Nettippakaraṇa-aṭṭhakathā

The commentary on the Nettippakaraṇa, the manual of interpretation — Dhammapāla's, and written at the request of the Thera Dhammarakkhita.

Dhammapāla is the second great figure of this literature, and every date attached to him is a bracket rather than a year. He quotes Bhartṛhari's Vākyapadīya, and Bhartṛhari can perhaps be placed at 450–510 CE, which puts Dhammapāla after 500 CE and younger than Buddhaghosa. The other end is far weaker: no reliable upper limit has been found, and the first firm date is that Sāriputta was reading him in the 1100s. Hinüber says the date “remains uncertain”, and notes that the tradition makes him Ānanda's pupil while marking that link “perhaps” at its first mention (Hinüber 1996, p. 166, §356, and p. 169, §§365–366).

Its closing verses put the author at the Dhammasokārāma in Nāgapaṭṭana rather than at Badaratittha. That it is the same undertaking as the Paramatthadīpanī is guaranteed from inside the text: the introductory verses of the two works are partly identical.