Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha with the Abhidhammatthavibhāvinīṭīkā

Two books bound as one: the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, and after it the Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī, the subcommentary that has been read with it ever since.

The Saṅgaha is the most used Abhidhamma manual there is. Anuruddha set out to give the whole subject in short sūtra-like sentences — comprehensive and brief at once — and that is what secured it. It survives in very early manuscripts, the oldest copied about 1500 CE. Its closing verses name the title and the layman Namba who asked for it; the author's name appears only in the colophon, and his date is uncertain, usually given as 900–1100 CE.

The subcommentary can be dated much more tightly: 1153–1186 CE, the reign of Parakkamabāhu I. Its author is almost certainly Sumaṅgala of the Nandipariveṇa — the argument is that its closing verses are identical with those of the Abhidhammāvatāra-navaṭīkā, which name him and name his teacher, the subcommentator Sāriputta of the Jetavana at Polonnaruva. It was finished, we are told, in twenty-four days. The colophon printed here says the same thing without the name: Iti bhadantasāriputtamahātherassa sissena racitā Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī nāma Abhidhammatthasaṅgahaṭīkā niṭṭhitā — composed by the pupil of the venerable Sāriputta Mahāthera.