your bridge home
Saints and Poets
They will not let a stranger into the library, so they give him two lines and tell him to explain them.
They would not let him near the books until he had proved himself, and the way they made him prove it was cruel and brilliant.
Buddhaghosa lived around the fifth century. Tradition says he was born a brahmin near Bodh Gaya, learned in the Vedas. And that he travelled about India winning debates.
Until he was beaten in one, by a Buddhist monk named Revata. And he became a Buddhist.
Modern scholars are not sure about the birthplace. Oskar von Hinüber and others think he actually came from Amaravati, in Andhra.
And that later biographies moved him nearer the Buddha's own country. To give him better standing.
Because that is where the commentaries were.
The Buddha's discourses had been preserved in Pali. But a great body of explanation had built up around them over eight hundred years. The commentaries, which told you what a difficult passage meant.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.