Dhammasattha

Dhammasattha ("treatise on the law") is the Pali name of a genre of literature found in the Indianized kingdoms^{[broken anchor]} of Western mainland Southeast Asia (modern Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and Yunnan) principally written in Pali, Burmese, Mon or the Tai languages or in a bilingual nissaya or literal Pali translation (Burmese: နိဿယ). Burmese ဓမ္မသတ် is often transliterated "dhammathat" and the Tai and Mon terms are typically romanized as "thammasāt" or "dhammasāt" (Thai: ธรรมศาสตร์).

"Dhamma" is the Pali-cognate of the Sanskrit-term "Dharma", meaning "law and justice". "Sattha" is the cognate of "śāstra", which either means instruction, learning, or treatise. Dhammasattha texts are historically related to Hindu dharmaśāstra literature from the Indian subcontinent, although they are very significantly influenced by the Theravada Buddhist traditions and literature of Southeast Asia.