EAP756/1/21/2

Moggallānapadasādhana nissaya represents a bilingual translation and commentary on a Pali grammatical work Moggallānapadasādhana compiled by Piyadassi in the 12th or 13th century. Padasādhana is also known in Burma as Mūla Moggallāna so the alternative title for the work transmitted in this manuscript is Mūla Moggallāna nissaya. It is possible that Moggallānapadasādhana nissaya is not an independent work but a part of a larger text that also includes Ṇvādi Moggallāna nissaya (reproduced as the next fascicle in this bundle). This possibility rests on the fact that the majority of known witnesses of this Moggallānapadasādhana nissaya also contain Ṇvādi Moggallāna nissaya. In her catalog of Burmese manuscripts in German libraries, Anne Peters describes this combination of nissayas as a "text identified in the manuscript as Moggalān nissya containing nissayas of Padasādhana and Ṇvādimoggallāna." This definition showing that the manuscript sees both nissayas as one text while the cataloguer treats them as two is quite ambigous, however, no conclusive evidence could be currently provided to support either separate identities for these two titles or to argue that both of them form a single work. The nissaya is compiled by an author whose monastic name is not identified in the text, though the introduction specifies him as a disciple of Pavarābhidhammarājaguru [? Taung-nan-kyaung Hsayadaw]. As it is not yet entirely clear if nissayas of Moggallānapadasādhana and Ṇvādi Moggallāna constitute two separate works by different authors or a single work composed by a single author, the possibility that this disciple of Pavarābhidhammarājaguru was known as Sīrivilāsa could not be ruled out.

Extent and format of original material: 6 files.

Physical characteristics: 2 fascicles of 110 inscribed and 4 uninscribed ff.