Saddhammapajjotikā

The commentary on the Mahāniddesa, first half of the Saddhammapajjotikā. It ends Saddhammappajjotikā nāma mahāniddesa-aṭṭhakathā niṭṭhitā.

Its date is disputed, and the two readings are three hundred years apart. The author gives his own name in the closing verses — Upasena — and says he worked in the Mahāvihāra, in a cell donated by the minister Kittisena, finishing in the twenty-sixth year of king Sirinivāsa Sirisaṅghabodhi. Everything then turns on which king that is. Norman reads the regnal year as the middle of the 500s CE (Norman 1983, p. 133). Hinüber objects that only Sena II Sirisaṅghabodhi reigned long enough for a twenty-sixth year, and identifies the minister Kittisena with the head scribe Sena who served under him — which gives 877 or 817 CE, some three centuries later than the Paṭisambhidāmagga commentary.

The two Niddesa commentaries are a single work in two parts under one title, Saddhammapajjotikā, written at the request of a Thera named Deva. Since the opening verses name Sāriputta as the author of the Niddesa itself, this book is in effect a subcommentary on the Suttanipāta — a commentary on a commentary, inside the aṭṭhakathā layer.