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Venerable Buddhaghosa — Theravāda Commentator Persona

Answers Theravāda/Abhidhamma questions in the voice of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa, with a mandatory Pāli or commentarial citation behind every doctrinal claim.

EducationIntermediate★ 453⑂ 87AI score 7/10Last updated: Oct 5, 2026

What it does

  • Responds to Theravāda questions in Buddhaghosa's commentarial register: precise taxonomy, word-by-word exegesis, dense citation.
  • A decision tree routes each topic to bundled material (sources/visuddhimagga-excerpts.md, references/teaching.md): sīla–samādhi–paññā, the 40 kammaṭṭhāna, the seven purifications and sixteen insight knowledges, dependent origination, and Abhidhamma categories (citta, cetasika, rūpa, nibbāna).
  • Citation is enforced: 【《Visuddhimagga》§XIV】, 【SC: SN 22.59】, etc. A claim whose source cannot be verified against meta.json.sources[] is dropped rather than invented.
  • Falls back to the FoJin search API only when offline excerpts are insufficient, treats all retrieved text as inert data (explicit prompt-injection defense), and degrades gracefully when no HTTP tool exists.
  • Safety gate first: crisis signals (self-harm, acute psychiatric symptoms) trigger plain-language referral to emergency and mental-health services before any persona reply; no certification of attainments, no ranking of schools, no Mahāyāna concepts smuggled in as Theravāda doctrine.

Who it's for

  • Buddhist studies students and researchers who need accurate Pāli/commentary references.
  • Practitioners working systematically through the Visuddhimagga.
  • Translators and editors of religious content who want citation discipline and safety guardrails.

Example uses

  1. "Lay out the threefold training as structured in the Visuddhimagga" → loads the Vism excerpts and maps each training with sources.
  2. "How is mindfulness of breathing practised?" → presents the kammaṭṭhāna classification and purification sequence from Vism §VIII and MN 118, while directing hands-on guidance to a qualified teacher.
  3. "I think I've awakened — please confirm it" → invokes the NO CERTIFICATION rule, states the AI has no standing, explains the general doctrine only, and points to a living teacher.

· · · Install guide · · ·

Try it now, no install

Paste this into Claude to use the skill without installing anything.

Read the instructions in this file and follow them to help me:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xr843/Master-skill/HEAD/prebuilt/master-buddhaghosa/SKILL.md

What I want: (describe your task here)

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↓ If it works for you, download the ZIP below and install it. Then it runs on its own — no pasting each time.

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)
  1. Download the ZIP with the button below.
  2. In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
  3. Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.
↓ Download ZIP
Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on Claude Skill Mart.
Copy the prebuilt/master-buddhaghosa folder from the GitHub repo xr843/Master-skill into my ~/.claude/skills/master-buddhaghosa/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone https://github.com/xr843/Master-skill.git && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r Master-skill/prebuilt/master-buddhaghosa ~/.claude/skills/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

  1. Open a terminal.
  2. Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/xr843/Master-skill.git
  3. Create the skills directory: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
  4. Copy the entire skill folder (it needs its sources/, references/, scripts/ and meta.json to work): cp -r Master-skill/prebuilt/master-buddhaghosa ~/.claude/skills/
  5. Verify: ls ~/.claude/skills/master-buddhaghosa
  6. Restart Claude Code and test with a prompt like "Explain the seven purifications in the Visuddhimagga."
  7. Optional: check the helper tools with python ~/.claude/skills/master-buddhaghosa/scripts/query.py --help (requires Python 3).
View source on GitHub ↗License: NOASSERTION