''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 ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

Buddhist canon. According to Rupert Gethin, the Abhidhammāvatāra (‘Introduction to Abhidharma’) was "written in the fifth century by Buddhadatta, a contemporary of Buddhaghosa."

Buddhadatta Buddhadatta Thera was a 5th-century Theravada Buddhist writer from the town of Uragapura in the Chola kingdom The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history ...

was a poet and scholar in the region of the Kaveri River, 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'').

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 The ''Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha'' (The Compendium of Things contained in the Abhidhamma) is a Pali Buddhist instructional manual or compendium of the Abhidhamma of the Theravāda tradition. It was written by the Sri Lankan monk Ācariya Anuruddha s ...

has, in essence, superseded it.

References

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