Buddhaghosa
A figure from the books
#Buddhaghosa
Buddhaghosa · flourished early 5th century CE
In the books · 2 chapters
Who this is
Theravāda Buddhism — monk, commentator, translator; author of the Visuddhimagga, the "Path of Purification".
“The second most influential voice in Theravāda Buddhism belongs to a man who insisted, on nearly every page he wrote, that he was saying nothing of his own — and it is precisely because he claimed nothing that everything now passes through him.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“By 400 CE, nine centuries of accumulated explanation of the Buddha's words survived only in old Sinhala, on one island. Buddhaghosa sailed there, mastered that library, and recast the whole of it in Pali, the shared scriptural language — producing the edition of Buddhism that Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos still read.”
From the books
- The Great IndiansBuddhaghosa is Chapter 59 of Vol 2, The Classical Age.
- The Great PhilosophersBuddhaghosa is Chapter 59 of Vol 2, Late Antiquity & the Early Medieval World.
Read the chapters
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