Comm. NT: 18. For the triads of the Abhidhamma Mātikā (Abhidhamma Schedule) see Ch. XIII, n.20.
Dhutaṅgapakiṇṇakakathāvaṇṇanā
‘Those who hold’: a reference to the inhabitants of the Abhayagiri Monastery at Anurādhapura.
For they say that ascetic practice is a concept consisting in a name (nāma-paññatti).
That being so, they could have no meaning of shaking off defilements, or possibility of being undertaken, because in the ultimate sense they would be non- existent [concepts having no existence].