Dhammapada-aṭṭhakathā

The commentary on the Dhammapada — one of the biggest volumes in the aṭṭhakathā layer, and the one people actually read, because it is where the stories are.

Who wrote it is an open question, and the two standard handbooks answer it differently. Hinüber treats the work as anonymous: what the text names is not an author but an initiator, the otherwise unknown Thera Kumārakassapa, who wanted it turned out of Sinhalese so that it would be read beyond the island. Norman reports that the colophon does claim Buddhaghosa, working in a residence built by king Sirikūṭa — and that some scholars have proposed a different Buddhaghosa, on the ground that the style is unlike his other work. Norman's own reply is that the subject matter is unlike his other work too, which would account for it. If the colophon's king is the king of the Samantapāsādikā's colophon, the date is 429/430 CE — or 369/370 CE on the competing chronology; if not, there is no date.

Like the Jātaka commentary it has no title of its own and is called simply dhammapadassa atthavaṇṇanā, the explanation of the meaning of the Dhammapada. Its table of contents stands at the end rather than the beginning, which is unusual. And the stories do not run one to a verse: several are used more than once, so 299 stories carry the Dhammapada's 423 verses.