Moggallānabyākaraṇa

The Moggallānabyākaraṇa itself — the sutta text of the second school's grammar, also called the Saddalakkhaṇa (CST4 paragraphs 1–1103) — and after it Moggallāna's own vutti on it (1104–3262). His further commentary, the Moggallānapañcikā, is not in this volume.

Moggallāna founded the second school of Pali grammar, and the date of his work is fixed by a political event: the closing verses of the vutti, which end this volume, say it was written in the reign of Parakkamabāhu, after the king had purged the Saṅgha of heretical monks — about 1165 CE. He lived at the Thūpārāma at Anurādhapura.

What made his school worth founding is that he took Pali more seriously as a language than his predecessors had. He treats it more exhaustively and with a better sense of its character, differs considerably in arrangement and terminology, and notices things the others had walked past — the existence of short e and o, for one. He was nonetheless a borrower: the earlier Pali grammars stand behind him, and so do the Kātantra, Pāṇini and above all Candragomin.