentioned by name, although the verses there that are peculiar to the Dhammapada are quoted without any mention of their source. The Netti and the Petakôpadesa are the two companion works of exegetic type which are ascribed to Mahākaccāyana, the pntative author of all the earlier works of the Nirutti and Niddesa class. Prof. E. Hardy is inclined to place the composition of the Netti in the 1st century, A.D.,' but we bave reason to believe that the date can be pushed back to the 2nd century B.C. The Mahāniddesa which is a canonical commentary on the Atthaka vagga, now found incorporated in the Suttanipāta and forming its Fourth Book has been modelled upon Mahābaccāyana's exposition found in the earlier Nikāyas, and is not wanting in similar quotations of verses which cannot be found anywhere else in the canou than the Dhammapada. But even an earlier work, the Cullaniddesa, which must have been a pre-Asokan book of exegesis, older than the Suttanipāta and later than the canonical Jätaka Book,* contains similar quotations of verses not to be found in any other text than the Pāli Dhammapada. Considering that the closing date of the Pāli canon is not later than the 2nd century B.C., the latest date for the Mahāniddesa can not be later than the closing period of the canon. Further, in one of Buddhaghosa's commentaries, viz., the Sumangalavilasini, there is reference to two schools of enumeration, the
"Questions of King Milinda, S. B. E., Pt. I. p. IIP.
Netti, p. xxvii.
Mahaniddesa, p. 108. • See passim,
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