The Dharmapradipikava is one of the classical works of Sinhala prose, written by Gurulugomi, the author also of the Amavatura. It takes the form of a commentary on the Mahabodhivamsa, the Pali chronicle that recounts the bringing of the Bodhi tree to Sri Lanka, and in expounding that text Gurulugomi ranges widely across the Buddhist literature available to him.
What gives the work its standing is the range of material it draws in. Gurulugomi quotes from Sanskrit and Pali sources, among them the Jatakamala, the Bodhicaryavatara and the Pramanavarttika, so the commentary functions as a compendium of Buddhist doctrine as much as a gloss on a single chronicle. Scholarly study of the text has approached it from both directions — as a statement of Buddhist teaching and as a literary composition in its own right; a doctoral thesis at the School of Oriental and African Studies examined it on those two counts. An English selection from the work, titled The Lamp of the Law, has been issued by the Buddhist Publication Society, but the complete text belongs to readers of Sinhala.
This edition is in Sinhala throughout. It is not a translation and carries no parallel English text, so a reader without Sinhala will not be able to use it. For anyone who does read the language, it is an edition of Gurulugomi's text prepared by Rev. Medauyangoda Wimalakeerthi Thero and Rev. Kadawedduwe Sumangala Thero.
The prose of the Dharmapradipikava is old and deliberately learned, and the work is usually encountered either in courses on classical Sinhala literature or by readers following the commentarial tradition around the Mahabodhivamsa. It is a text studied as much for its handling of language as for its content, which is why it recurs in discussions of how Sinhala prose developed before the later literary periods.
Suited to students of Sinhala literature, to readers working on Buddhist textual tradition in Sri Lanka, and to anyone assembling a shelf of the classical Sinhala prose works alongside the Amavatura.
- Author: Rev. Medauyangoda Wimalakeerthi Thero, Rev. Kadawedduwa Sumangala Thero
- Publisher: Rathna Publishers
- Language: Sinhala
- Pages: 464
- ISBN: 9789556831658
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