Abhidhammāvatāra-purāṇaṭīkā

Both subcommentaries on Buddhadatta's Abhidhammāvatāra, bound as one volume: the old one (CST4 paragraphs 1–870) — purāṇa, “old”, only to keep it apart from the new — and after it the much longer new one, the Abhidhammatthavikāsinī of Sumaṅgala of the Nandipariveṇa (871–2598). The colophon that closes the volume is the new one's.

The old one is short, it carries no opening verses and no colophon of its own, and it does not comment on the Abhidhammāvatāra's introductory verses at all — an omission odd enough that Hinüber stops to record it.

Its author is a tradition rather than a signature. The Sāsanavaṃsa gives it to Vācissara Mahāsāmithera, who is placed in the 1200s CE; nothing in the book itself confirms this, and no closer date can be given. The same Vācissara wrote the Sīmālaṅkāra and the Sīmālaṅkārasaṅgaha, two of the manuals on monastic boundaries named in the Kalyāṇī inscription of 1476 CE.

The new subcommentary is signed. Its closing verses name Sumaṅgala, resident of the Nandipariveṇa, and his teacher the Thera Sāriputta — Sumaṅgalodīritanāmavissuto — and confirm the title (Hinüber 1996, p. 161, §343). Sāriputta worked under Parakkamabāhu I, 1153–1186 CE (Hinüber 1996, p. 172, §372), which dates his pupil's book to that generation.