This is a volume of the Abhidharma Pitaka in Sinhala, part of the complete Tripitaka translation undertaken by A. P. de Zoysa. The text is in Sinhala throughout — there is no English in it — so it will suit readers who read the language, students working towards it, or anyone building a Sinhala Buddhist library abroad.
The Abhidhamma Pitaka is one of the divisions of the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism. Where the Sutta collections record the discourses, the Abhidhamma takes the same teaching and sets it out as scholastic analysis: the material of the discourses broken down, classified and examined in systematic form. The division comprises these books:
- Dhammasangani
- Vibhanga
- Dhatukatha
- Puggalapannatti
- Kathavatthu
- Yamaka
- Patthana
A. P. de Zoysa was a lawyer, social reformer, member of the State Council and Buddhist scholar. Working with other scholars, he translated the whole of the Tripitaka into plain Sinhala — a deliberately accessible register rather than a learned one — and the project grew across many volumes over the course of his life. The Abhidharma Pitaka volumes of that translation have been issued in Colombo by S. Godage, and this is one of them.
Because the canon is divided into parts and each part into volumes, sets of this translation are usually assembled piece by piece, and individual volumes are bought to complete or extend a shelf already begun. Buyers outside Sri Lanka tend to come to it for that reason: the Sinhala Tripitaka is not easily found in general bookshops elsewhere, and de Zoysa's version in particular has long been the one many Sinhala readers were raised on.
The publisher, Godage International Publishers, is an established Colombo house issuing books in Sinhala and English across religion, history, literature and scholarship, and has kept a good deal of Sri Lankan Buddhist material in print.
A practical note for ordering: this is a working religious text, printed for reading and reference rather than as a gift edition, and it is a substantial single volume. If you read Sinhala and want the Abhidhamma in a form intended to be understood rather than merely recited, this is the translation to look at.
- Author: Dr. A. P. De Soysa
- Publisher: Godage International Publishers
- Language: Sinhala
- Pages: 708
- ISBN: 9789553036414
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