Caturārakkhadīpanī

The four protections are the four meditations a monk is advised to keep constantly within reach — the recollection of the Buddha, loving-kindness, the contemplation of foulness, and the recollection of death. This is the exposition of them.

The author names himself, twice. The closing verses of the Caturārakkhadīpanī say it was composed by the Thera Aggadhamma while living in the Camakya grove east of the village of Turaṅgavaja — Vasatā aggadhammena, therena racito ayaṃ. The Kāyapaccavekkhaṇā bound after it (CST4 paragraphs 1564–1960) ends with the same line, written this time in a monastery built by a resident of Ranakun, east of the Daguṃ cetiya: Dagon, where the Shwedagon stands at Rangoon (Cocks 1910, p. 47). That places him in Lower Burma. Neither gives a year, and no date can be put to the book.

The catalogue entry is a separate question. The Cūḷagandhavaṃsa lists both caturārakkhā and caturārakkhāya aṭṭhakathā among the forty-three works “made by the wise in Laṅkādīpa and other places”, and the Gandhavaṃsa carries the same entry; nothing on file shows that this Burmese thera's book is the one meant.

The subject belongs to the practical, memorisable literature this whole layer serves — the same purpose Bode identifies for the paritta, which the Burmese laity knew by heart.