An Abhidhamma treatise by Buddhadatta of Uragapura. The book was written in India in the Coḷa country. It is an introduction to the study of the Abhidhamma, and there is much similarity between it and the Visuddhimagga, though Buddhadatta’s diction is less involved and ambiguous than that of Buddhaghosa; his vocabulary is extraordinarily rich and his style more graphic.

The work is mostly in verse with, here and there, a prose commentary supplied by the author himself (Gv.69; see P.L.C. 107-8 for details).

Two Subcommentaries (ṭīkā) on it exist, one by Vācissara Mahāsāmi of the Mahāvihara and the other by Sumaṅgala, pupil of Sāriputta. Sās.34.

Gv. (p.69) says that Buddhadatta wrote it at the request of his pupil Sumati.