Buddhaghosa

Commentaries In the 4th or 5th century Buddhaghosa Thera wrote the first Pali commentaries to much of the Tipitaka (which were based on much older manuscripts, mostly in old Sinhalese).

Gombrich writes: "In Ceylonese tradition, Buddhism (the Sasana) has three constituents: learning, practice and realization".sfn In the sequence given by Buddhaghosa in his Visuddhimagga, the sequence of training is sila, samadhi, prajna.

The work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought.