Sūrassatīnīti

Sūrassatīnīti, “the maxims of Sūrassatī” — the name is Sarasvatī, goddess of speech and learning, in her Pali form: the usual patron for a book of instruction. It opens with verses of homage before the maxims begin. It closes on the patience of teaching: Silārūpaṃ nimminanti, koṭṭetvāna punappunaṃ — as a stone figure is made by striking it again and again, so fools are shaped by repeated admonition. The verses after it in this volume (CST4 paragraphs 447–545) are a separate selection headed Cāṇakyanītilā gāthā, verses from the Cāṇakyanīti, and the volume's last line is theirs.

Of the volumes in this collection that name nobody, this is the plainest in language: its rate of Sanskrit kāvya vocabulary is the lowest measured anywhere in the set, well below the Lokanīti — measured on the whole file, the Cāṇakya verses included.

The text names no author and no initiator, and that is a fact about the text, not a gap in the searching. A scan of its opening and closing found no ganthārambhakathā, no colophon and no place name anywhere in it, and no source on file names the work. No date can be given.