Reuse of Text in P?li Legal Commentaries

Abstract

We will examine three types of reuse represented in P?li legal literature: (1) unacknowledged borrowings of authoritative opinions and definitions adapted (such as by dropping the references given in the source text) and rearranged (Samantap?s?dik? > Ka?kh?vitara??; fourth to fifth century ce); (2) unacknowledged borrowings of largely unchanged selected text portions being rearranged (Samantap?s?dik? > Vinaya-sa?gaha; twelfth century CE); and (3) unconnected extracts of unchanged text portions lined up in the sequence of the source text (for instance P?timokkha-padattha-anuva??an? > Vinaya-lakkha?a-r?s?; eighteenth (?) century CE).