''Abhidhammavatara'' (Pali, also ''Abhidhammāvatāra''), according to Encyclopædia Britannica is "the earliest effort at systematizing, in the form of a manual, the doctrines dealt with in the Abhidhamma (scholastic) section of the Theravada Buddhist canon. According to Rupert Gethin, the Abhidhammāvatāra (‘Introduction to Abhidharma’) was "written in the fifth century by Buddhadatta, a contemporary of

Buddhaghosa Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher. He worked in the Great Monastery (''Mahāvihāra'') at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajjavāda school and in t ...

." Buddhadatta was a poet and scholar in the region of the

Kaveri River The Kaveri (also known as Cauvery, the anglicized name) is one of the major Indian rivers flowing through the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Kaveri river rises at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri range in the Western Ghats, Kodagu dist ...

, in southern India". He was patronised by Accutavikkante of the Kalamba family (''Accut Accutavikkante Kalambakulanandane mahin samanusāsante āraddho ca samāpito''-verse 3179 of ''Nigamanagātha'', ''Vinayavinicchaya''). Buddhadatta used this work to sum up and give original systematization to other commentaries dealing with '' Abhidhamma.'' It is written in a chapter, verse format, with 24 chapters. The Abhidhammattha-sangaha has, in essence, superseded it.

References

{{reflist 5th-century works Pali Buddhist texts Abhidharma Theravada Buddhist texts