[psgy05.txt Year 2005: Messages 997-1630; January 1 - December 28, 2005 (634 messages). Yahoo! advertisements and notices contained in the original messages have been removed.

Source:
The Pali Study Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy/messages)
Prepared by Jim Anderson, Feb. 15, 2006]

997
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Jan 1, 2005 3:29am
Subject: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?

Although his own writing is not universally popular, Prof. Gombrich is known 
to most Pali enthusiasts through his editorial role in many of the major 
publications of the past 10 years. His early study of _Buddhist Precept & 
Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon_ (1971) is 
rich with keenly oberserved social criticism and humour, and has been twice 
reprinted. 

Gombrich has recently retired, and I infer from the fact that Oxford is 
still advertising for a replacement, that none has yet been selected. What 
is noteworthy, and a bit saddening, in the job posting from Oxford, is that 
they are advertising only for "a professor of Sanskrit" with knowledge in 
Sanskrit "both Vedic and classical", with only a tertiary mention of 
"proficiency in at least some areas of Middle Indo-Aryan" --which would 
include Pali. 

http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/fp/bodenprof.shtml 

The number of academics in Europe with any real ability in Pali continues to 
drop; and the increasingly common definition of Indology as "Sanskrit... and 
everything else I suppose" works to the detriment not only of Pali, but of 
all non-Vedic literary traditions --Middle Indo-Aryan, modern, Dravidian, 
and Austroasiatic alike. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Oneself, indeed, is one's saviour, for what other saviour would there be? 
With oneself well controlled one obtains a saviour difficult to find.
Random Dhammapada Verse 160

 
998
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sat Jan 1, 2005 4:48am
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?

a quick correction:

>Gombrich has recently retired, and I infer from the fact that Oxford is
>still advertising for a replacement, that none has yet been selected.

An appointment has been made. He will be coming to Oxford in Autumn 
2005. Unfortunately (from this point of view) he is a specialist in 
Indian sciences and Vedic.

> What
>is noteworthy, and a bit saddening, in the job posting from Oxford, is that
>they are advertising only for "a professor of Sanskrit" with knowledge in
>Sanskrit "both Vedic and classical", with only a tertiary mention of
>"proficiency in at least some areas of Middle Indo-Aryan" --which would
>include Pali.
>
>http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/fp/bodenprof.shtml
>
>The number of academics in Europe with any real ability in Pali continues to
>drop; and the increasingly common definition of Indology as "Sanskrit... and
>everything else I suppose" works to the detriment not only of Pali, but of
>all non-Vedic literary traditions --Middle Indo-Aryan, modern, Dravidian,
>and Austroasiatic alike.
>

When Richard Gombrich was appointed to the Boden Chair, his previous 
post was (inevitably) replaced by a lectureship in Sanskrit. 
Obviously, someone has that position; so there is no Pali post at the 
moment.

The new Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies is seeking funding and 
looks like succeeding in establishing some new posts; we hope that 
may eventually include something specifically in Pali.

I don't think the situation is any worse in the UK at the moment than 
it was in the 1960s, although there has been a disappointing lack of 
growth. There is a lot of worry about the future.

Lance Cousins
(Oxford)

 
999
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Jan 1, 2005 10:04pm
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?

Dr. Cousins, 

Your reply is most interesting. However, this is a subject about which I 
feel compelled to be boring. 

> I don't think the situation is any worse in the UK at the moment than 
> it was in the 1960s, although there has been a disappointing lack of 
> growth. There is a lot of worry about the future.

(1) However, my point stands that the situation is worse than it was six 
months ago, and that the evaporation of the one (and perhaps only) major 
academic chair held by a Palicist in England is a significant "worsening" of 
"the situation". The question as to whether things are not much worse than 
40 years ago is, strictly speaking, spurious to this point. (2) The 
comparison to the 1960s becomes rather absurd if we extend the scope of 
"Western scholarship" beyond the British Isles (and, I note, my original 
comment was not limited to the U.K.) --one can hardly say that (e.g.) 
Russia/USSR, Denmark, or Scandanavia are in nearly so strong a position in 
Prakrit/Pali (or Indology generally) as they were 40 years ago. And, of 
course, Warder's little island of Indology in Toronto (the largest 
department of Indology outside of India in the 1970s) imploded in the 1980s. 

I do indeed believe that the situation is worse; and I say this with the 
detached indifference of one with no plans to make them any better. 

From Thailand, hoping never to return to Western academia,
E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Though little he recites the Sacred Texts, but acts in accordance with the 
teaching, forsaking lust, hatred and ignorance, truly knowing, with mind 
well freed, clinging to naught here and hereafter, he shares the fruits of 
the Holy life.
Random Dhammapada Verse 20
 
1000
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sun Jan 2, 2005 2:38am
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?

to E.M.:

>Your reply is most interesting. However, this is a subject about which I
>feel compelled to be boring.

feel free

> > I don't think the situation is any worse in the UK at the moment than
>> it was in the 1960s, although there has been a disappointing lack of
>> growth. There is a lot of worry about the future.
>
>(1) However, my point stands that the situation is worse than it was six
>months ago, and that the evaporation of the one (and perhaps only) major
>academic chair held by a Palicist in England is a significant "worsening" of
>"the situation". The question as to whether things are not much worse than
>40 years ago is, strictly speaking, spurious to this point.

The situation in Oxford is clearly less good for the moment, although 
the teaching of Pali will certainly continue there and may yet 
prosper.

> (2) The
>comparison to the 1960s becomes rather absurd if we extend the scope of
>"Western scholarship" beyond the British Isles (and, I note, my original
>comment was not limited to the U.K.) --one can hardly say that (e.g.)
>Russia/USSR, Denmark, or Scandanavia are in nearly so strong a position in
>Prakrit/Pali (or Indology generally) as they were 40 years ago. And, of
>course, Warder's little island of Indology in Toronto (the largest
>department of Indology outside of India in the 1970s) imploded in the 1980s.

I quite agree that Pali studies outside the UK have declined significantly.

Lance Cousins

1001
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Jan 2, 2005 5:24am
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?

>
>I quite agree that Pali studies outside the UK have declined significantly.
>

What about Germany and Japan? I don't have much or any of an 
overview, but I was under the impression that Pali might be doing 
alright in those places.

/ET
 
1002
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Jan 2, 2005 5:25am
Subject: some more remarks on continuative participle

Rett wrote:

>I am still unsure about the word vattamaanaa there, because it is often used to designate the present tense endings. Since this context was about time, I automatically thought of that sense, even though it didn't seem to fit in. Does it here just have the present participle sense of 'being' 'happening' 'carrying on' ?
>
>"pubbakaale vattamaanaa dhaatumhaa" might then read: (to) the verb (dhaatumhaa) which is occurring (vattamaanaa) in previous time (pubbakaale)...?
> 
>
In fact, vattamaanaa is a Present Participle (the root vat + the
sign a + suffix maana), just like karonta, etc. Since the root vat means
"to happen, to arise, etc" and the whole word happens to be an adjective
qualifying dhaatumhaa, it should be translated as "that which happen,
that which arise"
Moreover, pubbakaale should not be rendered as "previous time"
because the author himself has said a few lines above, "pubbakaaloti
pubbakiriyaa" It should be translated instead as "in the previous verb"
Then the phrase"pubbakaale vattamaanaa dhaatumhaa" can be
understood as "from the root that arises in the previous verb" (Dhaatu
means only a verbal root --- it is a technical term that won't forgive
loose handling)
Next there is the problem of the ablative case in dhaatumhaa, though
no one has raised it. It is in fact a convention used in building
grammatical suttas. It isn't explicitly defined in Kaccaayana nor
Ruupasiddhi, but it can be found in Moggallana (See the sutta
"pancamiya.m parassa" --- its meaning, in short, is that whenever a
grammatical entity is given in ablative case within a sutta, the
particular process or treatment denoted by that sutta is concerned with
what follows that entity, not with what precedes it. This convention,
and other given there, come to be used in vutti and commentaries like
Ruupasiddhi. I think these conventions come from the Sanskrit
grammatology and those fluent in Sanskrit should try to find out their
origin.
In the present case, this particular sutta pubba . . . is meant to
add tvaa, etc. to certain roots. But should they be added as prefixes or
as suffixes? The ablative case in dhaatumhaa indicates that they should
follow the root, that is, they should be added as suffixes. That is why
I have added in my translation "(following it)"

"Navako" wrote:

>The function of the continuative participle is very clearly set out by 
>Mason, Duroiselle, and (I assume) by Warder --and my question was not about 
>its meaning or usage (as I say, this is the one thing I do know, and I tried 
>to infer the terminology on this basis by comparing sources). 
> 
>
Here I should note that the usage of the continuative participle
(hereafter CP) may not have been adequately treated by Mason and other
scholars. I should like to reveal here the view of the Burmese tradition
but I have to make up the examples, for I don't have at present the
access to the Burmese sources necessary for the purpose; consequently, I
cannot give the valid examples from Pali literature.
1. puriso bhutvaa gacchati (= The man eats and goes) Here CP first, the
main verb later
2. puriso mukha.m vivaritvaa sayati (= The man opens the mouth and
sleeps, that is, he sleeps with his mouth open) Here CP and the main
verb are simultaneous.
3. puriso dvaara.m pidahitvaa ti.t.thati (= The man (would) close the
door, and stands up) Here CP "pidahitvaa" really reflects the man's
purpose in standing up. The real action of closing would take place only
after that of standing. Consequently
CP later, the main verb first.
4. khiira.m pivitvaa bala.m bhavati (= Strength arises on account of
(his) drinking milk) Here you should notice that "bala.m" is the subject
of the main verb "bhavati" but obviously not of the CP "pivitvaa" The
subject of "pivitvaa" is apparently someone who drinks the milk. This is
an exception from ". . . ekakattukaana.m. . . ." in the sutta.
The Burmese tradition maintains that when a given CP and its
following verb have different subjects, the CP carries the sense of
causality, and its subject, understood or expressed, carries the
genitive case. I have given the translation above in accord with that
theory.
In my opinion, however, the sense of the causality is only an
extension of the original sense as a verb. I would like to translate
instead as, "(He) drinks the milk, and (consequently) the strength arises"

"Navako" continued:

>So far, our conclusions seem to be (1) there is no adequate term in English, 
>(2) contrary to Warder, there is no Pali term whatsoever. I would still 
>appreciate any feedback on either one of these conclusions, as they are 
>fairly weighty, and I am myself composing a Pali textbook, in which such 
>conclusion will take on a concrete form. 
>
I have already said that a proper term for CPs should be the business of
those having better English skills. If we can't find a suitable term
ready-made for us in Western languages, we must coin it anyway.

However, I would like to discuss the question on the Paali term.
"Navako" may be right that there is no Pali term defined in grammatical
treatises --- it is seemingly because the ancient grammarians were
content to have only two categories of Primary Derivative suffixes,
namely, Kita and Kicca suffixes. (See the Kaccaayana suttas "te kiccaa"
and "ane kit") Alternatively three, if you would like to count U.naadi
suffixes too. They have never bothered to define CPs separately; this
may just be a case of different tastes.
In the commentarial tradition, however, there really is a Pali term for
CPs; it is "pubbakaalakiriyaa" If you search this term on
Cha.t.thasa`ngaayanaa CD, you would find it to be a common term for CPs
in sub-commentarial literature.

with metta

Ven. Pandita
 
1003
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Jan 2, 2005 7:09am
Subject: Re: some more remarks on continuative participle

Bhante, 

> In the commentarial tradition, however, there really is a Pali term for
> CPs; it is "pubbakaalakiriyaa" ... you would find it to be a common 
> term for CPs
> in sub-commentarial literature.

Thank you very much --I will add this term into the textbook I am composing, 
with a foot-note citing you as the origin/authority behind the opinion. 
*However*, it is rather unfortunate that the term itself 
("pubbakaalakiriyaa") runs contrary to the real meaning and usage of the 
grammatical form, which is by no means narrowly defined as to "kaala" (as 
you explained at length). 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
He who has developed a wish for the Undeclared (Nibbana), he whose mind is 
thrilled (with the three Fruits), he whose mind is not bound by material 
pleasures, such person is called an "Upstream-bound One".
Random Dhammapada Verse 218

 
1004
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Jan 2, 2005 1:36pm
Subject: Some more remarks and a request

Here are some more remarks again concerning the continuative participle.

"Navako" wrote:

Thank you very much --I will add this term into the textbook I am composing, 
with a foot-note citing you as the origin/authority behind the opinion. 

Thanks for your proposed acknowledgement.

*However*, it is rather unfortunate that the term itself 
("pubbakaalakiriyaa") runs contrary to the real meaning and usage of the 
grammatical form, which is by no means narrowly defined as to "kaala" (as 
you explained at length). 

I found nothing bad with this case, because the usage of CPs as a verb 
of previous time ("pubbakaalakiriyaa") is very common while others are 
almost exceptions to the rule. That is why they are not mentioned in 
classical grammars. As for the term itself used in sub-commentaries, we 
should understand that those authors are just adopting a term convenient 
for their own use --- they just won't bother to precisely define a term 
that is doctrinally trivial. If instances of CPs they refer to actually 
denote actions preceding those of other verbs, they cannot be blamed.

>Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?
>
> 
>
The topic of Pali studies degrading in the western hemisphere is very 
interesting to me. Why so? Why is Sanskrit and Vedic studies progressing 
while Pali going down? I'd like to request someone there to explain, 
for I am a total stranger to modern academics.

with metta


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1005
From: Jim Anderson <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Jan 4, 2005 3:27pm
Subject: Re: Some more remarks and a request

Dear Ven. Pandita,

Thank you for your recent contributions which have been quite helpful. It's
good to hear from you again. I've just emerged from a two week break from
the list. I'm planning to take more such breaks shortly as I'll be without
access to the internet in the second halves of this month and the next but
will continue to look in and contribute whenever I can.

I'm also interested in the same questions you raise about Pali studies in
the West but since I'm no academic myself I'm not qualified to respond to
your query directly. However, I thought I could quote from an email I
received last year from Prof. Suwanda Sugunasiri, the Founder of Nalanda
College in Toronto which is the only Buddhist college in Canada. I asked him
a similar question about the decline of Pali at the University of Toronto
which now no longer offers courses in Pali or Sanskrit. Here's his response:

"As for Pali, it's perhaps not that there is no interest in the study of
Pali by at U of T students, but that (a) there's no one to teach it, and (b)
academics in N America continue to downplay Pali, in preference for
Sanskrit, the study of which, of course, allows access to Mahayana as well
as Hinduism, and of coiurse, currently, Tibetan. It is as a minor effort at
rectifying this imbalance, then, that we decided to make Pali compulsory for
all our students, so they can have access to the earliest recorded Buddhism.
That is also the idea behind the proposed Centre in Pali & Early Buddhist
Studies." --Prof. S. Sugunasiri, Mar. 21, 2004

I think the matter involves other factors as well such as a lack of funding
and the low demand for Pali courses. A friend of mine enrolled in a first
year Pali course with Prof. Warder at U of T during 1978-9 and was the only
student but the same course for 1979-1980 saw a significant increase in the
number of students attending (around 3 or 4, I think). As far as I know, the
only educational institution in Canada currently teaching Pali is the
Nalanda College of Buddhist Studies and for Sanskrit, it's the University of
British Columbia.

I believe it's the responsibility of those who have long been involved with
Pali and care enough about it to try and do whatever they can to promote
interest in the study of the Pali language and its texts and to offer
support for the continuation of such learning. My preference is for such
efforts to take place in a supportive religious setting based on solid
Theravada principles rather than in an academic one involving high tuition
fees and high salaries for teachers/researchers. My idea is for something
that operates on the generosity and good will of dhammadaayaadas committed
to the threefold saasana.

Best wishes,
Jim

> >Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe
ever closer to zero?
> >
> >
> >
> The topic of Pali studies degrading in the western hemisphere is very
> interesting to me. Why so? Why is Sanskrit and Vedic studies progressing
> while Pali going down? I'd like to request someone there to explain,
> for I am a total stranger to modern academics.
>
> with metta
>
>

 
1006
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Jan 4, 2005 9:05pm
Subject: Decline of Pali: conclusions from a pan-Theravada conference

Although it only deals with the question of the decline of Pali studies in 
the West in passing, with its primary concern being the decline of Pali 
studies in Asia, I thought the following excerpt would very much interest 
the members of the list. I have extract the portions pertaining to Pali 
from the longer "Conclusions and Recommendations" of the conference. This 
is especially interesting as the attendance at the conference was primarily 
Theravada monks --so it both describes the problem, and the perception of 
the problem, among monks of South-East Asia.
E.M.
------------------
International Conference on Buddha Sasana in Theravada Countries 16 - 19 
January 2003, Colombo
Ministers Closing Speech
Conclusions and Recommendations 

[...] The importance of preserving the vast Buddhist scriptures along with 
their commentaries cannot be over-emphasized. We are conscious that the Pali 
Tipitaka which was written down in Sri Lanka and duly shared with nations of 
South and South East Asia is irreplaceable treasure. 

Concerns have been expressed about its preservation as well as its 
circulation nationally and internationally. A grave danger has been 
identified in the dwindling interest in Pali studies in countries where it 
was a language of very great importance. It is gratifying that you 
emphasized that a high level of expertise in Pali language is indispensable 
for the proper understanding of Buddha Dhamma. It is true that we cannot 
expect all citizens to be equally conversant of Pali. But a critical mass of 
Pali scholars is essential to preserve the Tipitaka, its commentaries and 
other important treatises. This is specially so because the authenticity of 
the original text has to be preserved in translations and secondary 
interpretations. 

You have also expressed concerns over the distortion and misrepresentation 
of Buddhist scriptures due to inaccurate translations. Two hundred years of 
western scholarship has produced a vast literature of Buddhist Studies which 
need to be reviewed, revised and corrected. We have collectively the 
intellectual and material resources to undertake this important task. We 
still have a high level of Pali scholarship in the countries of South and 
South East Asia. What we need is action to ensure that more Pali scholars 
are available for research and study. If we pool our resources we will lay 
the foundation for the development of the Pariyatti Sasana. 

[...] 

Underlying all problems in this area is the inadequacy of attention paid to 
Buddhist education. It is certainly disturbing that we do not have a well 
established Buddhist educational system in the region. Apart from an 
institutional base, we lack teachers, textbooks, manuals and learning 
materials and, more so, the incentives for people to pursue Buddhist 
education. This is a second area in which we look forward to collective 
action through international cooperation. 

[...] 

Promotion of Pariyatti Sasana (the study and preservation of the Pali Canon) 

The Conference being an occasion organized by the State of Sri Lanka in 
order to commemorate the august event of the 250th anniversary of the 
reintroduction of the higher ordination to Buddha Sasana in Sri Lanka and 
the beginning thereby of the Siam Sect of the Sangha in Sri Lanka it was 
felt that preservation, study and propagation of the Pali Canon is one of 
the most important tasks before the Theravada Buddhist world in particular. 
This is particularly because Theravada Buddhism cannot be separated from the 
Pali Canon and Pali has been the universal religious language throughout the 
Theravada countries. 

The Conference noted that there are several very crucial issues to be 
addressed in this regard. 

One is that the study of Pali language is gradually given less and less 
emphasis owing, mainly, to the overemphasis on job-oriented mode of 
education. It was noted that in many Buddhist countries, Pali was taught as 
a subject in normal school curriculum some time ago but it is no longer the 
case. More than a problem of resources such as teachers and textbooks this 
is a problem of attitudes. The conference recommends that Pali be a subject 
in the school curriculum, under the study of Buddhism. 

Pali has been an essential aspect in the monastic education. The traditional 
education of Pali has been such that it was internationally spoken and also 
used as the medium of instruction and communication. The ideal situation 
should be to reach this level. In some Buddhist countries, however, it is 
getting less and less attention as a result of Buddhist monks opting to 
study secular subjects. This has to be addressed by changing the fundamental 
characteristics of the monastic education. There must be ways and means for 
those who wish to do higher studies in Pali to have that education wherever 
the resources are available. The scholars in the Theravada countries, in 
particular, should be able to share their resources in this field in this 
connection some places should be reserved for Buddhist monks with necessary 
prerequisites to study Pali and Buddhist studies without payment of fees. 

The study of the Pali language has as its aim the study of the Pali Canon 
and the associated literature. The most fundamental step in the practice and 
the preservation of the Dhamma is to understand the Canon accurately. A 
pressing issue resulting from the unsatisfactory state of the Pali knowledge 
is that the Dhamma is not properly understood and hence, misinterpreted and 
distorted, knowingly or otherwise. The Conference notes that, as a result, 
not only the Dhamma itself is misunderstood but also the Buddhist point of 
view on issues of importance is not properly presented or wrongly presented, 
thereby doing tremendous harm to the Buddhasasana. In order to remedy this 
situation it is necessary that studies in Pali and the Canon should be 
developed both qualitatively and quantitatively. 

Lack of accurate texts and translations is another issue needing to be 
addressed urgently. Most of the existing texts and translations have been 
done a long time ago, more than hundred years ago, in some cases. This is a 
need to be addressed both nationally and internationally. Misinterpretations 
and distortions within the Theravada tradition arise due to this. In an age 
when not the traditional Buddhist scholars alone are engaged in research in 
Buddhism it is of vital importance that editions and translations of texts 
in international languages are reliably done. 

Specific Proposals: 

i Lobby the respective governments to introduce Pali into school curricula.
ii Reorganize the monastic education in such a way that a sound knowledge 
of Pali is indispensable.
iii Organize a system of exchange of Pali scholars among the Buddhist
countries. Particular attention in this regard should be paid to countries
without adequate resources and facilities.
iv Set up an international committee of scholars and practitioners to 
ensure
the reliability of texts and their translations.
v Initiate and assist in the projects for protecting, preserving and 
cataloguing
the endangered Buddhist manuscripts. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
If aught should be done, let one do it. Let one promote it steadily, for 
slack asceticism scatters dust all the more.
Random Dhammapada Verse 313

 
1007
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Jan 5, 2005 4:24am
Subject: Re: Some more remarks and a request

Dear Jim and Navako,
The report of the International Conference on Buddha Sasana in Theravada
Countries, I find very interesting and excellent.
I also agree with Jim.
I find that there are among us common folks, non-academici, still interest
to learn Pali with the purpose to read suttas in Pali. I do not know about
the sale of books of the PTS because so much is now available on line.
In Thailand each sutta is printed with its commentary which contains Pali
words that are explained. This did not exist about 40 years ago, but Ms.
Sujin Boriharnwanaket made things move, together with Acharn Somphon
Sriwaradit who translated from Pali into Thai many texts including
Abhidhamma and commentaries. This is not very well known to those outside
Thailand. 
Nina. 
op 04-01-2005 21:27 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

> I believe it's the responsibility of those who have long been involved with
> Pali and care enough about it to try and do whatever they can to promote
> interest in the study of the Pali language and its texts and to offer
> support for the continuation of such learning. My preference is for such
> efforts to take place in a supportive religious setting based on solid
> Theravada principles rather than in an academic one

 
1008
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:52pm
Subject: Decline of Pali: a Burmese view

Thanks very much, Jim, E.M., and Nina, for your detailed explanations 
and opinions.The facts you have given are wholly new to me and have 
given me new food for thought.

Now I would like to present here my own thoughts and the situation of 
Pali in Burma as well.

As we all know, Pali Text Society is a leading institution of Pali 
studies in the West. We need not repeat its accomplishments here since 
it would have been redundant to do so. However, I think that the very 
success of PTS has led to the degradation of Pali in the West.

I know I should explain.

Pali is the language of Theravada Buddhism, and *almost* of nothing 
else. It means that potential students of Pali are, excepting a few 
philologists like K.R. Norman, those eager to learn Theravada Buddhism. 
But when such persons refuse to learn Pali, their reasoning would be 
typically like this:

1. Pali is admittedly the language of Theravada Buddhism

2. However, PTS, an institution of high academic standards, has already 
published the translations of the whole(?) Canon. We can read and refer 
to PTS translations; no sane professor could object to this.

3. It is true that a major part of the commentarial literature has not 
been translated yet; but who cares? Commentaries are far from being the 
genuine words of the Buddha but only works of monks belonging to later 
periods.On the contrary, we can interpret the Canon in our own light, 
and may even achieve better results.

4. Then studying Pali means only a bother, a waste of valuable time.

There are, of course, some protests against such an attitude. One of the 
protesters is none other than K.R. Norman, who, in one of his papers 
(Sorry! I am not able to give references here), warns that PTS 
translations, and PED itself, should not be taken too seriously.But 
almost no one would hear him.

I'd like to know your opinions. Meanwhile I still have other things to say.

Jim wrote:

>I believe it's the responsibility of those who have long been involved with
>Pali and care enough about it to try and do whatever they can to promote
>interest in the study of the Pali language and its texts and to offer
>support for the continuation of such learning. My preference is for such
>efforts to take place in a supportive religious setting based on solid
>Theravada principles rather than in an academic one involving high tuition
>fees and high salaries for teachers/researchers. My idea is for something
>that operates on the generosity and good will of dhammadaayaadas committed
>to the threefold saasana.
> 
>
A very good idea, Jim, but I doubt whether it is practical enough. I am 
speaking from my own experience, for the Buddhist University where I 
studied, namely, State Pariyatti Sasana University (Rangoon), Burma is 
such an institution depending wholly on donations. I belong to the third 
batch of pre-graduate students; so I experienced the situation in the 
early days of the University, which I will relate here.

After the founding of the University, its sponsoring committee rushed to 
set up very big and costly buildings instead of seeking out competent 
teachers and collecting books for the library. Their explanation is " If 
the university is to survive and prosper, we must make way for a steady 
stream of donations and maintain it.Tangible things usually attract 
donations, and the bigger they are, the better"

As it is, the library was the last to be completed and yet without a 
fund for buying books. The librarian had to wait for donated texts. The 
donations did come; but only in the form of so many sets of Tipitaka 
Canon. The library got so many of them that it met a shortage of 
bookshelves. In the meantime, there were not enough sets of commentarial 
literature even for around 100 students and other ancillary literature 
was almost unavailable. The donors insisted on donating Tipitaka only; 
they were afraid they would gain less merit by offering non-Tipitaka books!

I have concluded from my experience that, if an institution of Pali is 
to be founded, as Jim said, "in the supportive religious settings", its 
community of potential donors must be fairly advanced in its thinking 
and visions; otherwise it would be very difficult to succeed, if not 
outright hopeless.

E.M. has quoted some portions of ""Conclusions and Recommendations: 
Minister's closing speech" from the International Conference on Buddha 
Sasana in Theravada Countries (January 2003, Colombo) However, I think 
there was no one there to represent Burma, and to give her views because 
the following excerpts hardly reflect the situation of Pali studies in 
Burma.

>Concerns have been expressed about its preservation as well as its 
>circulation nationally and internationally. A grave danger has been 
>identified in the dwindling interest in Pali studies in countries where it 
>was a language of very great importance.
>
[. . .]

>Underlying all problems in this area is the inadequacy of attention paid to 
>Buddhist education. It is certainly disturbing that we do not have a well 
>established Buddhist educational system in the region. 
>
[. . .]

>One is that the study of Pali language is gradually given less and less 
>emphasis owing, mainly, to the overemphasis on job-oriented mode of 
>education. It was noted that in many Buddhist countries, Pali was taught as 
>a subject in normal school curriculum some time ago but it is no longer the 
>case. More than a problem of resources such as teachers and textbooks this 
>is a problem of attitudes. 
> 
>
[. . .]

>Pali has been an essential aspect in the monastic education. . . . In some Buddhist countries, however, it is getting less and less attention as a result of Buddhist monks opting to study secular subjects. 
> 
>
[. . .]


I think the situation of Pali studies in Burma would be interesting 
because it is probably different from all other Theravadin countries. 
Accordingly, I hope you won't mind my detailed and necessarily boring 
account here.

If we are to speak of the Pali studies in Burma, we must divide it into 
two parts: the modern (secular) education and the monastic education. 
Yes, they are two entirely different worlds; they have different manners 
of thinking; they almost speak different languages.

In the secular part, it is in the worst possible plight. In fact, I just 
cannot think of how it will find more ways to get worse in future.

Even though Pali is not included in our school curriculum, it is taught 
at the universities. We have departments of Oriental Studies (the 
official term), which are in fact departments of Pali and Buddhist 
studies. (You learn Sanskrit only at MA level)

The main problem is that students cannot choose the subject they wish to 
major in, nor to change them. They must apply with a list of choices of 
more than 30 subjects---the most popular being the medical profession, 
the second one engineering, etc--- and their applications are to be 
judged on the merits of their grades in the High School final exam. 
Pali has a low position in the popularity chart and also comparatively 
low yearly admission quotas; accordingly a student would need a rare 
combination of low grades and bad luck to end up in the Pali department. 
Consequently, new students of Pali silently curse their kamma and just 
try to get degrees as soon as possible. Of them, only those who have 
little hope to get better jobs elsewhere would go on to post graduate 
studies at universities.

In such a situation, Pali departments cannot expect students to become 
competent scholars. They have to cope by begging already retired 
professors to give lectures, and sometimes even by inviting monks, who 
are not "educated" in the modern sense of education.

However, it is entirely different in monastic circles. In Burma, monks 
are not permitted to work as a wage-earners nor as businessmen; we don't 
have even the right to vote --- if an election is held, of course. Thus 
we are not to know what the job-oriented culture is.On the other hand, 
it means that there is no material incentive in Buddhist studies. A 
monk's material circumstances are not directly related to his learning.

Then what are the circumstances that promote Buddhist studies among 
monks? It is mainly the social pressure. The primary duty of a young 
novice or a young monk is to study. They are *not obliged* to give any 
fee for their education; the institutions of monastic education are 
supposed to provide students not only education but also food and 
lodging. A student's chances of success solely depends on his own merit, 
good teachers, and the atmosphere of his monastery. There may be 
financial constraints but nothing severe enough to deter a student from 
the academic success he deserves. On the other hand, younger monks and 
novices are generally not encouraged to meditate nor to give dhamma 
talks though they may be "permitted" to do these things provided their 
studies are not disturbed.

And Buddhist studies is the only one socially acceptable, and in some 
cases the only alternative, for monks in Burma. Secular schools and 
universities *cannot officially accept* a novice or a monk as a 
student.(The Buddhist University where I studied is solely for monks and 
novices)

In such a condition, Buddhist studies in monastic circles cannot but be 
strong, for there is nothing else to learn. (But it has also been badly 
hurt by the overall degeneration of the national economy and political 
instability)

And the archaic nature of the monastic education is such that Buddhist 
scholarship means Pali scholarship at least, with possibly some more 
things. If one has to use translations as the main source, he or she is 
viewed as a journalist, possibly a popular writer, but definitely not as 
a scholar. Period.

You would be surprised to know that a typical student of Pali in 
Burmese monasteries does not possess a Pali dictionary! Beginners rely 
instead on /nissaya/s (word-for-word translations) but their progress is 
measured by the extent of their growing independence from /nissaya/s. 
One hallmark of scholarship is the ability to ignore /nissaya/s in 
one's daily reading, and to use them only very occasionally as 
references when a controversy arises. The typical tools of a Buddhist 
scholar that he would daily use are the commentarial literature, classic 
grammars, and possibly a compilation of verbal roots such as Saddaniiti 
Suttamaalaa, Dhaatvatthasa`ngaha, etc.

It is true that we have published dictionaries. Perhaps you may know 
that the comprehensive Tipitaka Pali-Burmese Dictionary has been 
published in more than (20) volumes and still not complete. But what is 
remarkable here is that its compilers are working for others' sake!

However, there is a real problem with Buddhist scholars of the 
traditional background. They are not familiar with modern research 
methodology, and they generally do not understand the modern mind-set 
since they live in their own world as outsiders of the society. You 
might be surprised to know that there is almost no co-operation between 
monks and some remaining scholars who are laymen educated in western 
universities because mutual understanding is almost nil.

Worse still, they usually concentrate on Pali only; few who would go on 
to learn Sanskrit, and even fewer would learn English and other modern 
languages. In fact, the knowledge of English and other modern foreign 
languages is generally viewed as an implicit indication of a weakness in 
Buddhist scholarship since many of monks studying modern languages 
happen to be losers in monastic education.

Consequently, those able to make contributions at the international 
level are very rare. And unfortunately, what communications we have had 
with the Western academia in the past is not very encouraging ( I think 
I shouldn't go into details here because these events are not much 
related to what we used to discuss here. I think I should publish them 
elsewhere in future, probably at my web log 
<http://palithought.blogspot.com>) It means that even the few who are 
capable of contributing to International Pali studies won't feel 
inclined to do so. And I cannot see any improvement yet in this respect 
in near future.

with metta

Ven. Pandita



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1009
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:19pm
Subject: Decline of Pali: a Western view (what about the Laotian view?)

Bhante, 

> However, I think that the very 
> success of PTS has led to the degradation of Pali in the West.

I may be the only "Westerner" who agrees with you --but I do agree. 

In addition to your own notes (on reliance on translations --many of which 
are of very poor quality, but were intended to be provisional when they were 
produced 100 years ago, etc.) I should like to point out the following: 

1. The reliance on Romanized text (cultivated by the PTS) has created (or: 
exacerbated) an artificial division between indigenous/living 
manuscript-based Theravada Buddhist traditions and the "scholarly" sect. 

2. The creation of a "standard" pronounciation based on those Romanized 
script phonetic values has also made indigenous traditions of chanting 
(etc.) incomprehensible to westerners and vice-versa --except in the 
instance of the few Sri Lankan monks who have basically learned Pali from 
the PTS. Western scholarship has produced almost nothing that would educate 
you as to how to hear, comprehend, or speak Pali in its various "dialects" 
of South East Asia. I did not even bother to mention in point #1 above that 
there is a paucity of texts on indigenous scripts; if you want to learn to 
read and write Pali in the Sinhalese script, good luck finding a single 
published source. Even when limited publications can be found on type-set 
script, materials on cursive or manuscript forms are more rare still (or: 
non-existent). 

3. Whereas Sanskrit studies (and Hindu Indology generally) has been very 
active in dealing with the racism and imperialism that has been such a 
central aspect of the modern tradition (e.g., the racialist theories of Max 
Muller, the various interpretations of the caste system, the application of 
Hindu doctrine to social revolution in Indian independence, etc. etc.) Pali 
studies have been in a "denialist" mode. Almost all academic Pali studies 
proceed artifically cut off from the study of the social milieu in which 
Theravada Buddhism exists (e.g., "Burmese Studies" is a completely separate 
discipline from Pali studies in the U.K. --with its own journals, etc.-- and 
one has social content, the other none. The paucity of any mention of Sri 
Lanka's caste system and in western scholarship based on Sinhalese materials 
is another example/indicator) and, to be very blunt, the explicit racism and 
British empiralism that was preached by Rhys-Davids (founder of the PTS) is 
nowhere dealt with by the inheritors of the PTS tradition. On the contrary, 
they are very much in denial about the racism and overt imperialism of so 
many of Rhys-Davids lectures and writings, and they are likewise in denial 
as to the explicit Theosophical bias the Davids' wife (C.A.F. Rhys-Davids) 
brought into the PTS fold at an early date. Both of these influences (i.e., 
British "Aryan" imperialism (defined as such) and Theosophy) did much to 
warp the PTS's school of interpretation and translation. There are many 
instances in which we seem to discover two completely different texts when 
comparing the PTS notion of a given argument or concept (e.g., the gloss 
that C.A.F. Rhys-Davids applied to virtually the whole of the 
Abhidhammapitaka) to an indigenous commentator's interpretation (e.g., 
Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw's treatment of the same abhidhamma passages). The 
gulf in interpretation is sometimes very wide; and the thoughtless 
application of European philosophical concepts (or, sometimes, pseudo-Hindu 
concepts, such as Theosophy promoted) marks much of the PTS's work. 

I'm sorry if this is a bit disorganized, but what I mean to say, in sum, is 
that the PTS approach has created an intellectual climate in which both (1) 
the study of Theravada Pali traditions has been divorced from its milieu 
(i.e., social context), and (2) the interpretations of the PTS and other 
western Pali scholars have themselves been divorced from their milieu (which 
has been, quite explicitly, part of a project to entrench the British Empire 
in India and South East Asia --not to mention the wierd variant of the 
"Aryan race theory" that Rhys-Davids put forward, etc.). 

> After the founding of the University, its sponsoring committee rushed to 
> set up very big and costly buildings instead of seeking out competent 
> teachers and collecting books for the library. Their explanation is " If 
> the university is to survive and prosper, we must make way for a steady 
> stream of donations and maintain it. Tangible things usually attract 
> donations, and the bigger they are, the better" 
> 
> As it is, the library was the last to be completed and yet without a 
> fund for buying books. The librarian had to wait for donated texts.

Thanks to Bhante Pandita for this description; such candid reports from 
Burma are rare. It is, however, needless to say that the situation in Pali 
studies is FAR WORSE in those Theravada countries that were bombed into 
oblivion by the U.S. during the 20th century, i.e., Laos and Cambodia. 
Books of any kind are extremely scarce in Laos and Cambodia, and the need 
for basic Pali materials is acute --this is one of the main motivations for 
my writing a new textbook, typeset in these indigenous scripts. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
So, when a fool does wrong deeds, he does not realize (their evil nature); 
by his own deeds the stupid man is tormented, like one burnt by fire.
Random Dhammapada Verse 136

 
1010
From:  robert kirkpatrick <rjkjp1@yahoo.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:18pm
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: a Burmese view

Dear Venerable Pandita,
Thanks for your comments, it is worrying what is
happening throughout Theravda- especially the disdain
for the commentaries- of which poor interest in Pali
is a symptom.
This lack of respect is strong among Wesern converts,
but also Buddhists in Thailand, Burma and Sri lanka
who take on board the skepticism of Western scholars. 
In fact on another forum at the moment I am having a
discussion with a group of Buddhist who believe the
Abhidhamma was invented by later monks- they distrust
even the Tipitaka, let alone what they say about the
commentaries.
with respect
Robertk
--- "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Thanks very much, Jim, E.M., and Nina, for your
> detailed explanations 
> and opinions.The facts you have given are wholly new
> to me and have 
> given me new food for thought.
> 
> Now I would like to present here my own thoughts
> and the situation of 
> Pali in Burma as well.
> 
> As we all know, Pali Text Society is a leading
> institution of Pali 
> studies in the West. We need not repeat its
> accomplishments here since 
> it would have been redundant to do so. However, I
> think that the very 
> success of PTS has led to the degradation of Pali in
> the West.
> 
> I know I should explain.
> 
> Pali is the language of Theravada Buddhism, and
> *almost* of nothing 
> else. It means that potential students of Pali are,
> excepting a few 
> philologists like K.R. Norman, those eager to learn
> Theravada Buddhism. 
> But when such persons refuse to learn Pali, their
> reasoning would be 
> typically like this:
> 
> 1. Pali is admittedly the language of Theravada
> Buddhism
> 
> 2. However, PTS, an institution of high academic
> standards, has already 
> published the translations of the whole(?) Canon. We
> can read and refer 
> to PTS translations; no sane professor could object
> to this.
> 
> 3. It is true that a major part of the commentarial
> literature has not 
> been translated yet; but who cares? Commentaries are
> far from being the 
> genuine words of the Buddha but only works of monks
> belonging to later 
> periods.On the contrary, we can interpret the Canon
> in our own light, 
> and may even achieve better results.
> 
> 4. Then studying Pali means only a bother, a waste
> of valuable time.
> 
> There are, of course, some protests against such an
> attitude. One of the 
> protesters is none other than K.R. Norman, who, in
> one of his papers 
> (Sorry! I am not able to give references here),
> warns that PTS 
> translations, and PED itself, should not be taken
> too seriously.But 
> almost no one would hear him.
> 
> I'd like to know your opinions. Meanwhile I still
> have other things to say.
> 
> Jim wrote:
> 
> >I believe it's the responsibility of those who have
> long been involved with
> >Pali and care enough about it to try and do
> whatever they can to promote
> >interest in the study of the Pali language and its
> texts and to offer
> >support for the continuation of such learning. My
> preference is for such
> >efforts to take place in a supportive religious
> setting based on solid
> >Theravada principles rather than in an academic one
> involving high tuition
> >fees and high salaries for teachers/researchers. My
> idea is for something
> >that operates on the generosity and good will of
> dhammadaayaadas committed
> >to the threefold saasana.
> > 
> >
> A very good idea, Jim, but I doubt whether it is
> practical enough. I am 
> speaking from my own experience, for the Buddhist 
> University where I 
> studied, namely, State Pariyatti Sasana University
> (Rangoon), Burma is 
> such an institution depending wholly on donations. I
> belong to the third 
> batch of pre-graduate students; so I experienced the
> situation in the 
> early days of the University, which I will relate
> here.
> 
> After the founding of the University, its sponsoring
> committee rushed to 
> set up very big and costly buildings instead of
> seeking out competent 
> teachers and collecting books for the library. Their
> explanation is " If 
> the university is to survive and prosper, we must
> make way for a steady 
> stream of donations and maintain it.Tangible things
> usually attract 
> donations, and the bigger they are, the better"
> 
> As it is, the library was the last to be completed
> and yet without a 
> fund for buying books. The librarian had to wait for
> donated texts. The 
> donations did come; but only in the form of so many
> sets of Tipitaka 
> Canon. The library got so many of them that it met a
> shortage of 
> bookshelves. In the meantime, there were not enough
> sets of commentarial 
> literature even for around 100 students and other
> ancillary literature 
> was almost unavailable. The donors insisted on
> donating Tipitaka only; 
> they were afraid they would gain less merit by
> offering non-Tipitaka books!
> 
> I have concluded from my experience that, if an
> institution of Pali is 
> to be founded, as Jim said, "in the supportive
> religious settings", its 
> community of potential donors must be fairly
> advanced in its thinking 
> and visions; otherwise it would be very difficult to
> succeed, if not 
> outright hopeless.
> 
> E.M. has quoted some portions of ""Conclusions and
> Recommendations: 
> Minister's closing speech" from the International
> Conference on Buddha 
> Sasana in Theravada Countries (January 2003,
> Colombo) However, I think 
> there was no one there to represent Burma, and to
> give her views because 
> the following excerpts hardly reflect the situation
> of Pali studies in 
> Burma.
> 
> >Concerns have been expressed about its preservation
> as well as its 
> >circulation nationally and internationally. A grave
> danger has been 
> >identified in the dwindling interest in Pali
> studies in countries where it 
> >was a language of very great importance.
> >
> [. . .]
> 
> >Underlying all problems in this area is the
> inadequacy of attention paid to 
> >Buddhist education. It is certainly disturbing that
> we do not have a well 
> >established Buddhist educational system in the
> region. 
> >
> [. . .]
> 
> >One is that the study of Pali language is gradually
> given less and less 
> >emphasis owing, mainly, to the overemphasis on
> job-oriented mode of 
> >education. It was noted that in many Buddhist
> countries, Pali was taught as 
> >a subject in normal school curriculum some time ago
> but it is no longer the 
> >case. More than a problem of resources such as
> teachers and textbooks this 
> >is a problem of attitudes. 
> > 
> >
> [. . .]
> 
> >Pali has been an essential aspect in the monastic
> education. . . . In some Buddhist countries,
> however, it is getting less and less attention as a
> result of Buddhist monks opting to study secular
> subjects. 
> > 
> >
> [. . .]
> 
> 
> I think the situation of Pali studies in Burma would
> be interesting 
> because it is probably different from all other
> Theravadin countries. 
> Accordingly, I hope you won't mind my detailed and
> necessarily boring 
> account here.
> 
> If we are to speak of the Pali studies in Burma, we
> must divide it into 
> two parts: the modern (secular) education and the
> monastic education. 
> Yes, they are two entirely different worlds; they
> have different manners 
> of thinking; they almost speak different languages.
> 
> In the secular part, it is in the worst possible
> plight. In fact, I just 
> cannot think of how it will find more ways to get
> worse in future.
> 
> Even though Pali is not included in our school
> curriculum, it is taught 
> at the universities. We have departments of Oriental
> Studies (the 
> official term), which are in fact departments of
> Pali and Buddhist 
> studies. (You learn Sanskrit only at MA level)
> 
> The main problem is that students cannot choose the
> subject they wish to 
> major in, nor to change them. They must apply with a
> list of choices of 
> more than 30 subjects---the most popular being the
> medical profession, 
> the second one engineering, etc--- and their
> applications are to be 
> judged on the merits of their grades in the High
> School final exam. 
> Pali has a low position in the popularity chart and
> also comparatively 
> low yearly admission quotas; accordingly a student
> would need a rare 
> combination of low grades and bad luck to end up in
> the Pali department. 
> Consequently, new students of Pali silently curse
> their kamma and just 
> try to get degrees as soon as possible. Of them,
> only those who have 
> little hope to get better jobs elsewhere would go on
> to post graduate 
> studies at universities.
> 
> In such a situation, Pali departments cannot expect
> students to become 
> competent scholars. They have to cope by begging
> already retired 
> professors to give lectures, and sometimes even by
> inviting monks, who 
> are not "educated" in the modern sense of education.
> 
> However, it is entirely different in monastic
> circles. In Burma, monks 
> are not permitted to work as a wage-earners nor as
> businessmen; we don't 
> have even the right to vote --- if an election is
> held, of course. Thus 
> we are not to know what the job-oriented culture
> is.On the other hand, 
> it means that there is no material incentive in
> Buddhist studies. A 
> monk's material circumstances are not directly
> related to his learning.
> 
> Then what are the circumstances that promote
> Buddhist studies among 
> monks? It is mainly the social pressure. The primary
> duty of a young 
> novice or a young monk is to study. They are *not
> obliged* to give any 
> fee for their education; the institutions of
> monastic education are 
> supposed to provide students not only education but
> also food and 
> lodging. A student's chances of success solely
> depends on his own merit, 
> good teachers, and the atmosphere of his monastery.
> There may be 
> financial constraints but nothing severe enough to
> deter a student from 
> the academic success he deserves. On the other hand,
> younger monks and 
> novices are generally not encouraged to meditate nor
> to give dhamma 
> talks though they may be "permitted" to do these
> things provided their 
> studies are not disturbed.
> 
> And Buddhist studies is the only one socially
> acceptable, and in some 
> cases the only alternative, for monks in Burma.
> Secular schools and 
> universities *cannot officially accept* a novice or
> a monk as a 
> student.(The Buddhist University where I studied is
> solely for monks and 
> novices)
> 
> In such a condition, Buddhist studies in monastic
> circles cannot but be 
> strong, for there is nothing else to learn. (But it
> has also been badly 
> hurt by the overall degeneration of the national
> economy and political 
> instability)
> 
> And the archaic nature of the monastic education is
> such that Buddhist 
> scholarship means Pali scholarship at least, with
> possibly some more 
> things. If one has to use translations as the main
> source, he or she is 
> viewed as a journalist, possibly a popular writer,
> but definitely not as 
> a scholar. Period.
> 
> You would be surprised to know that a typical
> student of Pali in 
> Burmese monasteries does not possess a Pali
> dictionary! Beginners rely 
> instead on /nissaya/s (word-for-word translations)
> but their progress is 
> measured by the extent of their growing independence
> from /nissaya/s. 
> One hallmark of scholarship is the ability to
> ignore /nissaya/s in 
> one's daily reading, and to use them only very
> occasionally as 
> references when a controversy arises. The typical
> tools of a Buddhist 
> scholar that he would daily use are the commentarial
> literature, classic 
> grammars, and possibly a compilation of verbal roots
> such as Saddaniiti 
> Suttamaalaa, Dhaatvatthasa`ngaha, etc.
> 
> It is true that we have published dictionaries.
> Perhaps you may know 
> that the comprehensive Tipitaka Pali-Burmese
> Dictionary has been 
> published in more than (20) volumes and still not
> complete. But what is 
> remarkable here is that its compilers are working
> for others' sake!
> 
> However, there is a real problem with Buddhist
> scholars of the 
> traditional background. They are not familiar with
> modern research 
> methodology, and they generally do not understand
> the modern mind-set 
> since they live in their own world as outsiders of
> the society. You 
> might be surprised to know that there is almost no
> co-operation between 
> monks and some remaining scholars who are laymen
> educated in western 
> universities because mutual understanding is almost
> nil.
> 
> Worse still, they usually concentrate on Pali only;
> few who would go on 
> to learn Sanskrit, and even fewer would learn
> English and other modern 
> languages. In fact, the knowledge of English and
> other modern foreign 
> languages is generally viewed as an implicit
> indication of a weakness in 
> Buddhist scholarship since many of monks studying
> modern languages 
> happen to be losers in monastic education.
> 
> Consequently, those able to make contributions at
> the international 
> level are very rare. And unfortunately, what
> communications we have had 
> with the Western academia in the past is not very
> encouraging ( I think 
> I shouldn't go into details here because these
> events are not much 
> related to what we used to discuss here. I think I
> should publish them 
> elsewhere in future, probably at my web log 
> <http://palithought.blogspot.com>) It means that
> even the few who are 
> capable of contributing to International Pali
> studies won't feel 
> inclined to do so. And I cannot see any improvement
> yet in this respect 
> in near future.
> 
> with metta
> 
> Ven. Pandita
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
> 
>

 
1011
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:00am
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: a Western view (what about the Laotian view?)

Dear Eisel and Group,


>
> 1. The reliance on Romanized text (cultivated by the PTS) has created (or:
>exacerbated) an artificial division between indigenous/living
>manuscript-based Theravada Buddhist traditions and the "scholarly" sect.


I would say that the key difference is between 
critical editions and non-critical editions of 
texts. The choice of script is not decisive in 
separating scholarly from non-scholarly editions. 
For example, the Puna critical edition of the 
Mahabharata is in Devanagari, and has also been 
criticized for being an artificial scholarly 
creation, divorced from the living diversity of 
the manuscript tradition.

>
> 2. The creation of a "standard" pronounciation based on those Romanized
>script phonetic values has also made indigenous traditions of chanting
>(etc.) incomprehensible to westerners and vice-versa

I'm not sure what you mean to say here. There are two possible issues:

1) The standardization of spelling, such as 
(metre permitting) always using niggahita in 
cases like ta.m ca, rather than the mss' ta ca, 
etc.

2) Bad accent in reading aloud, due to interference from English phonetics.

I'm guessing it's the latter you're referring to. 
I'd like to mention there that learning to speak 
a foreign language without an accent is a special 
skill which most people can't acquire beyond the 
age of about 14. It also requires native teachers.

>Western scholarship has produced almost nothing that would educate
>you as to how to hear, comprehend, or speak Pali in its various "dialects"
>of South East Asia.

This is the sort of criticism where I feel you're 
being fair and unfair at the same time. Sure, 
this is a great topic and I'd love to see such 
studies done. But there just aren't that many 
people involved in Pali studies. If you identify 
a really important lack, then the best thing to 
do would be to try to fix it yourself and 
encourage others to join you.

> I did not even bother to mention in point #1 above that
>there is a paucity of texts on indigenous scripts; if you want to learn to
>read and write Pali in the Sinhalese script, good luck finding a single
>published source.

Again, it seems like you are blaming PTS for not 
doing enough, and yet if if wasn't for PTS 
nothing would have been done at all. People are 
working on what they have the time, inclination 
and competence to work on.

>
> 3. Whereas Sanskrit studies (and Hindu Indology generally) has been very
>active in dealing with the racism and imperialism that has been such a
>central aspect of the modern tradition (e.g., the racialist theories of Max
>Muller, the various interpretations of the caste system, the application of
>Hindu doctrine to social revolution in Indian independence, etc. etc.) Pali
>studies have been in a "denialist" mode.

Sanskrit studies, in the US in particular, have 
indeed been absorbed to a large degree into 'area 
studies' using a post colonialist framework. This 
is, however, going to be at the expense of the 
students actually learning Sanskrit. There are 
only 163 hours in the week, and the time they 
spend reading Said is time they don't spend 
practicing the language. I couldn't be less 
interested in essays on 'Feminism and Caste 
Structures in the Nala saga', especially coming 
from authors who can barely read the original 
text.

So I'm actually with you on the question of 
trying to teach a greater 'native competency' in 
the languages and scripts as a counterpoint to 
philology, but I don't see how getting enmired in 
Post-Colonialist theory (or whatever its 
successor might be) will help with that.

I'm reminded of Tolkien's classic essay "Beowulf: 
the Monsters and the Critics". He pleaded for 
Beowulf to be studied for what it was, a poem, 
rather than a social document. I for one am glad 
when Pali is studied as a language, and Pali 
literature is studied as religious literature, 
rather than yet another medium for the latest 
trendy theories coming out of the US academic 
scene.

> The paucity of any mention of Sri
>Lanka's caste system and in western scholarship based on Sinhalese materials
>is another example/indicator) and, to be very blunt, the explicit racism and
>British empiralism that was preached by Rhys-Davids (founder of the PTS) is
>nowhere dealt with by the inheritors of the PTS tradition.

It's sounds almost like you're now blaming 
Britain for India and Sri Lanka having a caste 
system.


> On the contrary,
>they are very much in denial about the racism and overt imperialism of so
>many of Rhys-Davids lectures and writings, and they are likewise in denial
>as to the explicit Theosophical bias the Davids' wife (C.A.F. Rhys-Davids)
>brought into the PTS fold at an early date.

What do you mean by their 'being in denial' about 
this? Are you asking for them to publish acts of 
contrition in the JPTS ? In my admittedly limited 
experience current scholars of Pali are fully 
aware of the shortcomings of the pioneering 
figures of the PTS and have left those earlier 
positions behind them. Everyone wants to see new 
and better translations, but there are only X 
number of people working, and doing good work 
takes time.

> Both of these influences (i.e.,
>British "Aryan" imperialism (defined as such) and Theosophy) did much to
>warp the PTS's school of interpretation and translation.

Again I agree halfway and disagree halfway. Sure, 
there are traces of British Imperialistic 
ideology and Theosophy in those old PTS 
translations. But there is no such thing as a 
"PTS school of interpretation". Nada, zilch, nil. 
PTS is a very loose association of scholars, who 
as far as I can tell are very aware of the 
weaknesses of those old translations and of the 
PED. But rather than go into an orgy of 
self-flagellation, they're busy working on 
producing better materials.

Pali scholarship is no different than any other 
field in this respect, that the process involves 
a pioneering stage, where the ground is broken, 
and then successive stages of revision. The 
latter depends on the former. There are mistakes 
on virtually every page of IB Horner's 
translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, for instance, 
but I am indebted and very grateful to her for 
making it possible for me to learn the little I 
know. She, together with Warder, opened the door 
to the Pali Canon for me. The dictionaries, 
grammars and other materials now at my disposal 
were put there by the efforts, hour by hour, day 
by tedious day, of previous scholars who knew 
more Pali than I ever will.

> It is, however, needless to say that the situation in Pali
>studies is FAR WORSE in those Theravada countries that were bombed into
>oblivion by the U.S. during the 20th century, i.e., Laos and Cambodia. 
>Books of any kind are extremely scarce in Laos and Cambodia, and the need
>for basic Pali materials is acute

I attended my first anti Vietnam war protest in 
Berkeley at the age of three with my parents. I 
was among those teargassed by the police, and I 
still believe the US involvement in SE Asia was a 
terrible and tragic mistake. But to blame the US 
for the poor state of Pali in Laos and Cambodia 
strikes me as unfair and indicative of an 
anti-western bias. I'm not an expert on the 
region, but I do know there was a deliberate and 
vigorous campaign by the Communists in SE Asia to 
wipe out Buddhism. I'd start by looking there for 
an explanation. Also, to say that those 
countries were 'bombed into oblivion' is not 
accurate. The bombings were directed against 
infiltration routes used by the NVA and against 
bivouac areas for local communist guerrillas, 
both of which were in rugged jungle areas. That 
doesn't make the war and bombing less of a sad 
waste of life, but those countries were not 
bombed 'into oblivion' by the US as you put it.

best regards

/Rett

 
1012
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:02am
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: a Western view (what about the Laotian view?)

Also responding to some of Eisel's comments (although I agree with 
much that Rett has said:

> 1. The reliance on Romanized text (cultivated by the PTS) has created (or:
>exacerbated) an artificial division between indigenous/living
>manuscript-based Theravada Buddhist traditions and the "scholarly" sect.

Where do you find living manuscript-based traditions these days ? 
Monks, these days, seem mostly to use printed editions (and very 
uncritical ones at that). This is a very big change from the monks I 
knew in the 1960s.

>
> 2. The creation of a "standard" pronounciation based on those Romanized
>script phonetic values has also made indigenous traditions of chanting
>(etc.) incomprehensible to westerners and vice-versa --except in the
>instance of the few Sri Lankan monks who have basically learned Pali from
>the PTS. Western scholarship has produced almost nothing that would educate
>you as to how to hear, comprehend, or speak Pali in its various "dialects"
>of South East Asia.

The same rule was applied to Pali as to 'Church Latin' i.e. the 
attempt was made to adopt a historically more accurate pronunciation. 
In practice, of course, this is only partially successful (in both 
cases). I personally spent a week a few years back learning to chant 
the Mahaasamayasutta in a Thai style. It is very beautiful and I only 
wish I could keep it in my memory properly. But learning some of the 
Thai pronunciation is quite difficult and unnecessary for reading 
Pali. More to the point, it is plain wrong. Pali was not pronounced 
like that in Ancient India. The same goes for Burmese pronunciation. 
There might be a case for following Sinhalese pronunciation, since 
that is much closer, but still not correct in all respects. Perhaps 
that is why the PTS offers a CD to accompany Warder, with the Pali 
passages pronounced by Ven. Saddhaatissa.

> I did not even bother to mention in point #1 above that
>there is a paucity of texts on indigenous scripts; if you want to learn to
>read and write Pali in the Sinhalese script, good luck finding a single
>published source. Even when limited publications can be found on type-set
>script, materials on cursive or manuscript forms are more rare still (or:
>non-existent).

Very true. If someone would only produce it (to an accurate 
standard), the PTS is probably waiting to publish it. But are there 
20 Pali scholars in the western world who can even read those scripts 
? I certainly would find producing a satisfactory study of cursive or 
manuscript forms of script across the range of alphabets used for 
Pali beyond my competence. Surely this is a job for Asian scholars ? 
With modern computer technology it would take a fraction of the time 
it would have taken twenty years ago and printers would have no 
chance to introduce large numbers of errors.

> 3. Whereas Sanskrit studies (and Hindu Indology generally) has been very
>active in dealing with the racism and imperialism that has been such a
>central aspect of the modern tradition (e.g., the racialist theories of Max
>Muller, the various interpretations of the caste system, the application of
>Hindu doctrine to social revolution in Indian independence, etc. etc.) Pali
>studies have been in a "denialist" mode. Almost all academic Pali studies
>proceed artifically cut off from the study of the social milieu in which
>Theravada Buddhism exists (e.g., "Burmese Studies" is a completely separate
>discipline from Pali studies in the U.K. --with its own journals, etc.-- and
>one has social content, the other none.

That would hardly characterize the work of Richard Gombrich, like it 
or not. Or his various pupils.

> The paucity of any mention of Sri
>Lanka's caste system and in western scholarship based on Sinhalese materials
>is another example/indicator)

It is mentioned in many books.

> and, to be very blunt, the explicit racism and
>British empiralism that was preached by Rhys-Davids (founder of the PTS) is
>nowhere dealt with by the inheritors of the PTS tradition. On the contrary,
>they are very much in denial about the racism and overt imperialism of so
>many of Rhys-Davids lectures and writings,

I agree. I, at least, am in complete denial on this point.

>and they are likewise in denial
>as to the explicit Theosophical bias the Davids' wife (C.A.F. Rhys-Davids)
>brought into the PTS fold at an early date. Both of these influences (i.e.,
>British "Aryan" imperialism (defined as such) and Theosophy) did much to
>warp the PTS's school of interpretation and translation. There are many
>instances in which we seem to discover two completely different texts when
>comparing the PTS notion of a given argument or concept (e.g., the gloss
>that C.A.F. Rhys-Davids applied to virtually the whole of the
>Abhidhammapitaka) to an indigenous commentator's interpretation (e.g.,
>Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw's treatment of the same abhidhamma passages). The
>gulf in interpretation is sometimes very wide; and the thoughtless
>application of European philosophical concepts (or, sometimes, pseudo-Hindu
>concepts, such as Theosophy promoted) marks much of the PTS's work.

The only people I can remember who liked or admired Caroline Rhys 
Davids's work were I.B.Horner and G.P.Malalasekera, both of whom owed 
her a considerable personal debt. Of course, the PTS owed its 
survival to her.

Otherwise in my experience her views (especially her later views) 
have been almost universally condemned.

My own understanding of Rhys Davids himself is that he was removed 
from Ceylon precisely because he was on excessively good terms with 
the 'natives'. He certainly remained very well thought of there.


Lance Cousins

 
1013
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 11:57am
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

This is a reply to Rhett, 

I feel that he's trying to write direct, honest and open answers, and I want 
to begin my reply by stating that I appreciate his effort. There are a few 
points where he has imputed opinions to me that I do not hold --but this is 
an inevitable part of reading a missive and then proceeding with certain 
assumptions as to the unstated portion of the argument (or its over-arching 
purpose). In any case, I just want to state in preface that there are a few 
cases in which I must say "That's not what I meant, nor what I said", but 
I'm neither being combative nor reproachful in so saying --just reaching for 
clarity. 

>> 1. The reliance on Romanized text (cultivated by the PTS) has created (or:
>>exacerbated) an artificial division between indigenous/living
>>manuscript-based Theravada Buddhist traditions and the "scholarly" sect.
> 
> I would say that the key difference is between 
> critical editions and non-critical editions...

What we have here are two completely different issues. I don't disagree 
with what Rhett says about critical editions, but it isn't actually related 
to what I said about scholars being alienated from indigenous sources, 
resources, and (above all) persons, because they cannot read the local 
scripts. It can be further said that this issue of "un/critical editions" 
only applies to texts with multiple editions, such as the suttapitaka; a lot 
of Pali and pseudo-Pali classical texts of S.E.A. will never receive such 
careful editing and repeated publication --if they exist in modern print at 
all. A further issue: "critical editions" only mean that you're relying on 
someone else to have done the "critical reading" for you. If you can sit 
down with a Burmese-Pali nissaya on one knee, and a Lanna-Pali nissaya on 
the other knee, you can do your own "comparative/critical reading". 

> I'm not sure what you mean to say here. There are two possible issues: 
> 
> 1) The standardization of spelling, such as 
> (metre permitting) always using niggahita in 
> cases like ta.m ca, rather than the mss' ta ca, 
> etc. 
> 
> 2) Bad accent in reading aloud, due to interference from English phonetics.

Actually, I making the further point that each region has its own "brogue", 
which, like the local script, a serious scholar should learn. A PTS 
education does not very well prepare you for the complex and shifting 
phonetic values you will encounter when you hear Pali chanted in different 
countries of S.E.A.; obviously, knowing Pali in multiple indigenous scripts 
is better preparation than none at all, but even then the relationship is 
quite complex. Thai is, perhaps, the worst of all examples, where "c" 
becomes "j", final vowels are ignored, etc. etc. 

Thus, I wrote:
>>Western scholarship has produced almost nothing that would educate
>>you as to how to hear, comprehend, or speak Pali in its various "dialects"
>>of South East Asia.
> 
> This is the sort of criticism where I feel you're 
> being fair and unfair at the same time. Sure, 
> this is a great topic and I'd love to see such 
> studies done. But there just aren't that many 
> people involved in Pali studies. If you identify 
> a really important lack, then the best thing to 
> do would be to try to fix it yourself and 
> encourage others to join you.

I think I've described what I'm doing with my life to a great enough extent, 
Rhett, that you should be able to infer that I am very actively, very 
stridently, trying to provide for some "very important lacks". 

>> I did not even bother to mention in point #1 above that
>>there is a paucity of texts on indigenous scripts; if you want to learn to
>>read and write Pali in the Sinhalese script, good luck finding a single
>>published source.
> 
> Again, it seems like you are blaming PTS for not 
> doing enough, and yet if if wasn't for PTS 
> nothing would have been done at all.

Point two there is simple lie: "if if [sic.] wasn't for PTS nothing would 
have been done at all" ... hubris! Pure hubris. Even a western scholar 
with no living Asian tongue could get by using the Pali resources published 
by the Maha Bodhi Society, Sri Lanka's Jayanti edition, Burma's council 
edition, the Hewaviratine trust edition... and, if we include more recent 
sources, there's a galaxy of scholarly and religio/charitable publishers, 
such as the recent Taiwanese printed Devanagari tripitaka. Except, of 
course, all these resources AREN'T ROMANIZED! It can hardly be said that 
the PTS is "the only game in town"; on the contrary, even in the 19th 
century, better Pali textbooks were coming out of Christian missionary 
organizations in India and Burma. And --what am I saying?-- I am only 
speaking of English language Pali resources! If one turns to the presses of 
the Soviets and the Germans, there are still more resources to speak of. No 
no, Rhett, your claim that "nothing would have been done at all" without the 
PTS rather shrivels when held up next to the searing light of all that has 
been done, and all that is being done, outside of that organization. Let me 
be clear: the only people who have this hubris (this perverse notion) that 
the world of Theravada Buddhism is beholden to the PTS are those who totally 
rely on Romanized editions, and therefore are unaware of the wealth of 
resources that come from Asia, or even European organizations other than the 
PTS. This relates back to my original point. 

>> ...and, to be very blunt, the explicit racism and
>>British empiralism that was preached by Rhys-Davids (founder of the PTS) is
>>nowhere dealt with by the inheritors of the PTS tradition.
> 
> It's sounds almost like you're now blaming 
> Britain for India and Sri Lanka having a caste 
> system.

Rhett, that is a completely absurd accusation; and there is nothing 
suggesting that in my text. What my text clearly states is that the 
explicit racism and "empirialism [sic. --a fine typo on my part!]" of 
Rhys-Davids views are denied and not dealth with; and, there is a separate 
and significant issue of caste in Sri Lanka which nobody in this field is 
dealing with --whereas caste in Hinduism is very much dealt with in Sanskrit 
studies, and I have already used the parallel example of racialism/racism in 
Max Muller's case, to contrast to Rhys-Davids. 

>> On the contrary,
>>they are very much in denial about the racism and overt imperialism of so
>>many of Rhys-Davids lectures and writings, and they are likewise in denial
>>as to the explicit Theosophical bias the Davids' wife (C.A.F. Rhys-Davids)
>>brought into the PTS fold at an early date.
> 
> What do you mean by their 'being in denial' about 
> this? Are you asking for them to publish acts of 
> contrition in the JPTS ?

No, I am stating that (1) repeatedly publishing LIES and GLORIFICATIONS of 
the lives and writings of these figures does constitute "denialism" as to 
these important (and odious) aspects, and (2) yes, I am indeed calling for 
an open and actively critical attitude toward the corpus of literature that 
the PTS has itself produced. How long do you think you can sweep 
Rhys-Davids' historical lectures under the carpet? The man made a 
profession of preaching to Manchesterians that they had a "racial" and 
"ethnic" affinity with Buddhism (on account of their supposed "Aryan" status 
--a complete myth) that, e.g., the people of Thailand could never have (not 
to mention the other 95% of humanity, who might not care as much about being 
characterized as racially inadequate to receive the Buddha's teaching as the 
Thais do). Yes, the current PTS has an obligation to deal with this legacy; 
if you don't, you will be "tarred by the same brush". To make excuses for 
racists and imperialists (not to mention Theosophists) and to 
glorify/obfuscate their legacies with lies and half-truths does indeed make 
you complicit in their views --just as those who today try to glorify the 
racists and imperialists of the past are inevitably "tarred with the same 
brush" as the historical figures in question. 

>> Both of these influences (i.e.,
>>British "Aryan" imperialism (defined as such) and Theosophy) did much to
>>warp the PTS's school of interpretation and translation.
> 
> Again I agree halfway and disagree halfway. Sure, 
> there are traces of British Imperialistic 
> ideology and Theosophy in those old PTS 
> translations. But there is no such thing as a 
> "PTS school of interpretation". Nada, zilch, nil. 

No, at least lexically one must admit that there are many English 
definitions of Pali terms that seem to have no basis other than old debates 
within the PTS, and they have become accepted by those who have "grown up" 
using PTS resources. I do think that there's a range of such norms that 
become quite binding for those who remain lifelong dependents of exclusively 
PTS resources. But perhaps this is only true of junior student, or those 
who never progress beyond a very junior student stage. It is true, as you 
say, that the PTS is not exactly a closely knit coven. 

>> It is, however, needless to say that the situation in Pali
>>studies is FAR WORSE in those Theravada countries that were bombed into
>>oblivion by the U.S. during the 20th century, i.e., Laos and Cambodia. 
>>Books of any kind are extremely scarce in Laos and Cambodia, and the need
>>for basic Pali materials is acute
> 
> I attended my first anti Vietnam war protest in 
> Berkeley at the age of three with my parents. I 
> was among those teargassed by the police, and I 
> still believe the US involvement in SE Asia was a 
> terrible and tragic mistake. But to blame the US 
> for the poor state of Pali in Laos and Cambodia 
> strikes me as unfair and indicative of an 
> anti-western bias.

Rhett here you are more wrong than you can know. The U.S. dropped more 
bombs on Laos alone than it dropped on Germany and Japan combined during 
WWII; if you take the cash value of the bombs and divide by the number of 
days of the conflict, it works out to $3 million U.S. dollars EVERY DAY for 
NINE YEARS. You can't study Pali when the "Raven division" bombed your 
temple into oblivion; you can't study Pali when there are no books, no 
electricity, no food --and when hundreds of thousands of people are being 
killed and fleeing for their lives. Rhett, I'm going to think the best of 
you here, and attribute your views on the matter to pure ignorance, rather 
than some impure desire. Yes, the U.S. is very much responsible for the 
complete eclipse of education of any kind in S.E.A. 

> I'm not an expert on the 
> region, but I do know there was a deliberate and 
> vigorous campaign by the Communists in SE Asia to 
> wipe out Buddhism.

Guess what Rhett --you're ignorant. How can I tell? It's easy: (1) Laotian 
communists weren't opponents of Buddhism, they were patrons of Buddhism and 
still are, you're thinking of Cambodian communists, a.k.a., the Khmer Rouge, 
but (2) THE KHMER-ROUGE WERE FUNDED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. The U.S. kept 
funding the Khmer Rouge ("Communist" or not) right up until 1992. Open a 
history book before you weigh into this, Rhett --your theory that the U.S. 
is not responsible doesn't hold much weight when the particular 
anti-Buddhist communists in question were armed and funded by the U.S.A. 

> I'd start by looking there for 
> an explanation.

No, Rhett, you haven't started looking at all. 

> Also, to say that those 
> countries were 'bombed into oblivion' is not 
> accurate. The bombings were directed against 
> infiltration routes used by the NVA and against 
> bivouac areas for local communist guerrillas 
> both of which were in rugged jungle areas.

Rhett, I could show you a map of Laos and point out the cities that CEASED 
TO EXIST due to U.S. bombing --some of which were later rebuilt on different 
sites (i.e., reviving the old name). In fact, if you visited me here, I 
could take you on a road trip and show them to you. You do not know what 
you're talking about, and you're being extremely presumptuous and offensive 
in speaking from that position. But then, what else would I expect from a 
member of the PTS except more of the same justification of western 
imperialism that the institution has been notorious for since Rhys-Davids? 
Perhaps you should start by re-examining what Davids had to say about the 
"Aryan race" and British empire after all. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
He who wholly subdues evil deeds both small and great, is called a monk 
because he has overcome all evil.
Random Dhammapada Verse 265

 
1014
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 0:43pm
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Lance Cousins

This reply is rather more brief --I was rather hoping that L.C. would find 
more ground to disagree upon, 

> The same rule was applied to Pali as to 'Church Latin' i.e. the 
> attempt was made to adopt a historically more accurate pronunciation. 
> In practice, of course, this is only partially successful (in both 
> cases). I personally spent a week a few years back learning to chant 
> the Mahaasamayasutta in a Thai style. It is very beautiful and I only 
> wish I could keep it in my memory properly. But learning some of the 
> Thai pronunciation is quite difficult and unnecessary for reading 
> Pali. More to the point, it is plain wrong. Pali was not pronounced 
> like that in Ancient India. The same goes for Burmese pronunciation. 
> There might be a case for following Sinhalese pronunciation, since 
> that is much closer, but still not correct in all respects. Perhaps 
> that is why the PTS offers a CD to accompany Warder, with the Pali 
> passages pronounced by Ven. Saddhaatissa.

I just want to say directly that I am in complete agreement that much of 
(e.g.) the Thai pronounciation is "wrong" from the standpoint of historical 
linguistics, but I don't think that's an excuse for the paucity of matierals 
on subjects like this. L.C. and I seem to agree that learning your way 
around the local shibboleths (and learning to "hear" Pali) is a difficult 
but worthwhile endeavour --all that I'm saying is, reliance on Romanized 
texts and Romanized pronounciation is an additional degree of alienation 
from those spoken traditions. Theravada Buddhism is supposed to exalt the 
RECITAL of the suttas as a central rite --yet recitation (and understanding 
it as a hearer) is nowhere the subject of Pali education as the PTS has 
defined it. The difficulty is not absolute, but it is an additional 
obstacle to overcome if first you depend upon it; and it is an obstacle that 
the existing literature does little to help a student overcome. In any 
case, I think L.C. and I are in agreement as to the substance of the issue. 

> Where do you find living manuscript-based traditions these days ? 
> Monks, these days, seem mostly to use printed editions (and very 
> uncritical ones at that). This is a very big change from the monks I 
> knew in the 1960s.

I find them all over the place. Pakbeng, for instance, or the Khmer-Krom of 
Vietnam. I choose these as particularly obscure and empoverished regions; 
wandering around S.E.A., manuscript traditions aren't hard to find. Even if 
they were, the accumulation of the past 500 years of palm leaves in massive 
repositories around S.E.A. (and, disgracefully, in Imperialist collections 
in Europe, I might add!) would provide many incarnations worth of reading 
material, even if nothing new were being written. 

> Also responding to some of Eisel's comments (although I agree with 
> much that Rett has said...

I hope this does not include his very vague and contradictory notions about 
the history of 20th century S.E.A. It is a remarkable fact that even Ronald 
Regan (who seemed to genuinely beleive that communism involved 
devil-worship) directly funded and armed the Khmer Rouge, the single most 
notorious communist government/cabal in the history of the world, but it is 
an historical fact --and one of recent minting. In fact, the official 
opposition of (communist) Vietnam and (communist) Laos to the (abhorrent, 
but nominally communist) Khmer Rouge was the basis for the U.S. excluding 
Laos from a variety of trade agreements. Trade relations with the U.S. were 
normalized only in 2004. The U.S. insisted that the Khmer Rouge was the 
legitimate government of Cambodia right up to 1992, and advocated for their 
formal presence in a variety of U.N. forums. This is well documented 
history; it is rather sad that so many choose to ignore it. Conversely, the 
peculiar and pragmatic relationship of the Lao communists to Buddhism is a 
very interesting study; it is a striking contrast to either China (to the 
north) or Cambodia (to the south) --both of which were, likewise, Communist 
by their own differing definitions of the term. The moral of the story is 
not to make generalization about subjects in which one knows nothing. There 
was as much diversity among communist states as "democratic" ones in the 
20th century. 

>> I did not even bother to mention in point #1 above that
>>there is a paucity of texts on indigenous scripts; if you want to learn to
>>read and write Pali in the Sinhalese script, good luck finding a single
>>published source. Even when limited publications can be found on type-set
>>script, materials on cursive or manuscript forms are more rare still (or:
>>non-existent).
> 
> Very true. If someone would only produce it (to an accurate 
> standard), the PTS is probably waiting to publish it.

On the contrary, it would be very much against the PTS's stated policies! 
Roman only when in Rome, they say! 

> But are there 
> 20 Pali scholars in the western world who can even read those scripts 
> ?

No, far fewer than twenty; Peter Skilling's estimate was closer to 5. 

> That would hardly characterize the work of Richard Gombrich, like it 
> or not. Or his various pupils.

Gombrich's work I do know (and I've recently praised it on this very list, 
on the occasion of his retirement) --I would be sincerely interested to 
learn of any students of his who have written social/political analyses. If 
they exist in print, please do let me know. 

>> and, to be very blunt, the explicit racism and
>>British empiralism that was preached by Rhys-Davids (founder of the PTS) is
>>nowhere dealt with by the inheritors of the PTS tradition. On the contrary,
>>they are very much in denial about the racism and overt imperialism of so
>>many of Rhys-Davids lectures and writings,
> 
> I agree. I, at least, am in complete denial on this point.

Most of the biographies (including, e.g., the one written by his wife) don't 
give allow the reader too clear a notion of Davids' faults of any kind; 
Wickremeratne's biography (_Genesis of an orientalist_) goes far out of its 
way to justify and excuse Davids' racism (etc.), but it does include it 
rather than "cover it up" outright. For the latter I am thankful. That 
being said, no Sanskrit scholar can get away with "not knowing" what Max 
Muller says about the Aryan race; it's part of responsible scholarship to 
know the _ad hominem_ material on your sources, as it likely shapes the 
material you may otherwise rely upon uncritically. 

> The only people I can remember who liked or admired Caroline Rhys 
> Davids's work were I.B.Horner and G.P.Malalasekera, both of whom owed 
> her a considerable personal debt.

I recently read an article from the JPTS "vindicating" her early work, and 
arguing that its value had been unjustly overlooked because of her later 
work's obsessions. Can I find the article on the internet? Let me see. 

> My own understanding of Rhys Davids himself is that he was removed 
> from Ceylon precisely because he was on excessively good terms with 
> the 'natives'. He certainly remained very well thought of there.

That is not at all true, but is precisely one of the unexamined myths that 
the PTS itself has concocted to glorify the man. He was dismissed for a 
long list of offenses, including levying illegal fines on his own staff and 
the local populace. His misconduct was not imaginary, and the impression I 
get is that various of his "social" campaigns, such as denying free cattle 
pasture to peasants and trying to forcibly convert the locals from Sinhalese 
slash-and-burn farming methods to more British ones, had made him singularly 
unpopular with many of the locals (many of whom wrote formal complaints, 
etc.). All of this rather misses the point: glorifying Rhys Davids and the 
British administration in Sri Lanka *is* a form of holocaust denial. Does 
nobody here think of the Uva rebellion and the unspeakable atrocities of the 
"scorched earth" policy the British visited upon that city? So much of the 
material on Davids overlooks that he was complicit in one of the 
blood-thirstiest and most exploitative empires the world has ever known 
--and one that did (and does) have a very long list of massacres and 
genocides on its record. 

Perhaps I should not presume so much; everyone here knows Rhys Davids, but 
does anyone else here know the history of the Uva rebellion? Let me ask: 
what does it mean to evaluate the one when it is divorced from the context 
of the other? I think this is a substantive problem, and I do not raise it 
merely to be provocative. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
He who has developed a wish for the Undeclared (Nibbana), he whose mind is 
thrilled (with the three Fruits), he whose mind is not bound by material 
pleasures, such person is called an "Upstream-bound One".
Random Dhammapada Verse 218

 
1015
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 4:54pm
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

Hi Eisel,

>
>I feel that he's trying to write direct, honest and open answers, and I want
>to begin my reply by stating that I appreciate his effort.

I figured you would appreciate a forthright response. Here comes another one.


>What we have here are two completely different issues. I don't disagree
>with what Rhett says about critical editions, but it isn't actually related
>to what I said about scholars being alienated from indigenous sources,
>resources, and (above all) persons, because they cannot read the local
>scripts.

Is it an either/or thing? Must one either have romanized editions or 
indigenous editions, but not both? Romanized editions seem to me like 
a good way for westerners to get started reading Pali, and a natural 
stepping stone to learning other scripts later.

> A further issue: "critical editions" only mean that you're relying on
>someone else to have done the "critical reading" for you. If you can sit
>down with a Burmese-Pali nissaya on one knee, and a Lanna-Pali nissaya on
>the other knee, you can do your own "comparative/critical reading".

That assumes you know Burmese and Lanna. I've worked some with H 
Smiths's cited portions of the Burmese nissaya to Saddaniiti, and 
while you can get some mileage out of a good list of the usages of 
the particles, my guess is it really would take _at least_ a 
full-time semester course in Burmese to be able to handle the 
lexicographical glosses. This might be a good thing to learn, but it 
would be a specialization. It would be Burmese at the expense of 
something else.

>
>Actually, I making the further point that each region has its own "brogue",
>which, like the local script, a serious scholar should learn.

I think the best way to pick this up in the west would be to visit 
Theravada temples and listen to the chanting, or chant along with the 
iti pi so, etc. There are Sri Lankan and Thai temples all over Europe 
and the USA. But again, demanding that every person learning Pali 
learn all the 'brogues' of SE Asia strikes me as setting the 
standards frighteningly high. Some people have an auditory talent for 
language, some don't. Some are drawn to temples from an early enough 
age to absorb the cadences of chanting, some aren't.


>; obviously, knowing Pali in multiple indigenous scripts
>is better preparation than none at all, but even then the relationship is
>quite complex. Thai is, perhaps, the worst of all examples, where "c"
>becomes "j", final vowels are ignored, etc. etc.

This is all very interesting stuff, but as you mention yourself, the 
indigenous scripts aren't going to help here much more than the Roman 
script here are they?


> No
>no, Rhett, your claim that "nothing would have been done at all" without the
>PTS rather shrivels when held up next to the searing light of all that has
>been done, and all that is being done, outside of that organization.

My point was not that nothing whatsoever would have been done. My 
point was that none of the work done by PTS would have happened if 
PTS hadn't existed, yet at the same time you were attacking PTS for 
not having done more.


> Let me be clear: the only people who have this hubris (this 
>perverse notion) that the world of Theravada Buddhism is beholden to 
>the PTS are those who totally rely on Romanized editions, and 
>therefore are unaware of the wealth of
>resources that come from Asia, or even European organizations other than the
>PTS.

This opposition between the West and Asia seems to me to be entirely 
unnecessary. You have swallowed a rather dull sort of inverted 
prejudice, hook line and sinker, my friend.

> >
>> It's sounds almost like you're now blaming
>> Britain for India and Sri Lanka having a caste
>> system.
>
>Rhett, that is a completely absurd accusation; and there is nothing
>suggesting that in my text.

Granted. But given your wildly extremist position it wouldn't 
surprise me if you said so, at least as a joke. Kind of like 
inscription brahmi being the only truly universal script (universal 
as in equally unintelligible for everyone).

>How long do you think you can sweep
>Rhys-Davids' historical lectures under the carpet?

I've never heard of them, so I guess they've been well swept. But as 
I said, my interest is in learning Pali not studying the history of 
the PTS.

>It is true, as you say, that the PTS is not exactly a closely knit coven.

When I signed up for my 20% discount I only had to provide a single 
thumbprint in blood and swear eternal alliance to the Rhy-Davids 
aryan conspiracy.


> The U.S. dropped more
>bombs on Laos alone than it dropped on Germany and Japan combined during
>WWII; if you take the cash value of the bombs and divide by the number of
>days of the conflict, it works out to $3 million U.S. dollars EVERY DAY for
>NINE YEARS.

Yes, but for the most part it dropped them on the same limited parts 
of the country, over and over. This is a horrible tragedy for all 
those who were affected, but other parts of the country weren't 
touched. And the fact is, there were wars in progress in SE Asia even 
without US involvement. The US got involved, in a very shameful way I 
might add, and made the situation worse than it needed to be in 
several countries. But it was not solely responsible for the fighting.

> I'm going to think the best of
>you here, and attribute your views on the matter to pure ignorance, rather
>than some impure desire.

Thank you. I'm going to attribute your radicalism and intolerance to 
youthful exuberance.


>You do not know what
>you're talking about, and you're being extremely presumptuous and offensive
>in speaking from that position. But then, what else would I expect from a
>member of the PTS except more of the same justification of western
>imperialism that the institution has been notorious for since Rhys-Davids?

Hmm... maybe you should rethink that idea about Brahmi script. I've 
heard that Ashoka was a hell of an imperialist before he converted. 
And Pandukabhaya with his hill of severed heads, not to mention 
Dutthagamini... I'm afraid Sinhalese is out. Burmese... nope, Thai.. 
not even. We're running fast out of politically correct scripts. 
Perhaps we'd better dispense with writing altogether and return to 
committing the texts to memory.

best regards,

/Rett

 
1016
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:24pm
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

>>What we have here are two completely different issues. I don't disagree
>>with what Rhett says about critical editions, but it isn't actually related
>>to what I said about scholars being alienated from indigenous sources,
>>resources, and (above all) persons, because they cannot read the local
>>scripts.
> 
> Is it an either/or thing? Must one either have romanized editions or 
> indigenous editions, but not both?

No, you have again introduced a spurious issue. Rhett, you can't be a 
scholar of Chinese if (1) you can only read Chinese in Romanized script, and 
(2) you can neither speak Chinese in a way that's intelligible to anyone in 
China, nor understand it when it's spoken by a native of China. Doesn't it 
seem to you the least bit problematic that the PTS has created a situation 
whereby these things are true of the majority of western Pali scholars? 
They can't read native script and can neither speak the local brogue nor 
understand it when it's spoken. _This is a problem_, and it would be a 
major change in policies and priorities for the PTS to redress it. Your 
repeatedly stating that something else is a higher priority doesn't deny 
that there's a problem, but suggests that you think it unimportant. I would 
be more interested in knowing your reasons for the latter than hearing you 
invent postulates that are not mine and then attacking them (the "straw man" 
argument). 

>>; obviously, knowing Pali in multiple indigenous scripts
>>is better preparation than none at all, but even then the relationship is
>>quite complex. Thai is, perhaps, the worst of all examples, where "c"
>>becomes "j", final vowels are ignored, etc. etc.
> 
> This is all very interesting stuff, but as you mention yourself, the 
> indigenous scripts aren't going to help here much more than the Roman 
> script here are they?

Yes, they are; the indigenous script (and historical changes in that script 
over time, including its interactions with other scripts in the region) 
often plays a vital role in the shifting pronounciation of Pali, and is a 
far better guide to decoding the relationship between the language and the 
local pronounciation. There are some distinctions in the local script that 
do not exist in Romanized text --with Thai this is certainly the case. So 
the answer to your question is: being able to read it like a local does 
indeed help you to speak it and hear it like a local, and also to understand 
why it's done that way. 

> My point was not that nothing whatsoever would have been done. My 
> point was that none of the work done by PTS would have happened if 
> PTS hadn't existed...

That's certainly a tautology, Rhett; impossible to refute. 

>> Let me be clear: the only people who have this hubris (this 
>>perverse notion) that the world of Theravada Buddhism is beholden to 
>>the PTS are those who totally rely on Romanized editions, and 
>>therefore are unaware of the wealth of
>>resources that come from Asia, or even European organizations other than the
>>PTS.
> 
> This opposition between the West and Asia seems to me to be entirely 
> unnecessary. You have swallowed a rather dull sort of inverted 
> prejudice, hook line and sinker, my friend.

You have again invented a position that is not mine, attributed it to me, 
and then attacked it. I find that rather boring. Why don't you re-read the 
quote from my original message and let me know where you get this reckless 
inference that I've created an opposition between West and East here? What 
I've stated is that _if you can only read Romanized texts, etc._ you will be 
unaware of the value of non-Romanized sources. Your _ad hominem_ attack 
does not speak to this point at all. 

> Granted. But given your wildly extremist position it wouldn't 
> surprise me if you said so, at least as a joke. Kind of like 
> inscription brahmi being the only truly universal script (universal 
> as in equally unintelligible for everyone).

The latter was a joke; and it is also literally true for the reason you 
state. It is alien to all, therefore equally familiar to all. 

> When I signed up for my 20% discount I only had to provide a single 
> thumbprint in blood and swear eternal alliance to the Rhy-Davids 
> aryan conspiracy.

Rhett, that's what you've provided them with anyway: your willing ignorance, 
and your contrition in this history of "aryan conspiracy" nonsense. I'm not 
a member of the PTS, and, as of this time of writing, I do not own a single 
PTS edition. Not one. 

>> The U.S. dropped more
>>bombs on Laos alone than it dropped on Germany and Japan combined during
>>WWII; if you take the cash value of the bombs and divide by the number of
>>days of the conflict, it works out to $3 million U.S. dollars EVERY DAY for
>>NINE YEARS.
> 
> Yes, but for the most part it dropped them on the same limited parts 
> of the country, over and over.

Rhett, you simply do not know what you're talking about; and what you're 
saying really is tantamount to holocaust denial. In addition to bombing 
campaigns (and you can get a map of Laos and start colouring in all the 
areas that were bombed; not surprisingly it is EVERY PART OF THE COUNTRY 
that wasn't occupied by pro-U.S. militias) they were funding ground troops 
to the tune of millions of dollars. The Hmong insurgents are still fighting 
against the Laotians to this day, as part of their pact with the C.I.A.; in 
2004 the C.I.A. continued to very publicly keep up its end of the bargain 
and "patriated" several thousand Hmong fighters, i.e., extended U.S. 
citizenship to them, and relocated them to the states from Thailand. There 
was absolutely no part of Laos that was not impacted and/or devastated by 
U.S. involvement, and I am egregiously offended by your facile and untrue 
statements on this matter. Unlike Vietnam, the U.S. bombers had absolutely 
no "Rules of Engagement" in Laos, and so they could indeed bomb Theravada 
temples, exterminate camps of refugees, etc., without no chance of military 
discipline. Besides all of this, we have come a long way from your original 
statement, which still very much offends me: you said that the U.S. was not 
responsible for the state of Pali studies in Laos. Rhett, the U.S. *is* 
responsible for the fact that there are hardly any books in Laos of any 
kind, and that literacy is down at 60%; they visited one of the worst 
atrocities in the history of human civilization upon Laos, and if you don't 
want to recognise this, you're either willfully ignorant or a holocaust 
denier. 

> And the fact is, there were wars in progress in SE Asia even 
> without US involvement.

Rhett, why don't you take a reputable encyclopedia off the shelf and look up 
"Gulf of Tonkin Incident". The U.S. did start the Vietnam war, and this is 
very common knowledge. Rhett, any respect I ever extended to you is utterly 
at an end. You cannot know how offensive it is to hear you extending facile 
justifications to your own country's slaughter of millions. This is no 
different to my ears than were I hearing a German justifying Hitler, or a 
Maoist justifying the Cultural Revolution. 

> The US got involved, in a very shameful way I 
> might add, and made the situation worse than it needed to be in 
> several countries. But it was not solely responsible for the fighting.

This claim isn't even made by the U.S. There's no doubt about the Gulf of 
Tonkin incident, and you can read what Nixon himself wrote about Cambodia as 
"The Nixon Doctrine in its purest form". The only justification for U.S. 
involvement in Laos was the war in Vietnam which the U.S. did initiate. 
You're worse than ignorant on these issues. 

>> I'm going to think the best of
>>you here, and attribute your views on the matter to pure ignorance, rather
>>than some impure desire.
> 
> Thank you. I'm going to attribute your radicalism and intolerance to 
> youthful exuberance.

You're telling me that I'm being intolerant? Great, Rhett. Why don't you 
see how much ice your arguments can cut when you're wandering around Laos 
explaining to people "But you see, we Americans only bombed the rugged, 
jungle areas! It wasn't so bad!" Yeah, that'll really go over well with a 
Laotian audience, as you walk past cities that were reduced to ash, and see 
homes that have their lintels made out of bomb fragments with "U.S.A." 
printed on them. But then, you can always fall back on your statement that 
you were at a protest at Berkeley. Wow. They'll really be impressed by 
that, Rhett. I know I am. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Whosoever causes pain to the innocent ones will himself suffer quickly from 
one of the following ten states. He will get sharp pain or injury of the 
body, or get serious illness or become mad. Or punishment by the kind, or 
being accused of doing wrong or death of relatives or loss of treasures. Or 
his house will be struck by lightning or after death, he will be reborn in 
Hell.
Random Dhammapada Verse 137

 
1017
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:27pm
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

Well, Rhett, what I said in my previous message has proven to be true; those 
who will justify (or turn a blind eye to) British racism and imperialism 
will just as easily justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands in our own 
times --you have already attempted this in regard to the American wars in 
S.E.A. 

>>What we have here are two completely different issues. I don't disagree
>>with what Rhett says about critical editions, but it isn't actually related
>>to what I said about scholars being alienated from indigenous sources,
>>resources, and (above all) persons, because they cannot read the local
>>scripts.
> 
> Is it an either/or thing? Must one either have romanized editions or 
> indigenous editions, but not both?

No, you have again introduced a spurious issue. Rhett, you can't be a 
scholar of Chinese if (1) you can only read Chinese in Romanized script, and 
(2) you can neither speak Chinese in a way that's intelligible to anyone in 
China, nor understand it when it's spoken by a native of China. Doesn't it 
seem to you the least bit problematic that the PTS has created a situation 
whereby these things are true of the majority of western Pali scholars? 
They can't read native script and can neither speak the local brogue nor 
understand it when it's spoken. _This is a problem_, and it would be a 
major change in policies and priorities for the PTS to redress it. Your 
repeatedly stating that something else is a higher priority doesn't deny 
that there's a problem, but suggests that you think it unimportant. I would 
be more interested in knowing your reasons for the latter than hearing you 
invent postulates that are not mine and then attacking them (the "straw man" 
argument). 

>>; obviously, knowing Pali in multiple indigenous scripts
>>is better preparation than none at all, but even then the relationship is
>>quite complex. Thai is, perhaps, the worst of all examples, where "c"
>>becomes "j", final vowels are ignored, etc. etc.
> 
> This is all very interesting stuff, but as you mention yourself, the 
> indigenous scripts aren't going to help here much more than the Roman 
> script here are they?

Yes, they are; the indigenous script (and historical changes in that script 
over time, including its interactions with other scripts in the region) 
often plays a vital role in the shifting pronounciation of Pali, and is a 
far better guide to decoding the relationship between the language and the 
local pronounciation. There are some distinctions in the local script that 
do not exist in Romanized text --with Thai this is certainly the case. So 
the answer to your question is: being able to read it like a local does 
indeed help you to speak it and hear it like a local, and also to understand 
why it's done that way. 

> My point was not that nothing whatsoever would have been done. My 
> point was that none of the work done by PTS would have happened if 
> PTS hadn't existed...

That's certainly a tautology, Rhett; impossible to refute. 

>> Let me be clear: the only people who have this hubris (this 
>>perverse notion) that the world of Theravada Buddhism is beholden to 
>>the PTS are those who totally rely on Romanized editions, and 
>>therefore are unaware of the wealth of
>>resources that come from Asia, or even European organizations other than the
>>PTS.
> 
> This opposition between the West and Asia seems to me to be entirely 
> unnecessary. You have swallowed a rather dull sort of inverted 
> prejudice, hook line and sinker, my friend.

You have again invented a position that is not mine, attributed it to me, 
and then attacked it. I find that rather boring. Why don't you re-read the 
quote from my original message and let me know where you get this reckless 
inference that I've created an opposition between West and East here? What 
I've stated is that _if you can only read Romanized texts, etc._ you will be 
unaware of the value of non-Romanized sources. Your _ad hominem_ attack 
does not speak to this point at all. 

> Granted. But given your wildly extremist position it wouldn't 
> surprise me if you said so, at least as a joke. Kind of like 
> inscription brahmi being the only truly universal script (universal 
> as in equally unintelligible for everyone).

The latter was a joke; and it is also literally true for the reason you 
state. It is alien to all, therefore equally familiar to all. 

> When I signed up for my 20% discount I only had to provide a single 
> thumbprint in blood and swear eternal alliance to the Rhy-Davids 
> aryan conspiracy.

Rhett, that's what you've provided them with anyway: your willing ignorance, 
and your contrition in this history of "aryan conspiracy" nonsense. I'm not 
a member of the PTS, and, as of this time of writing, I do not own a single 
PTS edition. Not one. 

>> The U.S. dropped more
>>bombs on Laos alone than it dropped on Germany and Japan combined during
>>WWII; if you take the cash value of the bombs and divide by the number of
>>days of the conflict, it works out to $3 million U.S. dollars EVERY DAY for
>>NINE YEARS.
> 
> Yes, but for the most part it dropped them on the same limited parts 
> of the country, over and over.

Rhett, you simply do not know what you're talking about; and what you're 
saying really is tantamount to holocaust denial. In addition to bombing 
campaigns (and you can get a map of Laos and start colouring in all the 
areas that were bombed; not surprisingly it is EVERY PART OF THE COUNTRY 
that wasn't occupied by pro-U.S. militias) they were funding ground troops 
to the tune of millions of dollars. The Hmong insurgents are still fighting 
against the Laotians to this day, as part of their pact with the C.I.A.; in 
2004 the C.I.A. continued to very publicly keep up its end of the bargain 
and "patriated" several thousand Hmong fighters, i.e., extended U.S. 
citizenship to them, and relocated them to the states from Thailand. There 
was absolutely no part of Laos that was not impacted and/or devastated by 
U.S. involvement, and I am egregiously offended by your facile and untrue 
statements on this matter. Unlike Vietnam, the U.S. bombers had absolutely 
no "Rules of Engagement" in Laos, and so they could indeed bomb Theravada 
temples, exterminate camps of refugees, etc., without no chance of military 
discipline. Besides all of this, we have come a long way from your original 
statement, which still very much offends me: you said that the U.S. was not 
responsible for the state of Pali studies in Laos. Rhett, the U.S. *is* 
responsible for the fact that there are hardly any books in Laos of any 
kind, and that literacy is down at 60%; they visited one of the worst 
atrocities in the history of human civilization upon Laos, and if you don't 
want to recognise this, you're either willfully ignorant or a holocaust 
denier. 

> And the fact is, there were wars in progress in SE Asia even 
> without US involvement.

Rhett, why don't you take a reputable encyclopedia off the shelf and look up 
"Gulf of Tonkin Incident". The U.S. did start the Vietnam war, and this is 
very common knowledge. Rhett, any respect I ever extended to you is utterly 
at an end. You cannot know how offensive it is to hear you extending facile 
justifications to your own country's slaughter of millions. This is no 
different to my ears than were I hearing a German justifying Hitler, or a 
Maoist justifying the Cultural Revolution. 

> The US got involved, in a very shameful way I 
> might add, and made the situation worse than it needed to be in 
> several countries. But it was not solely responsible for the fighting.

This claim isn't even made by the U.S. There's no doubt about the Gulf of 
Tonkin incident, and you can read what Nixon himself wrote about Cambodia as 
"The Nixon Doctrine in its purest form". The only justification for U.S. 
involvement in Laos was the war in Vietnam which the U.S. did initiate. 
You're worse than ignorant on these issues. 

>> I'm going to think the best of
>>you here, and attribute your views on the matter to pure ignorance, rather
>>than some impure desire.
> 
> Thank you. I'm going to attribute your radicalism and intolerance to 
> youthful exuberance.

You're telling me that I'm being intolerant? Great, Rhett. Why don't you 
see how much ice your arguments can cut when you're wandering around Laos 
explaining to people "But you see, we Americans only bombed the rugged, 
jungle areas! It wasn't so bad!" Yeah, that'll really go over well with a 
Laotian audience, as you walk past cities that were reduced to ash, and see 
homes that have their lintels made out of bomb fragments with "U.S.A." 
printed on them. But then, you can always fall back on your statement that 
you were at a protest at Berkeley. Wow. They'll really be impressed by 
that, Rhett. I know I am. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Strive and cut off the stream (of craving). Discard, O Brahmana, 
sense-desires. Knowing the destruction of conditioned things, be, O 
Brahmana, a knower of the Unmade (Nibbana).
Random Dhammapada Verse 383

 
1018
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:42pm
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

Well, Rhett, what I said in my previous message has proven to be true; those 
who will justify (or turn a blind eye to) British racism and imperialism 
will just as easily justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands in our own 
times --you have already attempted this in regard to the American wars in 
S.E.A. 

>>What we have here are two completely different issues. I don't disagree
>>with what Rhett says about critical editions, but it isn't actually related
>>to what I said about scholars being alienated from indigenous sources,
>>resources, and (above all) persons, because they cannot read the local
>>scripts.
> 
> Is it an either/or thing? Must one either have romanized editions or 
> indigenous editions, but not both?

No, you have again introduced a spurious issue. Rhett, you can't be a 
scholar of Chinese if (1) you can only read Chinese in Romanized script, and 
(2) you can neither speak Chinese in a way that's intelligible to anyone in 
China, nor understand it when it's spoken by a native of China. Doesn't it 
seem to you the least bit problematic that the PTS has created a situation 
whereby these things are true of the majority of western Pali scholars? 
They can't read native script and can neither speak the local brogue nor 
understand it when it's spoken. _This is a problem_, and it would be a 
major change in policies and priorities for the PTS to redress it. Your 
repeatedly stating that something else is a higher priority doesn't deny 
that there's a problem, but suggests that you think it unimportant. I would 
be more interested in knowing your reasons for the latter than hearing you 
invent postulates that are not mine and then attacking them (the "straw man" 
argument). 

>>; obviously, knowing Pali in multiple indigenous scripts
>>is better preparation than none at all, but even then the relationship is
>>quite complex. Thai is, perhaps, the worst of all examples, where "c"
>>becomes "j", final vowels are ignored, etc. etc.
> 
> This is all very interesting stuff, but as you mention yourself, the 
> indigenous scripts aren't going to help here much more than the Roman 
> script here are they?

Yes, they are; the indigenous script (and historical changes in that script 
over time, including its interactions with other scripts in the region) 
often plays a vital role in the shifting pronounciation of Pali, and is a 
far better guide to decoding the relationship between the language and the 
local pronounciation. There are some distinctions in the local script that 
do not exist in Romanized text --with Thai this is certainly the case. So 
the answer to your question is: being able to read it like a local does 
indeed help you to speak it and hear it like a local, and also to understand 
why it's done that way. 

> My point was not that nothing whatsoever would have been done. My 
> point was that none of the work done by PTS would have happened if 
> PTS hadn't existed...

That's certainly a tautology, Rhett; impossible to refute. 

>> Let me be clear: the only people who have this hubris (this 
>>perverse notion) that the world of Theravada Buddhism is beholden to 
>>the PTS are those who totally rely on Romanized editions, and 
>>therefore are unaware of the wealth of
>>resources that come from Asia, or even European organizations other than the
>>PTS.
> 
> This opposition between the West and Asia seems to me to be entirely 
> unnecessary. You have swallowed a rather dull sort of inverted 
> prejudice, hook line and sinker, my friend.

You have again invented a position that is not mine, attributed it to me, 
and then attacked it. I find that rather boring. Why don't you re-read the 
quote from my original message and let me know where you get this reckless 
inference that I've created an opposition between West and East here? What 
I've stated is that _if you can only read Romanized texts, etc._ you will be 
unaware of the value of non-Romanized sources. Your _ad hominem_ attack 
does not speak to this point at all. 

> Granted. But given your wildly extremist position it wouldn't 
> surprise me if you said so, at least as a joke. Kind of like 
> inscription brahmi being the only truly universal script (universal 
> as in equally unintelligible for everyone).

The latter was a joke; and it is also literally true for the reason you 
state. It is alien to all, therefore equally familiar to all. 

> When I signed up for my 20% discount I only had to provide a single 
> thumbprint in blood and swear eternal alliance to the Rhy-Davids 
> aryan conspiracy.

Rhett, that's what you've provided them with anyway: your willing ignorance, 
and your contrition in this history of "aryan conspiracy" nonsense. I'm not 
a member of the PTS, and, as of this time of writing, I do not own a single 
PTS edition. Not one. 

>> The U.S. dropped more
>>bombs on Laos alone than it dropped on Germany and Japan combined during
>>WWII; if you take the cash value of the bombs and divide by the number of
>>days of the conflict, it works out to $3 million U.S. dollars EVERY DAY for
>>NINE YEARS.
> 
> Yes, but for the most part it dropped them on the same limited parts 
> of the country, over and over.

Rhett, you simply do not know what you're talking about; and what you're 
saying really is tantamount to holocaust denial. In addition to bombing 
campaigns (and you can get a map of Laos and start colouring in all the 
areas that were bombed; not surprisingly it is EVERY PART OF THE COUNTRY 
that wasn't occupied by pro-U.S. militias) they were funding ground troops 
to the tune of millions of dollars. The Hmong insurgents are still fighting 
against the Laotians to this day, as part of their pact with the C.I.A.; in 
2004 the C.I.A. continued to very publicly keep up its end of the bargain 
and "patriated" several thousand Hmong fighters, i.e., extended U.S. 
citizenship to them, and relocated them to the states from Thailand. There 
was absolutely no part of Laos that was not impacted and/or devastated by 
U.S. involvement, and I am egregiously offended by your facile and untrue 
statements on this matter. Unlike Vietnam, the U.S. bombers had absolutely 
no "Rules of Engagement" in Laos, and so they could indeed bomb Theravada 
temples, exterminate camps of refugees, etc., without no chance of military 
discipline. Besides all of this, we have come a long way from your original 
statement, which still very much offends me: you said that the U.S. was not 
responsible for the state of Pali studies in Laos. Rhett, the U.S. *is* 
responsible for the fact that there are hardly any books in Laos of any 
kind, and that literacy is down at 60%; they visited one of the worst 
atrocities in the history of human civilization upon Laos, and if you don't 
want to recognise this, you're either willfully ignorant or a holocaust 
denier. 

> And the fact is, there were wars in progress in SE Asia even 
> without US involvement.

Rhett, why don't you take a reputable encyclopedia off the shelf and look up 
"Gulf of Tonkin Incident". The U.S. did start the Vietnam war, and this is 
very common knowledge. Rhett, any respect I ever extended to you is utterly 
at an end. You cannot know how offensive it is to hear you extending facile 
justifications to your own country's slaughter of millions. This is no 
different to my ears than were I hearing a German justifying Hitler, or a 
Maoist justifying the Cultural Revolution. 

> The US got involved, in a very shameful way I 
> might add, and made the situation worse than it needed to be in 
> several countries. But it was not solely responsible for the fighting.

This claim isn't even made by the U.S. There's no doubt about the Gulf of 
Tonkin incident, and you can read what Nixon himself wrote about Cambodia as 
"The Nixon Doctrine in its purest form". The only justification for U.S. 
involvement in Laos was the war in Vietnam which the U.S. did initiate. 
You're worse than ignorant on these issues. 

>> I'm going to think the best of
>>you here, and attribute your views on the matter to pure ignorance, rather
>>than some impure desire.
> 
> Thank you. I'm going to attribute your radicalism and intolerance to 
> youthful exuberance.

You're telling me that I'm being intolerant? Great, Rhett. Why don't you 
see how much ice your arguments can cut when you're wandering around Laos 
explaining to people "But you see, we Americans only bombed the rugged, 
jungle areas! It wasn't so bad!" Yeah, that'll really go over well with a 
Laotian audience, as you walk past cities that were reduced to ash, and see 
homes that have their lintels made out of bomb fragments with "U.S.A." 
printed on them. But then, you can always fall back on your statement that 
you were at a protest at Berkeley. Wow. They'll really be impressed by 
that, Rhett. I know I am. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Let him not despise what he has received, nor should he live envying (the 
gains of) others. The Bhikkhu who envies (the gains of) others does not 
attain concentration.
Random Dhammapada Verse 365

 
1019
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sat Jan 15, 2005 5:42am
Subject: Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

> You cannot know how offensive it is to hear you extending facile
>justifications to your own country's slaughter of millions.

Hmm...

You'd be happy to know, then, that my reason for renouncing my US 
citizenship was my objection to US foreign policy.

You know what I think, Eisel. I think you are very quick to say 
things that can give offense to others, and you wish to be indulged 
in that. But you are also very quick to take offense when others 
disagree with you. I hope that changes.

best regards,

/Rett

 
1020
From: Jim Anderson <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Jan 15, 2005 3:49pm
Subject: moderator's note

Dear members,

I'm afraid that the recent exchanges between Eisel and Rett (Re: the Decline
of Pali...) have been of an inflammatory and divisive nature. This can cause
members to leave the group--one has left already. I would ask that members
desist from such harsh speech and to cultivate the friendlier kind instead.
Although we may disagree on various points, we should at least try to behave
respectfully and with good manners towards each other.

With metta, Jim

 
1021
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Jan 16, 2005 5:12am
Subject: Re: Moderator's Note

My apologies to Jim and to any who may have found the recent 
disagreements disruptive. It should have gone off-list at an earlier 
stage than it did.

Also, if anyone feels my understanding of history and politics needs 
correcting, my mailbox is open.

best regards,

/Rett

 
1022
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Jan 17, 2005 5:59am
Subject: Re: moderator's note

Dear Jim

It has been rather unfortunate that the exchange between Eisel and Rett 
has been heated with personal remarks. However, I must acknowledge them 
for many facts extractable from their messages. Even though Laos is a 
neighbour of my country, and I am at present living in Sri Lanka, I must 
admit that those facts are wholly new to me.

And I am much interested in the point raised by Eisel that the PTS 
approach has created an intellectual climate in which both
(1)The study of Theravada Pali traditions has been divorced from its 
milieu (i.e., social context)

(2)The interpretations of the PTS and other western Pali scholars have themselves been divorced from their milieu 

In fact, I have a lot to comment, and reveal some facts that I think are still hidden from the west. However, I feel that these issues are still hot from the recent flames. So I would like to keep them aside for a while, and submit instead a request for information.

I would like to know the identity of the unnamed Burmese monk in the following quotation from the Editorial Note of Saddhammappakaasinii (Commentary on Mahaaniddesa), published by PTS. It was an Indian professor's writing:

" The source to which my vv.ll. footnotes refer are:

B = Burmese transcript made by a Burmese monk residing in London to 
learn English, but left penniless by his patron, and employed 
by the P.T.S

BM = vv.ll. quoted by the transcriber of B from a MS., also lent by 
P.T.S., which he is pleased to call Muula."


I would like to know who was the Burmese monk who made the Burmese 
transcript B, even though the editor he had helped failed to record his 
name. It is a missing detail in the history of Burmese contributions to 
the international Pali studies.

I have already asked Mr. William Pruitt of PTS about it and he has made 
enquiries but failed. He has replied to me that he cannot find the 
information I need because PTS does not keep exhaustive archives.

I would be much obliged if anyone one there can help me find it.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


>Message: 1 
> Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 15:49:10 -0500
> From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca>
>Subject: moderator's note
>
>Dear members,
>
>I'm afraid that the recent exchanges between Eisel and Rett (Re: the Decline
>of Pali...) have been of an inflammatory and divisive nature. This can cause
>members to leave the group--one has left already. I would ask that members
>desist from such harsh speech and to cultivate the friendlier kind instead.
>Although we may disagree on various points, we should at least try to behave
>respectfully and with good manners towards each other.
>
>With metta, Jim
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1023
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:01am
Subject: Re: moderator's note

Bhante,

On Monday, January 17, 2005, at 05:59 PM, Ven. Pandita wrote:

> "The source to which my vv.ll. footnotes refer are:
>
> B = Burmese transcript made by a Burmese monk residing in London to
> learn English, but left penniless by his patron, and employed
> by the P.T.S
>
> BM = vv.ll. quoted by the transcriber of B from a MS., also lent by
> P.T.S., which he is pleased to call Muula."
>
>
> I would like to know who was the Burmese monk who made the Burmese
> transcript B, even though the editor he had helped failed to record his
> name. It is a missing detail in the history of Burmese contributions to
> the international Pali studies.

I should think the late Sayadaw U Thittila would be a likely candidate.
What is the publication date?

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

 
1024
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:20am
Subject: Re: moderator's note

Ven. Pandita enquires:

>I would like to know the identity of the unnamed Burmese monk in the 
>following quotation from the Editorial Note of Saddhammappakaasinii 
>(Commentary on Mahaaniddesa), published by PTS. It was an Indian 
>professor's writing:

You mean of course: (Commentary on Pa.tisambhidaamagga).

> " The source to which my vv.ll. footnotes refer are:
>
> B = Burmese transcript made by a Burmese monk residing in London to
>learn English, but left penniless by his patron, and employed
>by the P.T.S
>
> BM = vv.ll. quoted by the transcriber of B from a MS., also lent by
>P.T.S., which he is pleased to call Muula."
>
>
>I would like to know who was the Burmese monk who made the Burmese
>transcript B, even though the editor he had helped failed to record his
>name. It is a missing detail in the history of Burmese contributions to
>the international Pali studies.
>

I have always assumed this to be Ven. U Thittila. He certainly took 
some employment as librarian in the Buddhist Society at one point. 
But I have no definite evidence.

Lance Cousins

1025
From:  robert kirkpatrick <rjkjp1@yahoo.com> 
Date: Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Re: moderator's note

Dear Lance,
Glad it wasn't you that left (not that I want anyone
to leave of course!)
Just to add a note of appreciation for the PTS work.
I really like your revision of The Dispeller of
Delusion, my copies are almost falling apart, I've
read them so much .
Robert
--- "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Ven. Pandita enquires:
> 
> >I would like to know the identity of the unnamed
> Burmese monk in the 
> >following quotation from the Editorial Note of
> Saddhammappakaasinii 
> >(Commentary on Mahaaniddesa), published by PTS. It
> was an Indian 
> >professor's writing:
> 
> You mean of course: (Commentary on
> Pa.tisambhidaamagga).
> 
> > " The source to which my vv.ll. footnotes refer
> are:
> >
> > B = Burmese transcript made by a Burmese monk
> residing in London to
> >learn English, but left penniless by his
> patron, and employed
> >by the P.T.S
> >
> > BM = vv.ll. quoted by the transcriber of B
> from a MS., also lent by
> >P.T.S., which he is pleased to call Muula."
> >
> >
> >I would like to know who was the Burmese monk who
> made the Burmese
> >transcript B, even though the editor he had helped
> failed to record his
> >name. It is a missing detail in the history of
> Burmese contributions to
> >the international Pali studies.
> >
> 
> I have always assumed this to be Ven. U Thittila. He
> certainly took 
> some employment as librarian in the Buddhist Society
> at one point. 
> But I have no definite evidence.
> 
> Lance Cousins
>

 
1026
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 20, 2005 0:40pm
Subject: Re:Re: moderator's note

Thanks a lot, Bhante Dhammanando and Mr. Cousins, for your kind answers, and I also beg your pardon for my carelessness in failing to give the publication date and giving the wrong title of the commented work. 

I myself think that it must be Sayadaw U Thittila but I cannot be sure, for, as you may notice, it is not an acknowledgement worthy of him. I feel that it is only a thinly veiled insult, probably the result of a personal conflict. It may be nothing to those outside Burma; but for Burmese people, especially for Burmese monks, it may warp the image of PTS in their eyes. I feel rather sad for it.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

Dhammanando Bhikkhu wrote:

> 
>
>I should think the late Sayadaw U Thittila would be a likely candidate.
>What is the publication date?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Dhammanando
> 
>
Mr. Cousins wrote:

>[. . .]
>You mean of course: (Commentary on Pa.tisambhidaamagga).
>[. . .]
> 
>
>I have always assumed this to be Ven. U Thittila. He certainly took 
>some employment as librarian in the Buddhist Society at one point. 
>But I have no definite evidence.
>
>Lance Cousins
>
> 
>

 
1027
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:25pm
Subject: Re:Re: moderator's note

Dear Ven. Pandita,

I don't think you are right to think this. You must remember that at 
this time Ven. U Thittila (if it is him) would have been a fairly 
junior monk. (I don't have his date of birth to hand.)

Prof. Joshi probably doesn't give his name because he didn't know it. 
The transcript would have been organized and sent by Mrs Rhys Davids, 
the then President of the PTS.

I presume that in fact she will have herself paid for this, most 
probably out of her own pocket. In part this will no doubt have been 
in order to help the monk in question. She would not have wished to 
mention this. (The English tradition is of doing good in secret or in 
a low key manner - different to the general tradition of the Buddhist 
countries.)

Of course, this is only my interpretation, but it is based upon some 
knowledge of how things were done in those days.

Lance Cousins

>I myself think that it must be Sayadaw U Thittila but I cannot be 
>sure, for, as you may notice, it is not an acknowledgement worthy of 
>him. I feel that it is only a thinly veiled insult, probably the 
>result of a personal conflict. It may be nothing to those outside 
>Burma; but for Burmese people, especially for Burmese monks, it may 
>warp the image of PTS in their eyes. I feel rather sad for it.
>
>with metta
>
>Ven. Pandita

 
1028
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:12pm
Subject: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Mr. Cousins

Thank you for your explanation, but I am sorry to say that it is still 
not convincing enough.

>You must remember that at this time Ven. U Thittila (if it is him) would have been a fairly junior monk. (I don't have his date of birth to hand.)
> 
>
May be but irrelevant. The social status of a contributor doesn't 
justify the failure to give due credit to him --- this is what I know 
about the western academic tradition (please correct me if I am wrong)

>Prof. Joshi probably doesn't give his name because he didn't know it. 
>The transcript would have been organized and sent by Mrs Rhys Davids, 
>the then President of the PTS.
> 
>
Prof. Joshi did know that that Burmese monk was in London *to learn 
English, but was left penniless by his patron, and** employed by PTS*. 
How did he get these facts? Presumably from Mrs. Rhys Davids. But he 
didn't know even his name! It is rather odd. I think there are two 
alternative explanations: either Prof. Joshi did know his name but had 
no wish to acknowledge him, or Mrs. Rhys David had concealed the monk's 
identity from him.

>I presume that in fact she will have herself paid for this, most 
>probably out of her own pocket. In part this will no doubt have been 
>in order to help the monk in question. She would not have wished to 
>mention this. 
>
Irrelevant again! She might pay out of her own pocket for the 
transcription, but it surely does not justify sending a contributor's 
identity into oblivion unless you maintain that the penniless monk does 
not deserve any acknowledgement except monetary payment.

>(The English tradition is of doing good in secret or in 
>a low key manner - different to the general tradition of the Buddhist 
>countries.)
>
>
> 
>
Surely English people don't have a low key manner as far as intellectual 
matters are concerned --- we should remember the infamous quarrel 
between Newton and Bishop Berkeley(?) over the credit of inventing 
Calculus.

And you seem to imply that the people of Buddhist countries doing good 
deeds are all for the limelight and publicity. This is , to adapt E.M's 
phrase, "the study of Theravada Buddhism divorced from its milieu 
(i.e., social context)" Proclaiming and sharing one's good deed has been 
an integral part of Theravada Buddhism; it is based on the concept of 
pattaanumodana (See Abhiammatthasangaha, Viithimuttasangaha) Even a 
lone meditator in the forest would proclaim his efforts to meditate to 
all beings, seen and unseen, and invite them to share the merit with him.

Of course, when an act, well-meant in itself, becomes part of the common 
culture, it may become the basis of different attitudes. Some would 
proclaim their good deeds on account of a genuine wish to share while 
some others, for the sake of world fame.Different persons must be judged 
differently; the act cannot be evaluated by itself.

Of course, this is only my interpretation, but it is based upon some knowledge of how things were done in those days.


Yes, I agree. We are arguing over something that no concrete evidence is 
available except the fact that a poor contributor went without due 
acknowledgement in the history of modern Pali studies.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1029
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:00pm
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Bhante Pandita and Group,

In case it is of interest I found an interesting biography of the 
Sayadaw U Thittila at:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/biogrphy.htm#uthittila

One passage which might be relevant is the following:

>The sparse information given in this extremely brief sketch of some 
>of the main events in the Sayadaw's life, confirms a remark made one 
>day by an astrologer in Mandalay who once happened to see the 
>Sayadaw there when he was a young samanera. The astrologer commented 
>that only one tenth of anything that that particular young bhikkhu 
>did would ever become known. The difficulty in collecting 
>information is compounded by the fact that the Sayadaw very seldom 
>speaks of himself, or mentions his endless achievements in the vast 
>field of his experiences. Beneath his quiet and retiring bearing 
>lies a profound depth of knowledge of the Buddhist Teaching, and to 
>spread this knowledge has been his great endeavour throughout his 
>life. He has striven, often in the face of surprising opposition, to 
>carry out his aim. Even his original idea to learn English and go to 
>the West, met with an opposition that made his initial departure a 
>very difficult thing. Over the years since the war he has taught and 
>helped countless Western-born people, although of his English pupils 
>from the actual war years and just after, so many are now no more. 
>However, by those who still remember him during his fourteen years 
>presence in England, from 1938-1952, and who on subsequent visits 
>have continued to receive teaching and guidance from him, he is 
>deeply regarded and with much gratitude.

best regards,

/Rett

 
1030
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:56pm
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Venerable Bhante Pandita, Rett and group,
I had not realized he is the same Sayadaw Thi.t.tila who translated the
Vibhanga which I greatly admire. A kind preface by Horner, an impressive
Intro by Iggleden. They acknowledge him with kind words. Horner says, it is
hardly necessary to introduce him.
Nina. 
op 24-01-2005 22:00 schreef rett op rett@telia.com:

> In case it is of interest I found an interesting biography of the
> Sayadaw U Thittila at:
> 
> http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/biogrphy.htm#uthittila

 
1031
From: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> 
Date: Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:10am
Subject: New file uploaded to palistudy

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the palistudy 
group.

File : /RelGram.pdf 
Uploaded by : bhikkhu_pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Description : Relational Grammar (Basic) 

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy/files/RelGram.pdf 

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files

Regards,

bhikkhu_pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com>

 
1032
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:15am
Subject: relational grammar

Jim and all

I have posted Relational Grammar (Basic) (RelGram.pdf) to the group.
It is a compilation of some lecture notes I made while I taught Pali
at International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University (ITBMU),
Rangoon, Burma. I believe that the materials given in these notes are
the English rendering for the first time of Pali syntax (Burmese way).
I hope you might find it useful and thought-provoking.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

 
1033
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:32am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Thank you Nina, and Rett for your considerate replies.

If that unfortunate monk was really Sayadaw U Thittila, we may
conclude that he came to be recognized only in the later period of his
life. However, we cannot erase the dark times of him concerning his
unrecognized work.

I have nothing against PTS. What I wish to emphasize is that such
unhappy events (There are also a few others besides this) have been
the cause of much misunderstanding of PTS in Burmese eyes. As I have
said before, PTS is the
the symbol of western Pali studies in Burma; accordingly, all western
Pali and Buddhist scholars come to be suspisciously viewed. This
situation continues to date.

There are some Buddhist scholars in Burma who are laymen educated in
western universities. They almost have no voice in monastic education
because they are viewed by monks influential in monastic circles as
knowing English and nothing else about Buddhism! Mutual understanding
is almost nil.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:56:28 +0100, Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Venerable Bhante Pandita, Rett and group,
> I had not realized he is the same Sayadaw Thi.t.tila who translated the
> Vibhanga which I greatly admire. A kind preface by Horner, an impressive
> Intro by Iggleden. They acknowledge him with kind words. Horner says, it is
> hardly necessary to introduce him.
> Nina. 
> op 24-01-2005 22:00 schreef rett op rett@telia.com:
> 
> > In case it is of interest I found an interesting biography of the
> > Sayadaw U Thittila at:
> > 
> > http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/biogrphy.htm#uthittila
> 
 
1034
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Jan 26, 2005 9:51am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Venerable Bhante Pandita,
your remarks make me understand many things, I am glad you made them.
op 26-01-2005 11:32 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@gmail.com:
PTS is the
> the symbol of western Pali studies in Burma; accordingly, all western
> Pali and Buddhist scholars come to be suspisciously viewed. This
> situation continues to date.
>... Mutual understanding is almost nil.

N: The Burmese are right, I understand the deep seated feelings. Westerners
can be hautain. There is also a language barrier and this prevents mutual
openness and admiration of each other's culture. I was glad about Jim's link
to a Burmese website and see those admirable Sayadaws who could pass such
difficult exams. This is not known to Westerners at all. Also what I
mentioned before: this eminent Thai professor Somphon Sirawit, who did a
gigantic task translating numerous Co into Thai, but this is not widely
known, he does not speak English.
The Dhamma can help, it teaches us that as soon as we think he is Burmese, I
am Dutch, there is likely to be conceit. Learning that we are only citta,
cetasika and rupa makes us more tolerant.
Now I go back to the time of Buddhaghosa. I better understand people's
attitudes: they find him not logical, or his word associations are not
scientific. Or people mix science with the Dhamma. But one should understand
the goal: helping people to have understanding of the Dhamma, nothing else.
I think we can only explain this to others little by little, very gently and
patiently. Otherwise people will not listen.
Your remarks are food for thought Bhante, thank you.
I just noticed your grammar study you uploaded and I printed it out. Thank
you, I appreciate this very much. It is just what I need.
With respect and anumodana,
Nina.

 
1035
From: connie <connieparker@intergate.com> 
Date: Wed Jan 26, 2005 7:03pm
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Venerable Bhante Pandita,
Thank you very much for the grammar help!

Dear Nina,
Please, what is hautain?
> Westerners
> can be hautain.

peace,
connie

 
1036
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:56am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Rett,

Thank you for this. It does confirm that the monk in question cannot 
have been Sayadaw U Thithila.

Lance Cousins

> >However, by those who still remember him during his fourteen years
>>presence in England, from 1938-1952, and who on subsequent visits
>>have continued to receive teaching and guidance from him, he is
>>deeply regarded and with much gratitude.
>
>best regards,
>
>/Rett

 
1037
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:10am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Ven. Pandita,

>May be but irrelevant. The social status of a contributor doesn't
>justify the failure to give due credit to him --- this is what I know
>about the western academic tradition (please correct me if I am wrong)

Well, you might be right now. At least most of us would take that 
view today. But that was a very different time and such was not the 
practice. Transcribing of course would have been considered 
secretarial rather than scholarly work.

>
>>Prof. Joshi probably doesn't give his name because he didn't know it.
>>The transcript would have been organized and sent by Mrs Rhys Davids,
>>the then President of the PTS.
>> 
>>
>Prof. Joshi did know that that Burmese monk was in London *to learn
>English, but was left penniless by his patron, and** employed by PTS*.
>How did he get these facts? Presumably from Mrs. Rhys Davids. But he
>didn't know even his name! It is rather odd. I think there are two
>alternative explanations: either Prof. Joshi did know his name but had
>no wish to acknowledge him, or Mrs. Rhys David had concealed the monk's
>identity from him.

I assume she didn't mention it. But that of course is not at all the 
same as concealing.

>
>>I presume that in fact she will have herself paid for this, most
>>probably out of her own pocket. In part this will no doubt have been
>>in order to help the monk in question. She would not have wished to
>>mention this.
>>
>Irrelevant again! She might pay out of her own pocket for the
>transcription, but it surely does not justify sending a contributor's
>identity into oblivion unless you maintain that the penniless monk does
>not deserve any acknowledgement except monetary payment.

We don't know who he was. Perhaps she thought his work very poor and 
not deserving of credit.


>Surely English people don't have a low key manner as far as intellectual
>matters are concerned --- we should remember the infamous quarrel
>between Newton and Bishop Berkeley(?) over the credit of inventing
>Calculus.

You mean Leibnitz, I think. But he was not English.

>And you seem to imply that the people of Buddhist countries doing good
>deeds are all for the limelight and publicity.

No, I neither implied this nor intended to imply this nor wrote 
anything which could suggest this.

>This is , to adapt E.M's
>phrase, "the study of Theravada Buddhism divorced from its milieu
>(i.e., social context)" Proclaiming and sharing one's good deed has been
>an integral part of Theravada Buddhism; it is based on the concept of
>pattaanumodana (See Abhiammatthasangaha, Viithimuttasangaha) Even a
>lone meditator in the forest would proclaim his efforts to meditate to
>all beings, seen and unseen, and invite them to share the merit with him.
>
>Of course, when an act, well-meant in itself, becomes part of the common
>culture, it may become the basis of different attitudes. Some would
>proclaim their good deeds on account of a genuine wish to share while
>some others, for the sake of world fame.Different persons must be judged
>differently; the act cannot be evaluated by itself.

That is exactly what I was referring to.

>
>Of course, this is only my interpretation, but it is based upon some 
>knowledge of how things were done in those days.
>
>
>Yes, I agree. We are arguing over something that no concrete evidence is
>available except the fact that a poor contributor went without due
>acknowledgement in the history of modern Pali studies.

Well this is just English understatement. I'm really pretty sure that 
I'm right, in fact.

Lance Cousins


1038
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:09am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Lance and group,

I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from those dates (1938-52), 
since the PTS _List of Issues_ has the Saddhammappakaasinii coming 
out in three volumes over the years 1933-47. This certainly rules out 
the first volume, but could he have contributed a transcription to 
the preparation of one or both of the later volumes?

Does anyone know which volume the reference to the 'penniless monk' 
occurs in? Is it in a dated introduction, or in the main text of one 
of the volumes? When did the volume with that reference come out?

best regards,

/Rett


>Dear Rett,
>
>Thank you for this. It does confirm that the monk in question cannot
>have been Sayadaw U Thithila.
>
>Lance Cousins
>
>
> > >However, by those who still remember him during his fourteen years
>>>presence in England, from 1938-1952, and who on subsequent visits
>>>have continued to receive teaching and guidance from him, he is
>>>deeply regarded and with much gratitude.
>>
>>best regards,
>>
> >/Rett

 
1039
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:57am
Subject: Re: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Venerable Bhante Pandita and dear Connie,
Bhante, I am always thinking of the Pali list how they can profit. If you
find it suitable, is it a good idea to give the grammer also to the Pali
list? It is a good topic for discussion
Connie, hautain is haughty, sorry, I used the French. The citta is rigid,
not pliable, gentle or wieldy. One cannot anumodana, nor receive treasures
from others. Thus, one misses out a lot.
Nina.
op 27-01-2005 01:03 schreef connie op connieparker@intergate.com:

> Please, what is hautain?
>> Westerners
>> can be hautain.

 
1040
From: L.S. Cousins <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:48am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Rett,

The reference is in the first volume (published in 1933). Actually, 
according to the Note added by Mrs Rhys Davids, it came out at New 
Year 1933 (i.e. January). The transcript must have been made in 1932 
at the latest and could have been some years before.

Lance Cousins

>Dear Lance and group,
>
>I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from those dates (1938-52),
>since the PTS _List of Issues_ has the Saddhammappakaasinii coming
>out in three volumes over the years 1933-47. This certainly rules out
>the first volume, but could he have contributed a transcription to
>the preparation of one or both of the later volumes?
>
>Does anyone know which volume the reference to the 'penniless monk'
>occurs in? Is it in a dated introduction, or in the main text of one
>of the volumes? When did the volume with that reference come out?
>
>best regards,
>
>/Rett

 
1041
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:50pm
Subject: Re: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Nina

I have posted the Relational Grammar to the Pali list as well. But my 
name there is "ashin pandita" ("ashin" is a Burmese title for monks and 
roughly equivalent to "reverend, venerable")

with metta

Ven. Pandita

Nina van Gorkom wrote:

> Venerable Bhante Pandita and dear Connie,
> Bhante, I am always thinking of the Pali list how they can profit. If you
> find it suitable, is it a good idea to give the grammer also to the Pali
> list? It is a good topic for discussion
> Connie, hautain is haughty, sorry, I used the French. The citta is rigid,
> not pliable, gentle or wieldy. One cannot anumodana, nor receive treasures
> from others. Thus, one misses out a lot.
> Nina.
> op 27-01-2005 01:03 schreef connie op connieparker@intergate.com:
>
> > Please, what is hautain?
> >> Westerners
> >> can be hautain.
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1042
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:11am
Subject: Using Relational Grammar

Nina, Rett and all

After posting the Relational Grammar, I think I should explain how we in 
Burma use it in learning and teaching Pali.

We view the word order in Pali sentences as a wholly stylistic matter 
and rely instead on word-to-word relations to make out the content of a 
sentence. Relational grammar is a tool to help us define these 
relations. For short and clear sentences, it may be just a bother but it 
becomes very powerful when we deal with long, complicated sentences, 
for, we have to think of only two words at any given time irrespective 
of the length or complexity of the sentence.

The usual process that a Burmese reader undergoes in reading Pali using 
Relational grammar is as follows:

1. The main verb is identified and analysed. From the composition of the 
verb, we can know the voice, etc of the sentence.
2. Then a subject (or object) having due agreement with the main verb is 
found out and the proper relation of these two words (i.e., the verb and 
its subject or object) is defined.
[We should note here that, in Burmese view, Pali voices are not a 
quality of the whole sentence but only of verbs and corresponding 
subjects or objects. For instance, if the veb is active, it would have 
an active subject or active object. Moreover, we don't have, in contrast 
with English, the concept of a "grammatical subject" ]
3. Afterwards, the remaining words are taken one by one and have their 
relations with others defined. If the relation defined is correct for 
any given pair of words, it would make sense in the given context. When 
all words have been exhausted, the sense of the whole sentence would 
become transparent.

There are certain requirements to be fulfilled if one wishes to make 
effective use of the Relational grammar.

1. You may find that most of relations given therein are classified in 
categories of different noun cases. It means that a student should have 
the ability to analyse nouns in a given sentence into their respective 
nominal stems and possible cases. This skill is possible only after a 
proper digestion of declensions.

2. He or she should be able to analyse conjugated verbs and primary 
derivatives, for they are used as main verbs.
 
1043
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jan 28, 2005 5:28am
Subject: Newton vs. Hooke

This is purely tangental, but the issue of Newton's controversy has come up 
several times now: I believe the dispute that Bhante Pandita was thinking of 
was between Newton and Hooke (the latter was an Englishman, who remains 
famous for "Hooke's Theorem"). Newton bitterly resented Hooke's 
(substantiated) claim to having proposed an equation related to gravitation 
prior to Newton's proof/discovery thereof. In retaliation, Newton did 
everything he could to erase Hooke from the annals of history following 
Hooke's death; he also had him kicked out of some Royal Society or another 
during his life. 

Newton was a rather unbalanced character. 

Incidentally, there's a statue of Newton in the room in which I am now 
sitting (I didn't decorate this apartment); he is holding a scroll reading 
"Attraction Universelle \ Calcule Differentiel" --which is, by coincidence, 
very much related to this historical anecdote. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
He who sits alone, rest alone, walks alone unindolent, who in solitude 
controls himself, will find delight in the forest.
Random Dhammapada Verse 305

 
1044
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Feb 4, 2005 8:19am
Subject: Re: about Sayadaw U Thittila

Dear Bhante Pandita, Lance and group,

It does indeed seem clear that it was another monk, and not Sayadaw U 
Thittila who made the transcription for that volume.

It seems to me that we just can't know for sure why this 'penniless 
monk' wasn't acknowledged by name. There could be any number of 
reasons for it, apart from intending to slight or insult him. He 
might even have asked not to be mentioned by name. In the absence of 
more information we just can't know for sure.

Does the theory that it was a deliberate insult or slight come mainly 
from the mistaken assumption that it was Sayadaw U Thittila? The 
reasoning would be that since he was such a learned and famous monk, 
not mentioning his name would be out of the question unless there was 
a deliberate purpose in not doing so.

Once that mistaken assumption is removed, is it now possible to just 
let the matter go? (at least until more evidence is unearthed).

best regards,

/Rett


>
>The reference is in the first volume (published in 1933). Actually,
>according to the Note added by Mrs Rhys Davids, it came out at New
>Year 1933 (i.e. January). The transcript must have been made in 1932
>at the latest and could have been some years before.
>
>Lance Cousins
>
>>Dear Lance and group,
>>
>>I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from those dates (1938-52),
>>since the PTS _List of Issues_ has the Saddhammappakaasinii coming
>>out in three volumes over the years 1933-47. This certainly rules out
>>the first volume, but could he have contributed a transcription to
>>the preparation of one or both of the later volumes?
>>
>>Does anyone know which volume the reference to the 'penniless monk'
>>occurs in? Is it in a dated introduction, or in the main text of one
>>of the volumes? When did the volume with that reference come out?
>>
>>best regards,
>>
> >/Rett

 
1045
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Feb 8, 2005 6:19am
Subject: A resource: scholarly Buddhist Studies articles on-line

The following website has many useful articles (admittedly, over 80% of 
them may be garbage, but the remader may be extremely valuable --many 
scholarly book reviews of recent publications on Pali, etc., that can be of 
use) and intermittently seems to be "off-line". For those who have the 
option to download _en masse_, this may be suggested: 

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/cf_by.htm 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Here he suffers, hereafter he suffers. In both states the evildoer suffers. 
"Evil have I done" (thinking thus), he suffers. Furthermore, he suffers, 
having gone to a woeful state.
Random Dhammapada Verse 17

 
1046
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 0:37am
Subject: Romanization, East vs. West

Hi Jim, 

I haven't had any time to write lately. My relocation to Laos seems to be 
looming ever nearer; but, recently, I have been caught up in my paid 
employment. 

I should just generally note that I did not have any hard feelings over the 
interchange with Rett --and, indeed, he and I continue to carry on cordial 
e-mail (off-list) to this day. I suppose one of the most disturbing things 
about me is that I actually do compose such invectives with a completely 
cool head! I do apologise if Rett was upset, i.e., regarding Laos and 
Camdbodia, etc.; however, it is unbecoming to ignore the facts of history 
where the deaths of 3.2 million people are involved. I think it was a bit 
of a revelation to him (late in the discussion, off-list) that my argument 
was not purely theoretical, but rather I do actually work with native 
editions, and I don't own anything published by the PTS, relying almost 
entirely upon almost made-in-Asia resources. And, as you know, I am hoping 
to contribute to the sum of made-in-asia resources with my little edition of 
Kaccayana & Mason. Perhaps the "People's Democratic Press" in Vientiane 
will be interested? The State publishes both Buddhist materials and 
language resources, so it would be a rather quaint option (albeit with 
limited distribution!). 

I would reiterate that one of the central problems of Romanization is that 
most scholars in the west simply do not know the enormous value of the 
resources that are produced in Asia. It is "needless to say" that the 
intellectual production (in Pali studies) of countries like Burma, Sri 
Lanka, and Thailand, where the majority of people are Buddhist, are 
incomparably greater than a country like England, where Buddhists are less 
than 0.001% of the population. Except, of course, it is not "needless to 
say" at all, but very necessary: works from other lands are undervalued and 
dismissed on various ill-thought-out grounds, and, in most cases, the real 
reason is that Westerners cannot be bothered to learn to read in the native 
script. The blanket judgement that many academics offer that all Asian 
editions are "full of errors" is really prejudicial and false: just as with 
the western presses, some publishers do poor work, and some do excellent 
work. There are various highly esteemed editions of the suttapitaka from 
S.E.A., and to lump them in with cheap Indian editions from private presses 
of the 1970s is absurd; further, in most cases, the western impression that 
Asian editions are full of errors is based precisely on the use of Romanized 
materials (e.g., old Motilal Banarsidass editions) rather than indigenous 
script. 

In any case, there are voices from the East who prefer Western editions, 
too, so the dichotomy is not absolute. Bhante Pandita's blog and messages 
(both of which I enjoy) have mentioned the disparaging attitude toward the 
PTS common among Burmese monks; in Sri Lanka, one can very often find the 
opposite extreme among laypeople of the upper classes, who prefer the 
"Scientistic" version of Theravada Buddhism produced by western presses to 
the living tradition --encrusted as it is by ritual and many adopted Hindu 
superstitions. 

At any rate, it seems that Filiozat and I will be the only ones reading 
manuscripts in the 21st century! If the rest of the world prefers 
Romanization, it can only be to the impoverishment of the literature 
--including the looming extinction of various texts (known and unknown) that 
are extant only in manuscript form. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/ 

Random Dhammapada Verse

 
1047
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 6:14am
Subject: Pali Manuscripts in Vientiane, Lao PDR

I pass along the following description from my wife --although I have been 
to Laos 3 times, I have yet to see this collection myself (the National 
Library was closed whenever I was there), and shall do so at first 
opportunity: 

> ...you'll be glad to know that I made a full tour 
> of the National Library (also home to a Manuscript Preservation Project 
> partly supported by the Germans, I think). The main floor has about 3 
> reading 'nooks' with bookshelves. I was welcomed and wandered at will 
> through the small space. There are books in English, Lao, Russian, French 
> ... It is not huge or impressive, but they're 
> trying. I asked the librarian by the front door if they had "Bali" and 
> she said "Palm leaf", and pointed me upstairs. Up I went, up lovely old 
> wooden stairs, past decaying walls and dusty tomes, down a hallway of old 
> French doors (most with locked chains keeping them shut). Another 
> administrator/librarian responded very positively to my request, and took 
> me to a little (air conditioned!) room lined with wooden, glass-doored 
> cabinets full of manuscripts -- each with a little paper i.d. tag dangling 
> from it! I made some inquiries about which ones were "Bali" and if it was 
> "Lao Tham" (i.e. dhamma script), although the understanding of the lady 
> librarian and the gentleman who later arrived (the "Head of the Manuscript 
> Dept") was limited. It was utterly different from Bangkok's library. They 
> were very interested to hear that my husband studied "Bali", and asked me 
> if I wanted to borrow any of the manuscripts! They were happy to hear 
> that you might come to study them, and they even allowed me to take 
> pictures of a manuscript and the room! My only faux-pas was not taking my 
> shoes off when I entered the room, although it was truly not my fault -- 
> my earlier offer to doff my shoes at the foot of the stairs (where I saw a 
> few pairs on a shelf) was refused by the downstairs librarian, and when I 
> was leaving the room I apologised for my shoes (when I noticed that both 
> staff members were barefoot), and the upstairs librarian indicated that it 
> was fine, not to worry. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Having slain mother and father and two brahmin kings, and having destroyed 
the perilous path (hindrances), ungrieving goes the Brahmana (Arahant).
Random Dhammapada Verse 295

 
1048
From: Ong Teng Kee <ongtkee@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 7:53am
Subject: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

navako,
I don't think you can say you and fillizot are the
only who are reading leaves.filiozat (the french
lady?) found saddaniti tika but she can't come out
with an edition of it.what is the point of cataloguing
those leaves if no edition will be out?
many scholars will come out writing books if they have
money and time.please don't think that you are the
only one who are studying pali



--- navako <navako@metta.lk> wrote: 
> 
> 
> Hi Jim, 
> 
> I haven't had any time to write lately. My
> relocation to Laos seems to be 
> looming ever nearer; but, recently, I have been
> caught up in my paid 
> employment. 
> 
> I should just generally note that I did not have
> any hard feelings over the 
> interchange with Rett --and, indeed, he and I
> continue to carry on cordial 
> e-mail (off-list) to this day. I suppose one of the
> most disturbing things 
> about me is that I actually do compose such
> invectives with a completely 
> cool head! I do apologise if Rett was upset, i.e.,
> regarding Laos and 
> Camdbodia, etc.; however, it is unbecoming to ignore
> the facts of history 
> where the deaths of 3.2 million people are involved.
> I think it was a bit 
> of a revelation to him (late in the discussion,
> off-list) that my argument 
> was not purely theoretical, but rather I do actually
> work with native 
> editions, and I don't own anything published by the
> PTS, relying almost 
> entirely upon almost made-in-Asia resources. And,
> as you know, I am hoping 
> to contribute to the sum of made-in-asia resources
> with my little edition of 
> Kaccayana & Mason. Perhaps the "People's Democratic
> Press" in Vientiane 
> will be interested? The State publishes both
> Buddhist materials and 
> language resources, so it would be a rather quaint
> option (albeit with 
> limited distribution!). 
> 
> I would reiterate that one of the central problems
> of Romanization is that 
> most scholars in the west simply do not know the
> enormous value of the 
> resources that are produced in Asia. It is
> "needless to say" that the 
> intellectual production (in Pali studies) of
> countries like Burma, Sri 
> Lanka, and Thailand, where the majority of people
> are Buddhist, are 
> incomparably greater than a country like England,
> where Buddhists are less 
> than 0.001% of the population. Except, of course,
> it is not "needless to 
> say" at all, but very necessary: works from other
> lands are undervalued and 
> dismissed on various ill-thought-out grounds, and,
> in most cases, the real 
> reason is that Westerners cannot be bothered to
> learn to read in the native 
> script. The blanket judgement that many academics
> offer that all Asian 
> editions are "full of errors" is really prejudicial
> and false: just as with 
> the western presses, some publishers do poor work,
> and some do excellent 
> work. There are various highly esteemed editions of
> the suttapitaka from 
> S.E.A., and to lump them in with cheap Indian
> editions from private presses 
> of the 1970s is absurd; further, in most cases, the
> western impression that 
> Asian editions are full of errors is based precisely
> on the use of Romanized 
> materials (e.g., old Motilal Banarsidass editions)
> rather than indigenous 
> script. 
> 
> In any case, there are voices from the East who
> prefer Western editions, 
> too, so the dichotomy is not absolute. Bhante
> Pandita's blog and messages 
> (both of which I enjoy) have mentioned the
> disparaging attitude toward the 
> PTS common among Burmese monks; in Sri Lanka, one
> can very often find the 
> opposite extreme among laypeople of the upper
> classes, who prefer the 
> "Scientistic" version of Theravada Buddhism produced
> by western presses to 
> the living tradition --encrusted as it is by ritual
> and many adopted Hindu 
> superstitions. 
> 
> At any rate, it seems that Filiozat and I will be
> the only ones reading 
> manuscripts in the 21st century! If the rest of the
> world prefers 
> Romanization, it can only be to the impoverishment
> of the literature 
> --including the looming extinction of various texts
> (known and unknown) that 
> are extant only in manuscript form. 
> 
> E.M. 
> 
> 
> -- 
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/ 
> 
> Random Dhammapada Verse 
> 

1049
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 8:34am
Subject: Reply to Ong Teng Kee; 1894 edition of the tipitaka

Hello, 

Below this message is a review of the Siamese edition of the Tipitaka of 
1894; this is actually interesting for a few diverse reasons, such as its 
description of the attitudes in Thailand (at that time) toward Pali in the 
Khmer/Khom script. This little "book review" came from the list of articles 
that I posted the link to earlier this week. 

In reply to Mr. Ong Teng Kee: I was joking when I said that I and Filliozat 
would be the only ones reading manuscripts, *however* the joke is not 
entirely without purpose. There are very few people reading or cataloguing 
original Pali manuscripts, and, as we had recently had a discussion on the 
subject, it seemed that nobody else on the list seemed to think this (and 
the reciprocal reliance on Romanized sources) was a problem. So you may 
excuse my poor humour; and, for the record, Mmme. J. Filliozat has done far 
more than just discover a new Tika; she has an extremely impressive record 
of travelling the world over to catalogue neglected collections of Pali 
sources --including, I might add, some that have been "neglected" in the 
midst of European opulence, such as the R.A.S.'s Sir Stamford Raffles 
collection. In reply to your specific question of "What's the point of 
discovering [new manuscripts] if you don't produce a [Romanized[ edition?" 
--the answer is very simple! IT ALLOWS PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF TO READ THE 
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS! The catalogue of Cambodian manuscripts by Oliver de 
Bernon is as good as a golden key to open up those collections to me 
(Cambodia is just a short trip down the Mekong, you understand), whereas it 
would be extremely difficult for any scholar to examine any of those 
materials if the survey work wasn't done first --even for a scholar with a 
good command of the modern, native language, it is difficult to simply wade 
into a manuscriptorium and begin looking for something thay may not even be 
there. 

E.M. 

The King of Siam's Edition of the Pali Tipitaka 

By Robert Chalmers
Journal of The Royal Asiatic Society
1898, pp. 1-10 



p. 1 

Though four years have passed since the
publication, at Bangkok, of thirty-nine volumes of
the Pali Canon, under the auspices of His Majesty the
King of Siam,(1) it was not till a more recent date
that, thanks to His Majesty's _munificence, copies of
this monumental work reached the Royal Asiatic
Society, and other libraries in Europe, and so became
available for study by Western scholars. The recent
visit of the King to this country gave me an oppor-
tunity of discussing the genesis and circumstances of
the edition with H.R.H. Prince Sommot; and I now
desire to communicate to the Royal Asiatic Society
the information which I owe to the Prince's
scholarship and courtesy. The value of that
information will be recognized when it is stated that
Prince Sommot is Private Secretary to the King,
served on the Editing Committee, and is brother to
the Priest-Prince Vajirananavarorasa, who has edited
eleven out of the thirty-nine volumes already
published.
-----------
1. His Majesty has informed the Society that there
will follow in due course an edition of the
Atthakathas and Tikas. 



p. 2 

The first matter which I sought to clear up was
the purport of the Siamese preface prefixed to every
volume. This preface, though written in Siamese,
contains so con- siderable an admixture of Pali words
and idioms that it requires a sound knowledge of Pali
as well as Siamese for its comprehension. The
following is a translation:-- 

"Faustum Sit! Dated Saturday, the first day of
the fortnight of waning moon in Magha month of the
Mouse year, 2,431 years since the Buddha died. 

"King Culalankarana, son of King Maha-Makuta, be-
thought him how all the teachings of the Buddha,
which the followers of the Buddha have learned and
fulfilled from earliest times till now, have all
sprung from the Tipitaka. From the beginning it has
ever been the wont of royal kings who were Buddhists
and professed Buddhism, to maintain the faith, to
support the Order, and to aid successive Councils,
first to purify the Canon (such has been the royal
custom uninterruptedly), and thereafter to compile a
book of the scriptures as the authoritative exemplar
and accepted standard for all Buddhist lands. 

"In early times Buddhist kingdoms were still
inde- pendent; the king of each was a Buddhist, and
both endowed and supported Buddhism. This was the
case in many countries, to wit, Siam, Ceylon, Burma,
Laos, and Cambodia. When accident or injury befell
the sacred books, so that portions of the Canon were
lost, each kingdom was able and was wont to borrow
from others, and so to restore its own copy to a
complete state; and such exchange was mutual. But in
the present time Ceylon and Burma have come under
English dominion; the governors of those countries
are not Buddhists; they take measures to foster the
secular rather than the spiritual welfare of the
people; and they do not maintain Buddhism as did the
old Buddhist kings. Thus it has come to pass that
Buddhist priests have from time to time set up
different sects according to their own lights; and,
as the bad naturally outnumbered the good, the faith
has 


p. 3 

been perverted, now in one direction, now in another,
as seemed good to each one in turn. Cambodia came
under French dominion, so that the people there could
not maintain the faith in its full vigour. As regards
the country of Laos, which is in the kingdom of Siam,
the princes and people there professed a distorted
form of the faith, which included such errors as the
worship of angels and demons, and therefore cannot be
regarded as having authority. 

"Thus, if the text of the Tipitaka is in doubt,
there is nowhere to be found that with which to
compare and amend it as before. Hence it is only in
Siam that Buddhism stands inviolate. It follows,
then, that the present is a fitting time to look into
the scriptures, to purge them, and to multiply copies
of them for circulation, so as to form an immutable
standard of true Buddhism for future times. Any word
or precept which the Buddha taught is indeed precious
and conducive to salvation from suffering; it is very
truth and beyond price; this it is that the wise seek
after in order that they may learn it, ponder it,
follow it, and profit thereby, according to the
measure in which they master it. Assuredly, too,
learners will not be lacking in times to come.
Wherefore the Buddha's teachings ought to be
preserved for posterity. 

"It has been the custom in Siam, in past times,
to issue the sacred books as manuscripts written on
palm-leaves to make them durable. But the task was
laborious; even a single volume took a long time to
complete; and it was difficult to multiply copies for
distribution. Furthermore, it has always been the
Siamese custom to employ the Cambodian character,
which has thus come to be regarded as the essential
vehicle for Buddhist writings, whereas, in fact, the
character in which the texts are written is im-
material; any character can be used. Indeed, the
various other Buddhist countries-- Ceylon, Burma,
Laos, Cambodia --have been accustomed to use each its
own character. 

"Such, then, were the considerations which led
His Majesty the King of Siam to conceive the plan of
examining 


p. 4 

and purifying the text of the Tipitaka, with a view
to printing it in Siamese character, some books in a
single volume, some in two or more. For His Majesty
failed not to see that such a plan must command
greater advantages than the writing on palm-leaves.
With a single setting-up of type, many hundreds of
copies can be struck off; and such printed copies are
more easy to carry and more convenient to consult,
since many fasciculi(1) can be comprised in a single
printed volume. While it is true that paper is less
durable than palm-leaves, yet with a single
setting-up of type the printing-press can strike off
a great number of copies, and these with care can be
preserved for centuries; multiplication of copies
can, therefore, readily be ensured. By these means
the scriptures can be diffused throughout Siam, and
this was seen by His Majesty to be a great advantage.
Consequently, His Majesty gave orders to print and
circulate the Tipitaka, feeling that this was a great
service to render to the Buddhist faith for the
future, 

"Moreover, it was in contemplation to complete
the printing by the close of the twenty-fifth year of
the King's reign, and so to mark that Jubilee by
celebrating the happy consummation of so pious an
undertaking. It was beyond human foresight to know
whether His Majesty would survive until the date in
view; but the plan of collating, printing, and
distributing the Tipitaka seemed to His Majesty to be
conducive to the good of mankind, and to be a
meritorious work rightly conceived and calcu- lated
to ensure the fulfilment of his hope. 

"So there came a Royal Order to Prince
Bhanurangsi- svangvamsa to be President of a
Committee to arrange for the printing of the
Tipitaka, and orders were given to issue invitations
to the Princes who were in the priesthood, and to
Abbots, and to the learned in each degree of the
clergy, to assemble and hear the King's wishes, and
then to divide among them the work of examining and
settling the text for the press.
-----------------------
1. i.e. twenty-four palm-leaves. 



p. 5 

"That work has now been done, as the King
desired, and may the merit which has been gained by
the fulfilment of the work of issuing these
scriptures be shared by all mankind! Long may the
work endure!" 

Such, then, is the purport of this interesting
preface, prefixed to every volume. As above stated,
there are thirty-nine of these volumes, and the
contents, etc., of each, according to the Siamese
arrangement, are as follows: 

p. 7 

It will have been noticed that eight texts in the
Khuddaka Nikaya (about 1,300 more pages) remain to be
edited in order to make the edition complete.(1)
Their omission, I believe, was due solely to the
inability of the small body of editors to cope with
their task in its entirety before the King's Jubilee.
It is to be hoped that these omissions may be made
good forthwith, and that His Majesty will not leave
his building without a coping-stone. 

I pass now to indicate some of the main features
of the edition. Chief of these is the fact that the
King of Siam has abandoned the exotic Cambodian for
the native Siamese character. To Europeans this may
seem a small matter; to the average Siamese it is a
revolution. Centuries ago, when the Siamese took
their Buddhism from Cambodia, they took with it the
Cambodian character; and the result has been to give
to the latter a sacrosanct significance in the eyes
not only of the unlettered but even of the cultured
Siamese. Thus it was a bold step to adopt the Siamese
character; and the disappearance of the old "sacred"
character marked a triumph for rationalism. To a
Siamese there is nothing sacred in the Siamese
character, and accordingly he can view the new
volumes printed in the Siamese character without any
of the superstition which gathered round the old MSS.
in the Cambodian character; he can tuck one of the
new volumes under his arm without the sense of
impiety which would assuredly have dogged him, had he
so treated the same scripture in Cambodian MS. Partly
because the edition is printed in the common
character, and partly because of the prestige which
the royal undertaking has given to Pali scholarship,
an impetus has been given to the study of Pali and
Buddhism in Siam which it would be difficult to
overestimate. One early fruit of the enterprise, and
a condition essential to its subsequent success, was
the establishment of the Pali
------------------
1. It has been questioned whether the Patthana as
edited is complete, owing to the absence of
manuscripts at one part. Whether this be so or
not, I am unable to say, as there is no Pali Text
Society's edition wherewith to collate the
Siamese. 

p. 8 

College, from which already there has sprung so
strong and universal a community of scholarship
throughout Siam that important national results may
follow in the direction of fixing the language and
fostering a literature. 

The second, and to Europeans more important,
point is the nature of the materials used in settling
the text of the King's edition. A cursory glance at
almost any one of the volumes will show that the
editor had before him not only a local text but also
manuscripts in the Burmese and Sinhalese character,
together (it is gratifying to note) with the Pali
Text Society's edition. The editor not infrequently
appends a footnote indi- cating the variants of "Si"
(= Sihala = Sinhalese), "B" (= Bama = Burmese), and
"Yu" (=Yuropa =Europe, i.e P.T.S.). But, so far as I
have been able to ascertain, these variants, taken
from non-Siamese sources, are merely noted, and have
not been taken into serious consideration in the
settlement of the text adopted. That text, with
unimportant exceptions, has been settled from Siamese
sources. Rather more than a century ago the king who
in 1781 founded the royal city of Ratanako- sindra
(which we know by the less stately name of Bangkok),
caused the learned priests of his day to purge the
text of the canon,, and produce an authoritative
redaction. This was done, and some two or three
exemplars were prepared. It is from these and copies
made therefrom that the present Siamese edition has
been prepared by the scholars whose names appear on
the title-pages of the several volumes. It appears
that the learned editors did not feel themselves at
liberty to prepare what we should call a critical
edition of the Tipitaka; they restricted themselves,
very naturally and intelligibly, to restoring the
national redaction, and to removing the errors which
had marred the work of the last century..From the
European point of view this self-imposed restriction
is one of the most valuable features of this most
valuable edition. In the present Siamese redaction we
have no eclectic text pieced together from the
divergent recensions of Siam, Burma, and Ceylon; on
the contrary, we have 


p. 9 

a purely Siamese text, embodying to a very high pitch
of accuracy(1) the ancient traditions of Siamese
scholarship. 

Space prevents my discussing in the present
article the characteristic features of the Siamese
recension now first made public. My conclusions are,
that the Siamese readings stand about midway between
the Burmese and the Sinhalese readings, the regular
divergences of which are indicated in the preface to
the Pali Text Society's edition of the Sumangala
Vilasini. In the case of a difficult passage or a
rare word, the authenticity of which is proved by
Buddhaghosa's com- mentary, it will not be found that
the Siamese text evades the difficulty, after the
Burmese fashion, by conjecturing an easier reading.
On the other hand, as Pali scholarship in Siam has
never been overshadowed by Sanskrit, the Siamese text
does not fall into the Sinhalese trick of introducing
Sanskrit sandhi. After collating some hundreds of
pages of the Majjhima Nikaya, I am disposed to regard
the new Siamese text as being on the whole nearer to
the original than any other text now available,(2)
though the value of the best Sinhalese MSS. (which
the Siamese edition cites) will always be recognized
by scholars in crucial questions of readings. 

While these qualities in the King of Siam's
edition appeal more directly to an editor than to the
reader of an edited text, it has ether features,
which must evoke universal gratitude from Pali
scholars in Europe. To a Western eye it is a very
great gain to find the text intelligently divided
into punctuated sentences, with the component words
of each sentence duly separated one from another. The
difference in appearance is that between barbarism
and civilization. Another point is the excellent
scheme of
-----------------------
1. A table of errata (sodhanapatta) is prefixed to
each volume.
2. As a rule the readings of Buddhaghosa represent
the best standard for settling a Pitaka text. In
the following case we can go behind him to an
authority seven hundred years older, viz., to the
inscriptions sculptured on the temple of Bharhut.
The 83rd Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya (like the
9th Jataka) relates to the king called Makhadeva
in Sinhalese MSS. and Magghadeva in Burmese MSS.
In the Siamese edition this king's name is spelled
Maghadeva, as it is at plate xlviii (2) of the
"Stupa of Bharhut." (Apparently, Buddhaghosa
follows the Sinhalese spelling.) 


p. 10 

transliteration which, with a paged table of contents
(kittanapatta), precedes the text of each volume.
With the aid of this very useful key to the Siamese
character, the Pali text can be read without
difficulty by European scholars, who will be grateful
for the consideration thus shown to their needs by
Siam. 

The "get-up" of the volumes is not what it might
have been. Though the format is well chosen and the
binding is suitable, the paper is bad, and quite
unworthy of the great and lasting purpose of the
undertaking. Perhaps a slightly larger margin should
have been allowed, and it is a question whether the
title-pages should not have been in Pali. 

But these shortcomings are too petty to mar the
signal success with which this editio princeps of the
Tipitaka has been produced in Siam. In Pali
scholarship the edition will always remain a great
landmark on the path of pro- gress, and an enduring
monument--alike in Europe and in Siam-to the Buddhist
King who conceived and executed so excellent an
undertaking. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Entering upon that path you will make an end of pain. Having learnt the 
removal of thorns, have I taught you the path.
Random Dhammapada Verse 275

 
1050
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 2:33pm
Subject: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

Dear E.M

I would like to point out some facts concerning your message on the 
problem of Pali in East vs. West.

>I would reiterate that one of the central problems of Romanization is that 
>most scholars in the west simply do not know the enormous value of the 
>resources that are produced in Asia. 
>
As a student brought up in the atmosphere of local texts, I think that 
this weakness is more due to their ignorance of native languages rather 
than the Romanization itself. I'll give an example, which I have already 
given to Rett in one off list message.

First, I would like to roughly divide Pali courses and grammars commonly 
used in the west into two categories. This division is for the sake of 
comparison.

The first would be "introductions", or "courses" just like Pali Primer, 
Warder's Introduction, Pali Made Easy, etc.. They are just variations on 
the same tune --- explanations of grammatical categories step by step 
with suitable exercises for reading, writing, or both. They are meant 
for beginners. There are also in Burma similar basic courses like 
Paalisikkhaa, Kathaasallaapasikkhaa, etc.

The second would be like Perniola's or Geiger's grammars. Their 
contents mostly belong to the field of comparative philology. A 
fundamental knowledge of Sanskrit is a prerequisite if you really wish 
to be profited from them. Burma also have advanced works like 
Moggallaana Nissaya, which explores almost all Sanskrit sources of Pali 
grammatical systems.

Between these two stages, unlike the west, there are much more to learn. 
We have the Relational Grammar (which I have uploaded), Formal 
Interpretations (commentarial conventions commonly used to explain Pali 
text), Thematic Units (sentence-to-sentence relations in contrast with 
word-to-word relations), and much more. These concepts are very 
important, at least for us, to read and understand Pali.

However, these things are entirely missing in the west.Why? Because they 
exist only in Burmese. They are fruitions of a tradition of study and 
research extending through a period of hundreds of years and westerners 
cannot access them because they don't know Burmese.

I think this weakness is more significant in dividing the East and the 
West than Romanization itself.

>The blanket judgement that many academics offer that all Asian 
>editions are "full of errors" is really prejudicial and false: just as with 
>the western presses, some publishers do poor work, and some do excellent 
>work. There are various highly esteemed editions of the suttapitaka from 
>S.E.A., and to lump them in with cheap Indian editions from private presses 
>of the 1970s is absurd; further, in most cases, the western impression that 
>Asian editions are full of errors is based precisely on the use of Romanized 
>materials (e.g., old Motilal Banarsidass editions) rather than indigenous 
>script. 
>
Here I would like to pick up a problem; what is the hallmark of a 
"critical edition" in contrast with an "uncritical" one? It is because a 
list member has mentioned that printed editions used by Buddhist monks 
are "uncritical" I believe that an ideal critical edition should be 
prepared in four stages.

1. The editor must collect all available sources (manuscripts, printed 
editions, and commentaries if available)
2. He must collate those sources and check out different readings at 
different places in the text.
3. He would have to pick the best variant of different readings to put 
in the text-body and give the rest as footnotes.
4. He must give a detailed account of why he prefers a particular 
reading to others.

Is there any edition in the west that has passed through all these 
stages? I would like to know.

Now I would speak of Burmese editions, that is, those published before 
the Sixth Buddhist Council. It means I must speak first of the 
manuscript tradition, which had heavily influenced those editions.

You see, manuscript were distributed by letting scribes make copies, 
which was a time-consuming and expensive task. The ideal of a scribe's 
work was to make a perfect copy of an older manuscript, no more. No 
editorial work was involved; even if you wish to edit a manuscript that 
you are copying, it won't be easy to give variants or put in footnotes 
in a manuscript of Pali text.

The real editorial work was done in */nissaya/s*. It was up to/ nissaya/ 
authors to seek out various sources, to collate them, to pick up the 
best readings out of variant ones, and to explain how and why a 
particular reading was better than others.

The earlier printed editions were not better than their manuscript 
counterparts. They were made from one or two manuscripts that could be 
found and their editors were just proof readers. The real editing was 
still being done in /nissaya/s. Perhaps this is the reason why western 
academics think ill of Eastern editions --- they are not satisfied with 
the editions they find and they cannot access where there is real 
"gold". (You see, this weakness is also due to their ignorance of native 
languages, Burmese in this case)

The first, and perhaps the last, attempt to make an ideal edition was 
made by the Sixth Buddhist Council.The editorial committees organized at 
that historic gathering edited all Pali texts recognized by the Council 
using the procedure I have given. However, at the time of actual 
typesetting, there arose a controversy. Conservative monks didn't wish 
to give variant readings because they maintain the correct reading 
should be only *one* while more modern ones wish to give all variants in 
footnotes. Then they reached a compromise: only those readings 
grammatically and contextually PROBABLE were to be given while those 
obviously corrupt were not to be given at all. That is why Buddhist 
Council editions carry fewer variants than their PTS counterparts.

But detailed accounts of the editorial process for all readings --- how 
they collated variants and why they chose a particular reading over 
others --- were duly recorded for a future series of publication. These 
would have been a treasure house of knowledge if they reached the stage 
of publication. However, after the military takeover in 1962, the 
project to publish them went away just like many other good things. I 
myself came to know the existence of those records only because I came 
across a Burmese article quoting from them.I think they are still kept 
at the Department of Religious Affairs but I don't know they are still 
intact or damaged.

Afterwards, the Buddhist Council editions have become the "official" 
editions to date --- in fact, private publishers no longer try to make 
their own editions; they just copy the official texts. However, we 
cannot say that Buddhist Council editions are being accepted without 
examination. In /nissaya/s published in later times, you can still find 
notes critical of "official" readings and in a book titled 
"Tipi.takavisodhanii", many readings confirmed in Buddhist Council 
editions are reexamined and rejected.
To sum it all up, I think it isn't fair to judge by Pali texts only when 
you examine oriental editions; the real work might be done else where.

>Bhante Pandita's blog and messages (both of which I enjoy) have mentioned the disparaging attitude toward the PTS common among Burmese monks
> 
>
Among those who know it, in fact, for, there are still many Burmese 
monks who don't even know its existence.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1051
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Reply to Ong Teng Kee; 1894 edition of the tipitaka

Dear Navako,
thank you very much. Almost every day I profit from these editions and I
usually get a few when in Thailand. Well bound and very cheap. When I need a
commentary, I cannot go so quickly through the Pali, and then I have it at
hand in Thai.
Nina. 
op 09-02-2005 14:34 schreef navako op navako@metta.lk:

> Below this message is a review of the Siamese edition of the Tipitaka of
> 1894; this is actually interesting for a few diverse reasons, such as its
> description of the attitudes in Thailand (at that time) toward Pali in the
> Khmer/Khom script. This little "book review" came from the list of articles
> that I posted the link to earlier this week.

 
1052
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 2:57pm
Subject: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

Dear Ven Pandita,

The following jumped out at me as I read your most recent message:

>Thematic Units (sentence-to-sentence relations in contrast with
>word-to-word relations),

Do you have any materials on this subject, similar to the RG doc you 
posted recently?

best regards,

/Rett

 
1053
From: Ong Teng Kee <ongtkee@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 7:08pm
Subject: Re: Reply to navako

Dear navako,
You are travelling around just to do an edition of
kaccayana?I think you should do others like moggallana
with a translation if Otto Pind is doing a kaccayana
too.No point two people doing the same work.The thing
about kaccayana is a guy must use all nissaya of
burmese edition of it rather than only using eng or
french texts.Mahanirutti kept in Japan wil be even
better if you print it out. Printed edtion like
kaccayanvutti,kaccayananiddesa from srilanka will be
helpful for anyone to has an roman edition of it.
I can't forgive filizot who had found saddaniti tika
but doesn't produce an edition of it








--- Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> wrote: 
> 
> Dear Navako,
> thank you very much. Almost every day I profit from
> these editions and I
> usually get a few when in Thailand. Well bound and
> very cheap. When I need a
> commentary, I cannot go so quickly through the Pali,
> and then I have it at
> hand in Thai.
> Nina. 
> op 09-02-2005 14:34 schreef navako op
> navako@metta.lk:
> 
> > Below this message is a review of the Siamese
> edition of the Tipitaka of
> > 1894; this is actually interesting for a few
> diverse reasons, such as its
> > description of the attitudes in Thailand (at that
> time) toward Pali in the
> > Khmer/Khom script. This little "book review" came
> from the list of articles
> > that I posted the link to earlier this week. 
> 

1054
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 8:33pm
Subject: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

>>The blanket judgement that many academics offer that all Asian 
>>editions are "full of errors" is really prejudicial and false... 
>>
> Here I would like to pick up a problem; what is the hallmark of a 
> "critical edition" ...

Bhante, while the 6th council edition from Burma is legendary, it is *not* 
the only critical edition to be produced in Asia: the Royal editions of 
Thailand described in my last message, and various editions of Sri Lanka, 
India (Maha Bodhi Society, etc.), all meet these criteria as "critical 
editions". There is the separate question as to whether errors are 
introduced in typesetting --and I would say this is a problem in both East 
and West. At any rate, living traditions in all Theravada countries have 
continued to produced critical editions and other scholarship unto the 
present day; and, again, there is much more of this than the west could ever 
produce. The intellectual isolation that has been forced upon monks in 
Burma is indeed very unfortunate (although, I believe, these are even more 
desperate times to be a layperson in Burma) --when/if the country opens up 
again, I think Westerners will find that Ledi Sayadaw (one of the few 
Burmese masters published and known in English) was not the only 
intellectual monk of his generation. (Incidentally, I would encourage 
anyone/everyone to judge Ledi Sayadaw's work by the primary sources only, 
and not the second hand reports/interpretations offered by some of the 
lay-preachers of our day). 

> The real editorial work was done in */nissaya/s*. It was up to/ nissaya/ 
> authors to seek out various sources, to collate them, to pick up the 
> best readings out of variant ones, and to explain how and why a 
> particular reading was better than others.

Yes indeed --and these Nissayas are only available as manuscripts. Thus, 
all the more reason for western scholars to learn to read Pali in the local 
script! Enough said. 

> The earlier printed editions were not better than their manuscript 
> counterparts. They were made from one or two manuscripts that could be 
> found and their editors were just proof readers.

The same could be said of many western editions! 

In reply to Ong Teng Kee:
I do not think I will bore everyone by repeating the (supposed) merits of 
my book. However, the text I am producing is a general textbook, including 
a new edition of Mason's textbook (which is closely based on Kaccayana) and 
the original text of Kaccayana, typeset in classical-literary Sinhalese & 
also Burmese script. It is a very different book, both in appearance and in 
function, from Pind's work --the latter is an experimental reconstruction of 
the text based on a Sri Lankan commentary, and is Romanized, and will only 
be of use to a small number of scholars (myself included!) and will not, 
e.g., alleviate the dire need for (affordable/free) Pali textbooks in Laos 
and Cambodia. Thus, in priority, purpose, and substance, Pind and I are 
working on very different projects. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
One should not strike a Brahmana, nor should a Brahmana vent (his wrath) on 
one who has struck him. Shame on him who strikes a Brahmana! More shame on 
him who gives vent (to his wrath)!
Random Dhammapada Verse 389

1055
From: Ong Teng Kee <ongtkee@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Feb 9, 2005 10:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

correction to navako's view on burmese nissaya,many
rare nissaya are printed in books such as grammar
books,atthakatha,etc.There are samantapasadika in
nissaya format in book
tipitaka burmese translation from sixth council are
printed in word-by-word and in complete format.
too many important tika are missing from sixth council
such as Jataka tika


navako <navako@metta.lk> wrote: 
> 
> 
> >>The blanket judgement that many academics offer
> that all Asian 
> >>editions are "full of errors" is really
> prejudicial and false... 
> >>
> > Here I would like to pick up a problem; what is
> the hallmark of a 
> > "critical edition" ...
> 
> Bhante, while the 6th council edition from Burma is
> legendary, it is *not* 
> the only critical edition to be produced in Asia:
> the Royal editions of 
> Thailand described in my last message, and various
> editions of Sri Lanka, 
> India (Maha Bodhi Society, etc.), all meet these
> criteria as "critical 
> editions". There is the separate question as to
> whether errors are 
> introduced in typesetting --and I would say this is
> a problem in both East 
> and West. At any rate, living traditions in all
> Theravada countries have 
> continued to produced critical editions and other
> scholarship unto the 
> present day; and, again, there is much more of this
> than the west could ever 
> produce. The intellectual isolation that has been
> forced upon monks in 
> Burma is indeed very unfortunate (although, I
> believe, these are even more 
> desperate times to be a layperson in Burma)
> --when/if the country opens up 
> again, I think Westerners will find that Ledi
> Sayadaw (one of the few 
> Burmese masters published and known in English) was
> not the only 
> intellectual monk of his generation. (Incidentally,
> I would encourage 
> anyone/everyone to judge Ledi Sayadaw's work by the
> primary sources only, 
> and not the second hand reports/interpretations
> offered by some of the 
> lay-preachers of our day). 
> 
> > The real editorial work was done in */nissaya/s*.
> It was up to/ nissaya/ 
> > authors to seek out various sources, to collate
> them, to pick up the 
> > best readings out of variant ones, and to explain
> how and why a 
> > particular reading was better than others.
> 
> Yes indeed --and these Nissayas are only available
> as manuscripts. Thus, 
> all the more reason for western scholars to learn to
> read Pali in the local 
> script! Enough said. 
> 
> > The earlier printed editions were not better than
> their manuscript 
> > counterparts. They were made from one or two
> manuscripts that could be 
> > found and their editors were just proof readers.
> 
> The same could be said of many western editions! 
> 
> In reply to Ong Teng Kee:
> I do not think I will bore everyone by repeating
> the (supposed) merits of 
> my book. However, the text I am producing is a
> general textbook, including 
> a new edition of Mason's textbook (which is closely
> based on Kaccayana) and 
> the original text of Kaccayana, typeset in
> classical-literary Sinhalese & 
> also Burmese script. It is a very different book,
> both in appearance and in 
> function, from Pind's work --the latter is an
> experimental reconstruction of 
> the text based on a Sri Lankan commentary, and is
> Romanized, and will only 
> be of use to a small number of scholars (myself
> included!) and will not, 
> e.g., alleviate the dire need for (affordable/free)
> Pali textbooks in Laos 
> and Cambodia. Thus, in priority, purpose, and
> substance, Pind and I are 
> working on very different projects. 
> 
> E.M. 
> 
> -- 
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
> One should not strike a Brahmana, nor should a
> Brahmana vent (his wrath) on 
> one who has struck him. Shame on him who strikes a
> Brahmana! More shame on 
> him who gives vent (to his wrath)!
> Random Dhammapada Verse 389 
> 

1056
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 0:03am
Subject: Re: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

Dear E.M

Sorry that I have confused you with my message.

>Bhante, while the 6th council edition from Burma is legendary, it is *not* the only critical edition to be produced in Asia:
>
What I mean is that Cha.t.thasa~ngaayanaa edition was the last critical 
edition in *Burma*. I can't speak for other editions, which I know 
little of.

>the Royal editions of Thailand described in my last message, and various editions of Sri Lanka, India (Maha Bodhi Society, etc.), all meet these criteria as "critical 
>editions". 
>
Do those editions give explanations why they choose a particular reading 
over others? I have seen PTS editions but they never seem to explain 
their choices.

>The intellectual isolation that has been forced upon monks in Burma is indeed very unfortunate (although, I believe, these are even more desperate times to be a layperson in Burma) 
>
Yes, indeed! I agree. The intellectual isolation, or starvation (I think 
this word would be better) in Burma is really very acute. Some local 
scholars are even thinking of "exporting" the learning in Buddhist 
Studies (which we have managed to maintain to date) to other lands 
before it is too late.

>--when/if the country opens up again, I think Westerners will find that Ledi Sayadaw (one of the few Burmese masters published and known in English) was not the only 
>intellectual monk of his generation. 
> 
>
I agree. Ledi Sayadaw was only one of the many luminaries in his time. 
But others were entirely unknown outside Burma.

>>The real editorial work was done in */nissaya/s*. It was up to/ nissaya/ 
>>authors to seek out various sources, to collate them, to pick up the 
>>best readings out of v ariant ones, and to explain how and why a 
>>particular reading was better than others.
>> 
>>
>
>Yes indeed --and these Nissayas are only available as manuscripts. 
>
It is different in Burma. In the monastic education system of Burma, 
nissayas still remain as main resources. Therefore, all classic nissayas 
popularly used have been printed again and again. Moreover, Ashin 
Janakaabhiva.msa, the original author of Abhidhamma in Daily Life, has 
written nissayas (with extensive footnotes) on almost all texts covered 
by the extensive curriculum of monastic education. These works have also 
been printed.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1057
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 0:04am
Subject: Re: Reply to navako

Dear Ong Teng Kee

Thanks for some interesting things from your message. And I would like 
to comment on them.

>The thing about kaccayana is a guy must use all nissaya of burmese edition of it rather than only using eng or french texts.
>
I agree with this statement. Kaccaayana Bhaasaa.tiikaa, a nissaya with 
extensive footnotes, was published in Burma after the second World War. 
I think it is the best explanation of Kaccaayana, together with its 
Sanskrit sources and commentaries. You would have to know Burmese to 
read it, of course.

>Mahanirutti kept in Japan wil be even better if you print it out. 
>
Is it the text that Saddaniiti refers to in some places? We think that 
it is already lost. A printed version would be most welcome. How about 
Cuu.lanirutti? Is that text also available somewhere in manuscript form?

>I can't forgive filizot who had found saddaniti tika but doesn't produce an edition of it. 
> 
>
I think Saddaniiti .Tiikaa is a Burmese work produced in the earlier 
part of 18th century. A Burmese monastery in Mandalay, Upper Burma has a 
manuscript of it. However, it hasn't been printed in Burma because it is 
in fact a translation of the Saddaniiti Burmese nissaya back to Pali. 
Hence not very useful for Burmese scholars but may prove invaluable for 
other lands.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

 
1058
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 0:04am
Subject: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

Dear Rett

I do have prepared some materials on Thematic Units while in Burma, but 
it is still in an half-baked condition. I have finished the general 
framework but the practical usage and rules still remain to be done. I 
don't have access to the Burmese resources necessary for that work and 
time is also a problem because I have to devote the most of my time and 
energy to my current research.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


>The following jumped out at me as I read your most recent message:
>
> 
>
>>Thematic Units (sentence-to-sentence relations in contrast with word-to-word relations),
>> 
>>
>Do you have any materials on this subject, similar to the RG doc you 
>posted recently?
>
>best regards,
>
>/Rett
> 
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1059
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:02am
Subject: Reply to navako --Kaccayana ".tiika"

Hello, 

Re: 

>>The thing about kaccayana is a guy must use all nissaya of burmese 
>>edition of it rather than only using eng or french texts. 
>>
> I agree with this statement. Kaccaayana Bhaasaa.tiikaa, a nissaya with 
> extensive footnotes, was published in Burma after the second World War. 
> I think it is the best explanation of Kaccaayana, together with its 
> Sanskrit sources and commentaries. You would have to know Burmese to 
> read it, of course.

I will simply note that every Theravada country has at least one 
"exposition" of Kaccayana in the vernacular --and while I'm sure this 
Bhaasaa.tiikaa is very good (as you say), to claim that it is "the best" one 
would first have to study the Kaccayana-".tiika" of all the other lands and 
languages (Note: very vague definition of ".tiika" being used here). 

I am not aware of anyone who has published a study (e.g.) of the classical 
Cambodian exposition of Kaccayana --of which there seems to be more than 
one. I have been told there are several authoritatives expositions in 
modern Thai. Again, I am sure that various sub-national minorities such as 
the Lanna, the Mon, the Lu, etc., will each have at the least a nissaya, and 
at most a full exposition of Kaccayana. I do not know of anyone who has 
made a comparative study of even a few of these sources, much less *all* of 
them! 

While the Burmese sources may be better known, I have no reason to assume it 
is in fact "better" than a rarefied Mon, Lao or Lu treatise on the same 
matter. 

> However, it hasn't been printed in Burma because it is 
> in fact a translation of the Saddaniiti Burmese nissaya back to Pali.

As you can imagine, in relation to my former comment, it would be very 
useful if more and more of these sources were available in "reverse 
translation", i.e., Pali expositions of Pali, as there are very few who can 
read and compare nissayas from so many lingual traditions. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
As from a heap of flowers many a garland is made even so many a good deed 
should be done by one born as a human being.
Random Dhammapada Verse 53

 
1060
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:17am
Subject: Re: Romanization, East vs. West

Venerable Pandita and dear Rett,
I had the same thoughts as Rett, getting curious.
And not only that, also the method of reading commentaries.
On the other hand, I foresee that I have my hands full with the word to word
relations. 
Meanwhile I saw Bhante's message to Rett.
Nina. 
op 09-02-2005 20:57 schreef rett op rett@telia.com:
> 
> Dear Ven Pandita,
> 
> The following jumped out at me as I read your most recent message:
> 
>> Thematic Units (sentence-to-sentence relations in contrast with
>> word-to-word relations),
> 
> Do you have any materials on this subject, similar to the RG doc you
> posted recently?

 
1061
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:07pm
Subject: Re:Re: Reply to navako --Kaccayana ".tiika"

Dear E.M

You wrote:

>I will simply note that every Theravada country has at least one 
>"exposition" of Kaccayana in the vernacular --and while I'm sure this 
>Bhaasaa.tiikaa is very good (as you say), to claim that it is "the best" one 
>would first have to study the Kaccayana-".tiika" of all the other lands and 
>languages (Note: very vague definition of ".tiika" being used here). 
>
>I am not aware of anyone who has published a study (e.g.) of the classical 
>Cambodian exposition of Kaccayana --of which there seems to be more than 
>one. I have been told there are several authoritatives expositions in 
>modern Thai. Again, I am sure that various sub-national minorities such as 
>the Lanna, the Mon, the Lu, etc., will each have at the least a nissaya, and 
>at most a full exposition of Kaccayana. I do not know of anyone who has 
>made a comparative study of even a few of these sources, much less *all* of 
>them! 
>
>While the Burmese sources may be better known, I have no reason to assume it 
>is in fact "better" than a rarefied Mon, Lao or Lu treatise on the same 
>matter. 
> 
>
Sorry for my vague expression but "the best" I mean was "the best in Burma"

>>However, it hasn't been printed in Burma because it is 
>>in fact a translation of the Saddaniiti Burmese nissaya back to Pali.
>> 
>>
>As you can imagine, in relation to my former comment, it would be very 
>useful if more and more of these sources were available in "reverse 
>translation", i.e., Pali expositions of Pali, as there are very few who can 
>read and compare nissayas from so many lingual traditions. 
> 
>
No doubt, but it is also in direct support of what I have supposed --- 
anyone unfamiliar with a native language would still be an outsider to 
the tradition which has that language as the main medium. The mere 
ability to read native scripts is only a step forward; many steps would 
still remain.

The ideal solution, in my opinion, is to improve the education of 
natives, of Buddhist monks in particular, so that they can convey the 
best in the traditional learning to the rest of the world.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1062
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Feb 13, 2005 8:51am
Subject: Pali "pavana" as an adjective?

Mason reports that there is an adjective form of the root "pu" (as in 
"pu.naati", i.e., "he cleans") spelled "pavana". The meaning of this 
adjective form of "pavana" is said to be "pure". This seems to me to be 
plausible, but this is not related to the dictionary meaning for "pavana" as 
a noun. 

Any opinions would be appreciated. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Knowing that this body is like foam, and comprehending its mirage-nature, 
one should destroy the flowershafts of sensual passions (Mara), and pass 
beyond the sight of the King of Death.
Random Dhammapada Verse 46

 
1063
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Feb 13, 2005 0:00pm
Subject: Re: Pali "pavana" as an adjective?

According to Apte's dictonary, pavana is an adj 
meaning 'pure' in Sanskrit, so ancient Pali 
grammarians may have considered it a valid Pali 
word even if it never happens to occur in that 
sense in the corpus of Pali literature.

>
>Mason reports that there is an adjective form of the root "pu" (as in
>"pu.naati", i.e., "he cleans") spelled "pavana". The meaning of this
>adjective form of "pavana" is said to be "pure". This seems to me to be
>plausible, but this is not related to the dictionary meaning for "pavana" as
>a noun.

What do you mean by that last bit: 1) "pavana" as 
a noun equivalent to "sodhana", or 2) in another 
sense altogether?

Pavana is glossed as sodhana in Sadd Dhaatumaalaa:
1246 puu pavane
pavana.m sodhana.m

This is the noun form, and appears to have been 
chosen (or constructed) to 'fit' the root. It 
does seem related to the adjective sense Mason 
reports.

The verb form gets used in the nirutta of pua . From the same Sadd entry:
puan ti attano kaaraka.m punaati sodhetii ti pua.m
This is possibly parallel to a Sanskrit tradition deriving pu.nya < puunati.

Does Mason provide an actual example of the use 
of pavana in the sense 'clean' in Pali? Could you 
say more about where this occurs?

/Rett

 
1064
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:51am
Subject: Re: Pali "pavana" as an adjective?

Hi Rett, 

> According to Apte's dictonary, pavana is an adj 
> meaning 'pure' in Sanskrit, so ancient Pali 
> grammarians may have considered it a valid Pali 
> word even if it never happens to occur in that 
> sense in the corpus of Pali literature.

My guess would (therefore) be that it is an appropriation from Sanskrit 
--and probably appears as such in post-canonical writings such as the vangsa 
literature (the Maha-vangsa, etc., were among the first Pali sources 
translated and published in European tongues, and, as such, were formative 
in the early western knowledge of the language --in this, Mason was typical 
of his generation). 

>>Mason reports that there is an adjective form of the root "pu" (as in
>>"pu.naati", i.e., "he cleans") spelled "pavana". The meaning of this
>>adjective form of "pavana" is said to be "pure". This seems to me to be
>>plausible, but this is not related to the dictionary meaning for "pavana" as
>>a noun.
> 
> What do you mean by that last bit: 1) "pavana" as 
> a noun equivalent to "sodhana", or 2) in another 
> sense altogether?

Strangely, the following definition is provided for _pavana_ as a noun in 
A.P Buddhadatta's _CPED_:
1. (Masculine) the wind.
2. (Neuter) a big forest.
I can imagine that #1 is a metaphorical meaning that has derived from a base 
meaning "equivalent to 'sodhana'" as you say --but it seems to me likely 
that both of these meanings are predicated on a fundamentally different root 
from the Sanskritic explanation provided by Mason. I would be very much 
surprised if Buddhadatta were entirely in error on this one --especially as 
it seems clear that Mason is at least *partly* in error. 

> Pavana is glossed as sodhana in Sadd Dhaatumaalaa:
> 1246 puu pavane
> pavana.m sodhana.m

I shall make a note of that, Mr. Pickwick, a regular note of that ...
It seems my once-reliable database has started to crack, as I tried to 
conduct a computer search of Pali grammars for just such a mention, but came 
up with nothing. 

> Does Mason provide an actual example of the use 
> of pavana in the sense 'clean' in Pali? Could you 
> say more about where this occurs?

No and no; Mason provides nothing further, although, as I say, it is likely 
his source was post-canonical, such as the vangsa literature. It is also 
quite possible that he explained the term by consulting a Sanskrit 
dictionary, although he himself was well aware of the dangers in doing so 
uncritically (i.e., he writes about the subject). 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
The fearless, the noble, the hero, the great sage, the conqueror, the 
desireless, the cleanser (of defilements), the enlightened, - him I call a 
Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 422

 
1065
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Feb 15, 2005 6:16am
Subject: Re: Pali "pavana" as an adjective?

>
>Strangely, the following definition is provided for _pavana_ as a noun in
>A.P Buddhadatta's _CPED_:
> 1. (Masculine) the wind.
> 2. (Neuter) a big forest.
>I can imagine that #1 is a metaphorical meaning that has derived from a base
>meaning "equivalent to 'sodhana'" as you say --but it seems to me likely
>that both of these meanings are predicated on a fundamentally different root
>from the Sanskritic explanation provided by Mason. I would be very much
>surprised if Buddhadatta were entirely in error on this one --especially as
>it seems clear that Mason is at least *partly* in error.

It seems plausible there are two separate derivations, for example:

1) puu > pavana , purification, winnowing of grain, wind (in no 
particular order)

2) (p)pa + vana (forest) > (p)pavana

prava.na is the Sanskrit form of the latter, 'side of mountain, 
declivity' alt. 'big forest'. Panini (viii, 4, 5) cites this word as 
an example of n in 'vana' > .n when preceded by certain prefixes 
(including 'pra').

The cognate Pali pavana is cited by PED as occuring in D, M, S, Th, 
J, Cp, Miln, Vism.

An alternative explanation mentioned by MW would derive 2 from the Sk 
root pru, 'go, jump'.

best regards,

/Rett

 
1066
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Feb 15, 2005 6:49am
Subject: Some Remarks about Pali adjectives and about "pavana" as an adjective

Rett and E.M

Concerning the topic raised by you, I would like to discuss something 
first --- how Pali adjectives are viewed in Burma.

Basically we have only four categories of Pali words --- nouns, verbs, 
prefixes (upasaara) and indeclinables (nipaata). We don't have 
adjectives nor adverbs as distinct categories but only nouns 
adjectivally or adverbially used. This approach is, in my opinion, more 
compatible with actual usage. I would try to prove it using an example, 
which I admit I have made up, but you can correct me if you think it 
looks superficial.

dve janaa nagara.m gacchanti. eko (1)_pa.n.dito_ puriso hoti, itaro 
baalo.(2) _pa.n.dito_ baalassa magga.m dasseti.(3) _pa.n.dito_ hi naama 
kattabbaakattabba.m jaanaati.

Trs. Two persons go to the town. One is a wise man (while) the other, 
a foolish (man). The wise one shows the way to the foolish one. A wise 
man indeed knows what should be done and what should not be done.

In the example above, there are three /pa.n.dito/s, which are used in 
three ways.

The first is an adjective modifying /puriso/. (Identical Adjective 
relation in my RG. Of course, it can be also used as a predicate like in 
"/so pa.n.dito hoti /= he is wise")

The second is a noun that represents the wise man mentioned in the 
preceding sentence. (You might like to say it is only a pronoun but we 
call it a noun because we have a different definition of pronouns 
(/sabbanaama/) --- only those declined more or less similarly to /sabba 
/are called pronouns)

The third is also a noun but it represents the class of all wise persons.

All words that you would call adjectives in Pali can be used in all 
three ways given above. They are not really equivalent to English 
adjectives, which can be used in the first and third ways but not in the 
second (I don't know about those in French, German, etc) Moreover, all 
nouns can be used as adjectives --- in theory at least. And they are 
declined with various nominal cases just like ordinary nouns.

Therefore, we like to view them as nouns adjectivally used rather than 
as belonging to a separate category of adjectives.

In the case of /pavana/:

rett wrote:

>According to Apte's dictonary, pavana is an adj meaning 'pure' in Sanskrit, so ancient Pali grammarians may have considered it a valid Pali word even if it never happens to occur in that sense in the corpus of Pali literature.
>

We have no objection to calling it an adjective because, as mentioned before, all nouns can be theoretically used as adjectives. In practice, however, we should check whether it is
actually used in Pali literature or not. 


>Pavana is glossed as sodhana in Sadd Dhaatumaalaa:
>1246 puu pavane
>pavana.m sodhana.m
>
>This is the noun form, and appears to have been chosen (or constructed) to 'fit' the root. It does seem related to the adjective sense Mason reports.
>
>The verb form gets used in the nirutta of pua . From the same Sadd entry:
>puan ti attano kaaraka.m punaati sodhetii ti pua.m
>This is possibly parallel to a Sanskrit tradition deriving pu.nya < puunati.
>
>Does Mason provide an actual example of the use of pavana in the sense 'clean' in Pali? Could you say more about where this occurs?
> 
>
From the gloss you have taken from Sadd, the root puu really means "to 
cleanse, to purify" Then pavana, if actually used as an adjective, may 
mean "cleansing, purifying" We can't be sure, however, without referring 
to the actual context where it appears.

with metta

Ven. Pandita



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 
1067
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Feb 16, 2005 10:43am
Subject: The question of Pali adjectives

I do, of course, aver that the Pali language has no adjectives; and the 
extensive tables of Pali grammatical technical terminology that I have 
concocted (to supplement Mason's text and, I believe, supply a deficiency 
found in most of the English Pali grammars) I write very much to the same 
effect about these distinctions of nouns vs. adjectives vs. adverbs. 

In Pali there are simply verbs and "substantives"; *however*, in deriving a 
substantive from a verb, the meaning of an "adjective" is sometimes traced 
back to the root along a different path than an adverb or a noun would be. 
Thus, while adjectives don't "exist", it seems as if they do when we are 
examining the relationship between a root and a (substantive) meaning. It 
was the latter activity that Rett and I were engaged in --so, in this 
context, while adjectives may be illusory, "the illusion is real". 

We can indeed say that the adjective meaning of pavana ("pure") is quite 
different from the noun meanings listed in the dictionary in question. 

Re:
> 2) (p)pa + vana (forest) > (p)pavana

Yes indeed, this would seem to be a plausible derivation for this meaning 
--unrelated to the "pu" root meaning discussed. 

It does seem odd that Buddhadatta's dictionary completely omits the "Pu-" 
meaning --probably a deficiency that could be repaired if I knew who to send 
an e-mail to about it. 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
If, like a cracked gong, you silence yourself, you have already attained 
Nibbana: no vindictiveness will be found in you.
Random Dhammapada Verse 134

1068
From: Ven. Pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:28am
Subject: Re: The question of Pali adjectives

>In Pali there are simply verbs and "substantives"; *however*, in deriving a 
>substantive from a verb, the meaning of an "adjective" is sometimes traced 
>back to the root along a different path than an adverb or a noun would be. 
>Thus, while adjectives don't "exist", it seems as if they do when we are 
>examining the relationship between a root and a (substantive) meaning. It 
>was the latter activity that Rett and I were engaged in --so, in this 
>context, while adjectives may be illusory, "the illusion is real". 
> 
>
It would be an interesting topic to discuss if given in detail together 
with examples.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

 
1069
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Mar 10, 2005 3:42am
Subject: Pali MS in Burma (report)

The following observations on Pali MS in Burma (and the recent history of 
libraries generally) is worth reading --it is the most interesting part of a 
longer article that can be found here: 
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/papers/119-102e.htm
E.M.
---------------------------------
Burma (Myanmar).
Library conditions in Burma were described in 1968 by Palle Birkelund, 
reporting for UNESCO. Birkelund described well-organized libraries, 
competent personnel, and remarkable recovery from World War II 3. The 
premier library in the capital, the Universities' Central Library, had been 
almost completely destroyed by bombing during the war, along with two of the 
college libraries, resulting in the loss of research materials and valuable 
scholarly notes. For example, scholar Gordon Luce lost the fruits of 
twenty-five years of research when the Japanese looted the collection, and 
the later monsoons destroyed what remained after Allied bombing 4. Birkelund 
commented on the need for better environmental controls, insect fumigation, 
and trained "book binders and restorers" to begin the conservation of 
manuscripts and other library materials. 

Ten years later, a report to UNESCO on the preservation of manuscripts in 
Burma, produced by V. Raghavan, described a much more desperate situation, 
with manuscript collections being rapidly diminished because of humidity, 
insects, lack of trained personnel, official indifference and neglect 5. 
Raghavan recommended a series of actions that would have resulted in 
substantial improvements and a slowdown in the rate of loss. In particular, 
he recommended that conservation facilities be established to treat damaged 
and deteriorated manuscripts, and drafted specific plans for improved 
environmental conditions. Referring to an unpublished UNESCO survey of 
Burmese manuscripts in 1956-57, Raghavan urged that a union catalogue of 
manuscripts be developed to encourage inventory control and to deter theft. 

In general, little has been done to implement Raghavan's suggestions, either 
in preservation or bibliographic control, and there are indications that the 
situation continues to deteriorate further. Thousands of manuscripts have 
been stolen from Burmese libraries and temples, and are offered for sale as 
curios in the tourist antique shops and markets of Thailand. In a June 1994 
report, Peter Skilling and H.K. Kuloy described their efforts to rescue a 
few of these manuscripts by purchase in the markets of Thailand, noting that 
they had managed to save, "750 palm leaf manuscripts in Pali or mixed 
Pali-Burmese, 18 bundles of Khun palm leaf manuscripts (each bundle contains 
from 5 to 15 smaller palm leaf sets), 270 Burmese black paper accordion 
books (Parabaik), and 12 Shan white paper accordion books"6. Skilling and 
Kuloy are still active in gathering these materials and intend to return the 
manuscripts to Burma "in better times." 

Cornell University's preservation involvement in the libraries of Burma 
began in 1989 with a three year project to microfilm fragile palm leaf 
manuscripts at the Universities' Central Library in Rangoon. To date, 5,000 
manuscripts have been microfilmed, but another 15,000 manuscripts need to be 
filmed through future projects. The Henry Luce Foundation and Cornell alumni 
have funded the work, but continuing support is problematic. A Cornell 
report of 1988 points out that environmental conditions in the libraries 
were very bad, and that large portions of the general collections were 
unprocessed and untreated 7. Cornell's work of preserving research materials 
in Burma has been carried out in the face of some political opposition and 
criticism from those opposed to any interaction with Burma, but as a recent 
report noted, the "rapid deterioration and loss of these [Burmese] materials 
should not be allowed to continue because of political isolation, as all 
humankind will be the poorer for their loss ."8 

More recent work in Burma, reviewed in a report of a survey and training 
visit I made in March 1995, has revealed a slightly more promising situation 
despite political difficulties and isolation. The Universities' Central 
Library has initiated some limited preservation efforts on a regional basis, 
concentrating initially on the region immediately surrounding Rangoon. 
Modest space has been allocated in a new building for conservation 
facilities, and the Cornell-funded microfilming efforts are being carried 
out in a well appointed space in the library, using equipment donated by an 
early UNESCO project and a more recent gift through the Australian National 
Library. In addition, some conservation equipment has been installed through 
Cornell with the help of the Open Society for Burma Institute. At the 
Rangoon University's Historical Research Centre, considerable progress is 
being made in the care of archival materials and the collecting of monument 
rubbings, and Soe Soe Sein and U Pe Thein, archivists at the Centre, have 
each recently completed a six months preservation training program at 
Cornell. Although facilities and resources are very scarce at the University 
of Mandalay, large numbers of palm leaf manuscripts are stored in a sensible 
fashion. Unfortunately, the extreme, and unrelieved, heat and voracious 
insects are hastening the destruction of these and other library materials. 
The Royal Palace at Mandalay also has a number of palm leaf and parabaik 
manuscripts along with numerous photographs, and all are poorly housed in 
facilities that lack the means to regulate the high temperatures and 
relative humidity, or to keep out insects. The environment at the Bagaya 
Monastery Library at Amapura is much more encouraging, with the 6,000 palm 
leaf manuscripts and large numbers of parabaik being carefully handled in a 
space that may soon be air-conditioned through donations from devout 
overseas Buddhists. Students from the University of Mandalay's Department of 
History, less affected by the university closures in Rangoon, are involved 
in cataloguing and collating the manuscripts at Amapura, with copies of the 
data sent to the Universities' Central Library at Rangoon for eventual entry 
into a database, a substantial beginning step towards Raghavan's 1979 
inventory recommendations 9. 


Notes
1. Helen Jarvis, "A Visit to Kampuchea 9th to 23rd July 1987: A Report," 
Southeast Asian Research Group Newsletter 35, 43-48. 

2. Judy Ledgerwood, "Worldwide Efforts to Preserve the Khmer Language 
Materials" (Paper presented to the Second International Conference on 
Cambodia, Washington DC, 30th September 1988). 

3. Palle Birkelund, "Burma Libraries," UNESCO report, April 1969. 

4. Andrew Gosling, "Burma and Beyond," National Library of Australia News VI 
(No. 13 October 1996) 2. 

5. V. Raghavan, Preservation of Palm-Leaf and Parabaik Manuscripts and Plan 
for Compilation of a Union Catalogue of Manuscripts. Paris: UNESCO, 1979. 

6. Peter Skilling and H.K. Kuloy, "Fragile Palm-Leaves: Manuscripts 
Preservation Project." January - June 1994. 

7. John Badgley, "Research Report: Higher Education Libraries in Burma." 
February 1988. 

8. Badgley, "Exchange and Conservation Programs," Burma Debate 2 (No. 2, 
April/May 1995) 30. 

9. John F. Dean, "Preservation and Conservation in Burma: A Survey and 
Training Project at the Universities' Central Library and the University of 
Mandalay, 20th to the 28th of March 1995. Report to the Open Society for 
Burma and the United States Information Service." 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Those sages who are harmless, and are ever restrained in body, go to the 
deathless state (Nibbana), whither gone they never grieve.
Random Dhammapada Verse 225

 
1070
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:12am
Subject: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Hello, 

I'm having trouble finding information about (or editions of) 
Dhammasenaapati's "Kaarika" --a grammatical work with an unfortunately vague 
title.
Dhammasenaapati was a Burmese Thera of mid-antiquity --so I assume that 
there are authoritative Burmese editions --perhaps under a Burmese title? 

If anyone has publication information, it would be appreciated, 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Whosoever with no desire (for the household) finds pleasure in the forest 
(of asceticism) and, though freed from desire (for the household), (yet) 
runs back to that very home. Come, behold that man! Freed, he runs back into 
that very bondage.
Random Dhammapada Verse 344

 
1071
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:59am
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Hi Eisel,

>
>
> I'm having trouble finding information about (or editions of)
>Dhammasenaapati's "Kaarika" --a grammatical work with an unfortunately vague
>title.
> Dhammasenaapati was a Burmese Thera of mid-antiquity --so I assume that
>there are authoritative Burmese editions --perhaps under a Burmese title?
>
> If anyone has publication information, it would be appreciated,

Regarding the book Kaarikaa by Dhammasenaapati, Bode writes (1909) 
"This modest little metrical treatise has lived bravely through some 
eight centuries and was last republished a few years ago." (_The Pali 
Literature of Burma_). That would be a few years previous to 1909. 
Sorry I don't have anything more up to date, but at least it's been 
printed. Hope this helps,

/Rett

 
1072
From: navako <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:17am
Subject: 1. Logic of Pali grammar, 2. Decline of Pali education

1. I note the following from N. Ray's history:
"One [Bhante] Saddhammaguru wrote ... the Vaacakopadesa, which 'treats the 
grammatical categories from a logical point of view.'"
This sounds like an interesting resource --especially for those of us who 
have wrestled with inconsistencies in Pali grammatical terminology. 

2. An interesting (and brief) article about Buddhist education in Burma & 
Thailand, highlighting the decline of Pali studies in both places --NB: 
almost all of the useful information is to be found in the foot-notes, as 
the main text is reproduced from a lecture.
www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/Calendar/ 
calendar2003-04/burma_conference/papers/dhammasami.doc 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Should a person commit evil, he should not do it again and again; he should 
not find pleasure therein: painful is the accumulation of evil.
Random Dhammapada Verse 117

1073 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:07pm 
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Hi Eisel,

This Kaarikaa is listed as the 14th of the 14 minor texts in the CPD
bibliography (Epilegomena, 1948). Here's the complete entry:

"5.4.14 Kaarikaa (:Dhammasenaapati, Pi.t-sm 393, PLB p.15-16, Saas
75,22, Gv 73,21), Be as 5.4.1, Ce, with editor's sannaya, Vaelito.ta,
1897 (~Naa.natilaka Naayaka-Thera)."

As noted, details for the Burmese edition are found at 5.4.1
(Saddatthabhedacintaa) as follows:

"... Be together with 5.4.2-5.4.14 as "Saddaa 'nay 14" Rangoon 1281
B.E., cf. "Saddaa 'nay nisya", Rangoon 1284 B.E., ..."

Dhammasenaapati also wrote a .tiikaa on the Kaarikaa called the
Kaarikaa-.tiikaa.

Jim

> Hello,
>
> I'm having trouble finding information about (or editions of)
> Dhammasenaapati's "Kaarika" --a grammatical work with an
> unfortunately vague title. Dhammasenaapati was a Burmese 
> Thera of mid-antiquity --so> I assume that there are authoritative
> Burmese editions --perhaps under a Burmese title?
>
> If anyone has publication information, it would be appreciated,
>
> E.M.

1074 
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com 
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:33pm 
Subject: New file uploaded to palistudy

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the palistudy 
group.

File : /Primary Derivatives.pdf 
Uploaded by : bhikkhu_pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Description : 

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy/files/Primary%20Derivatives.pdf 

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files

Regards,

bhikkhu_pandita <ashinpan@gmail.com>

1075 
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com 
Date: Sun Mar 27, 2005 9:05pm 
Subject: New file uploaded to palistudy

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the palistudy 
group.

File : /Saddatthabhedacinta.zip 
Uploaded by : dhammanando_bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Description : 

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy/files/Saddatthabhedacinta.zip 

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files

Regards,

dhammanando_bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com>

1076 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Sun Mar 27, 2005 9:11pm 
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

On 25 Mar 2005, at 8:07 am, Jim Anderson wrote:

> This Kaarikaa is listed as the 14th of the 14 minor texts in the CPD
> bibliography (Epilegomena, 1948). Here's the complete entry:
>
> "5.4.14 Kaarikaa (:Dhammasenaapati, Pi.t-sm 393, PLB p.15-16, Saas
> 75,22, Gv 73,21), Be as 5.4.1, Ce, with editor's sannaya, Vaelito.ta,
> 1897 (~Naa.natilaka Naayaka-Thera)."
>
> As noted, details for the Burmese edition are found at 5.4.1
> (Saddatthabhedacintaa) as follows:


Regarding the Saddatthabhedacintaa, during vassa last year I was 
studying
this text with a visiting Burmese sayadaw. As far as I know no romanized
edition of it has been published. If anyone is interested, I have made a
transcription of it from the Mahachula University edition and placed a 
copy
in the files page of this group. It is a zip file with three documents: 
a
plain text version in velthuis, and two Acrobat versions, one in Thai 
and
the other in the Normyn font.

As this is the first time I have made a pdf file, I should appreciate 
it if
someone would check whether the Normyn and Thai versions are readable on
non-Macintosh systems.

Later I shall make a digital version of the main .tiikaa to it, the
Saddatthabhedacintaa-diipanii. A .tiikaa is essential for understanding 
the
Saddatthabhedacintaa, for the author has attempted to convey a great 
deal
in just 400 gaathaa and so his manner of expression is highly terse and
compressed.

I append here a list of the main .tiikaas to this work as given in the
Mahachula edition. My thanks go to Suan Lu Zaw for assisting with the
identification of the Burmese authors.


.Tiikaas in Pali:

1) Saddatthabhedacintaa-diipanii
U Vicittaala`nkaara (Shwekuu Sayadaw)
Shwekuu Monastery (also called Suva.n.naguuhaa), Salin Township
(1362)

2) Saaratthasa`ngaha
U Abhaya (Tipi.takadhara Abhaya Thera)
Pagan
(mediaeval, but uncertain date)

3) Saddatthabhedacintaa-mahaa.tiikaa
U Vimala (Vimalava.msaala`nkaara Thera; Talaikyaung Sayadaw)
Mahaa Aung Myae Bhon Thaa Monastery (also called Mahajayapathavii), 
Pakhan
(1902)

.Tiikaas in Burmese:

1) Saddatthabhedacintaa-nissaya
U Dhammaabhinanda (Bagaraa Sayadaw)
Bagaraa Monastery, Angwa City
(author lived 1738-1800)

2) Anudiipanii
U Jayantaabhiva.msa (Kan Oo Sayadaw)
Kan Oo Monastery (also called Saramukhaaraama), Yangon
(1932)

3) Saddatthabhedacintaa-bhaa`saa.tiikaa
U Janakaabhiva.msa (Gandhaayom Sayadaw)
Gandhaayom Monastery, Amarapuura City
(1961)

4) Saddatthabhedacintaa-ga.n.thi
U Upatissa
Lwanpin Monastery, Zwesan Village, Ma-hlai Province
(1964)

5) Saddatthabhedacintaavabodhi
U Pa.n.ditaabhiva.msa
Mahaabodhi Monastery, Yankin, Yangon
(1982)

6) Saddatthabhedacintaa-navanissaya
U Indava.msaabhiva.msa
Ve.luvan Monastery, Yangon
(1988)

.Tiikaas in Thai:

1) Saddatthabhedacintaa: cheung wikro waiyakawn baalii
Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro
Wat Savastivaariisiimaaraama (Khae Samsen), Bangkok
(2002)

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1077 
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:07am 
Subject: Re: 1. Logic of Pali grammar, 2. Decline of Pali education 	

Dear E.M

>1. I note the following from N. Ray's history:
> "One [Bhante] Saddhammaguru wrote ... the Vaacakopadesa, which 'treats the grammatical categories from a logical point of view.'" 
> This sounds like an interesting resource --especially for those of us who have wrestled with inconsistencies in Pali grammatical terminology. 
> 
>

What can be those "inconsistencies"? It would be interesting to know.

>2. An interesting (and brief) article about Buddhist education in Burma & Thailand, highlighting the decline of Pali studies in both places --NB: almost all of the useful information is to be found in the foot-notes, as the main text is reproduced from a lecture.
>www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/Calendar/ 
>calendar2003-04/burma_conference/papers/dhammasami.doc 
>
I have already gone to the site, but I found only the calender 2004-05. 
I don't know why, maybe the page has been taken down, or I'm just too 
dense to find it.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

1078 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:43pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Venerable Bhante Dhammanando,
Thank you very much.
Even with my iMac I could read the files, and the Thai came out very well.
Only one I could not open, it said: doc too large to open with plain text.
My Pali is not good enough to be able to understand it. What is it about?
With respect,
Nina. 
op 28-03-2005 04:11 schreef Dhammanando Bhikkhu op
dhammanando@csloxinfo.com:
> As this is the first time I have made a pdf file, I should appreciate
> it if
> someone would check whether the Normyn and Thai versions are readable on
> non-Macintosh systems.
>

1079 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:47pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

[...]

> Regarding the Saddatthabhedacintaa, during vassa last year I was
> studying this text with a visiting Burmese sayadaw. As far as I
> know no romanized edition of it has been published. If anyone is
> interested, I have made a transcription of it from the Mahachula
> University edition and placed a copy in the files page of this
group.
> It is a zip file with three documents: a plain text version in
velthuis,
> and two Acrobat versions, one in Thai and the other in the Normyn
> font.

Thank-you very much for uploading this valuable text. Until Ven.
Pandita first made mention of this text on the other Pali list
recently, I was unaware of it. And then it came up again while digging
up more information on the Kaarikaa. What a real delight and surprise
to see that you had studied and uploaded it!

> As this is the first time I have made a pdf file, I should
appreciate
> it if someone would check whether the Normyn and Thai versions
> are readable on non-Macintosh systems.

They both read correctly on my MS Windows 95 system. I noticed one
problem though with the plain text file in Velthuis. Your non-velthuis
palatal n (ascii 150) is only seen as a long dash in Times New Roman.
I could not convert it to ~n in Windows but was able to do so in DOS.

> Later I shall make a digital version of the main .tiikaa to it, the
> Saddatthabhedacintaa-diipanii. A .tiikaa is essential for
understanding
> the Saddatthabhedacintaa, for the author has attempted to convey a
great
> deal in just 400 gaathaa and so his manner of expression is highly
> terse and compressed.

I would very much like to study this .tiikaa and hope that you will
get around to making and uploading a digital version of it at your
convenience. You might consider providing the first few pages for some
of us to get an early start on it. I have some of the introductory
pages of the Mukhamattadiipanii and the Suttaniddesa transcribed which
I'm planning to upload after I add a few more pages and go over them
many times checking for errors. I have a Thai edition of the
Ganthaabhara.na with its .tiikaa that I could make a digital
transcription of too.

> I append here a list of the main .tiikaas to this work as given in
> the Mahachula edition. My thanks go to Suan Lu Zaw for assisting
> with the identification of the Burmese authors.

To your list of the Pali .tiikaas below, I've added the three listed
in CPD for comparison.

> .Tiikaas in Pali:
>
> 1) Saddatthabhedacintaa-diipanii
> U Vicittaala`nkaara (Shwekuu Sayadaw)
> Shwekuu Monastery (also called Suva.n.naguuhaa), Salin Township
> (1362)
>
> 2) Saaratthasa`ngaha
> U Abhaya (Tipi.takadhara Abhaya Thera)
> Pagan
> (mediaeval, but uncertain date)
>
> 3) Saddatthabhedacintaa-mahaa.tiikaa
> U Vimala (Vimalava.msaala`nkaara Thera; Talaikyaung Sayadaw)
> Mahaa Aung Myae Bhon Thaa Monastery (also called Mahajayapathavii),
> Pakhan
> (1902)

5.4.1,1 Saddatthabhedacintaa-poraa.na.tiikaa ( : Abhaya-mahaathera,
Pi.t-sm 396, PLB p.22, Gv 63,18 [mh.t], Bm Cat.-Mandalay No.
164:2 (Saddhatthabhedacintaadiipanii) ?
5.4.1,2 Saddatthabhedacintaa-majjhima.tiikaa, Gv 73,11.
5.4.1,3 Saddatthabhedacintaa-nava.tiikaa, Pi.t-sm 397, Gv 73,14.

Best wishes,
Jim

1080 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:07pm 
Subject: Re: 1. Logic of Pali grammar, 2. Decline of Pali education

Dear Ven. Pandita,

> >2. An interesting (and brief) article about Buddhist education in
Burma & Thailand, highlighting the decline of Pali studies in both
places --NB: almost all of the useful information is to be found in
the foot-notes, as the main text is reproduced from a lecture.
> >www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/Calendar/
> >calendar2003-04/burma_conference/papers/dhammasami.doc
> >
> I have already gone to the site, but I found only the calender
2004-05.
> I don't know why, maybe the page has been taken down, or I'm just
too
> dense to find it.

I think you may have tried to access:
www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/Calendar/ only without the following part
of a long url address:

calendar2003-04/burma_conference/papers/dhammasami.doc

Just use the copy and paste commands to get it all in the url address
box on your browser. This is what I did and found an interesting
article on the problem of monastic and secular education in Burma and
Thailand.

Best wishes,
Jim

1081 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Mar 29, 2005 0:46am 
Subject: Pali in PDF, Burmese script, etc.

Bhante, 

> As this is the first time I have made a pdf file, I should appreciate 
> it if
> someone would check whether the Normyn and Thai versions are readable on
> non-Macintosh systems.

I am glad to hear that you are using a Mac. There is an extremely good 
quality Burmese kit (for Mac OSX) at the following website:
http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxBurmese.html
The fellow made about three great fonts, and the _Language Kit_ includes all 
the tricky bits of programming to make input completely fluid (e.g., you 
type -p-e- and the computer knows to put the vowel marker on the left of the 
p, unlike other systems where you have to type -e-p- for _pe_, etc., etc.). 

As with all things Unicode, this language kit can produce .PDF files that 
can be read on any computer without any special fonts or software (okay, any 
computer made in the last 10 years...) 

I had constant correspondence with the creator of this font over the past 10 
months, and participated in the very thorough process testing, then making 
minor adjustments and corrections to the working of the font over that time. 
I cannot read modern Burmese, but I can vouch that it is pretty well perfect 
for reading & writing Pali in the Burmese script. 

The same guy (Kaonohi Kai) was kind enough to make an Ashokan-Brahmi font 
that I could use for quotations from the inscriptions in my book (I am very 
thankful, as you can imagine) --it is the first font of its kind to really 
work (e.g., combine vowels properly, etc.) 

http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxBrahmi.html 

Needless to say, as I am currently living in Lao, and learning the Lao 
language, I am also helping him test & develop his Lao language kit, and I 
helped in the past with testing and error reporting for his classical 
literary Sinhala (A very lengthy process! A script with many exceptions to 
the rules --http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxSinhala.html). However, I am 
glad to say that now the whole world can use these fonts --and because I 
have done the testing myself, I can vouch that they are great for Pali! The 
Khmer font is not quite complete yet, if you want to reproduce Pali in 
Khom... 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Though one should conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, he who 
conquers his own self, is the greatest of all conquerers.
Random Dhammapada Verse 103

1082 
From: connie <connieparker@intergate.com> 
Date: Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:41am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Sir,
they look fine on this Windows XP machine.
peace,
connie

> As this is the first time I have made a pdf file, I should appreciate
> it if
> someone would check whether the Normyn and Thai versions are readable on
> non-Macintosh systems.

1083 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:59am 
Subject: Re: Pali in PDF, Burmese script, etc.

Dear Eisel,

Thanks for this information. Do you know if there is yet any font
available for the Lanna script?

I hope you're enjoying your stay in Laos.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

> I am glad to hear that you are using a Mac. There is an extremely good
> quality Burmese kit (for Mac OSX) at the following website:
> http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxBurmese.html ......

1084 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:06am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Dear Jim,

> They both read correctly on my MS Windows 95 system. I noticed one
> problem though with the plain text file in Velthuis. Your non-velthuis
> palatal n (ascii 150) is only seen as a long dash in Times New Roman.
> I could not convert it to ~n in Windows but was able to do so in DOS.

Right. I notice now that I forgot to convert that character.

> I would very much like to study this .tiikaa and hope that you will
> get around to making and uploading a digital version of it at your
> convenience. You might consider providing the first few pages for some
> of us to get an early start on it.

Okay. Today I will post the Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii's
commentary on the ganthaarambhakathaa. Thankfully
Saddhammasiri limited himself to just one opening verse. I
don't like those long ones that have the subject on line 2
and the main verb 20 lines further down.

I will try to post the Diipanii's glosses a verse at a time
every couple of days, though for the next two weeks I'm
rather busy and probably won't have the time to answer
questions or get into any discussions about it.

I thought I would also attempt a semi-translation of the
verses, i.e. one which leaves most of the technical terms
untranslated, but shows how the samaasa and syntax of each
verse should be parsed. I have to do it this way for now,
because although my study with Ashin Ujjota last year gave
me some familiarity with the technical terms of saddasattha
(dabba, satti, sakattha etc.) I am rather at a loss to come
up with English renderings for them. To make a glossary I
need to do some background reading and see how the Sanskrit
cognates of these terms are handled by scholars like Matilal.

Here is a brief description of the two relevant works that I
have at my disposal. They are both authored by the Thai monk
Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro:

1) Saddatthabhedacintaa, gaathaa plae yok sap
("Saddatthabhedacintaa: a word-for-word translation of the
verses"), 474pp. Mahachulalongkorn Press, 2004.

Consists of the Saddatthabhedacintaa verses in Pali, a
bya~njanato Thai translation of these, and the
Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii in Pali only. I obtained a copy
of this book only a week ago, so have not yet studied it.
Its publication was subsidised by the Suphatraprathip
family, in memory of Nai Jeum Suphatraprathip. Thanks to
their generosity it sells at the low price of 250 Baht.

2) Saddatthabhedacintaa, kaan seuksaa cheung wikhro
waiyaakorn baalii ("Saddatthabhedacintaa: studying the
analytical foundations [or perhaps 'method of analysis'] of
Pali grammar"), 630pp. Mahachulalongkorn Press, 2002.

Consists of the verses in Pali, an atthato Thai translation
of each verse and then Mahaa Nimitr's commentary (from 1 up
to 10 pages for each verse or verse pair, but usually about
one and a half pages). Very thorough scholarship, with
citations from more than thirty grammatical treatises. This
was the text I was using last year and I came to regard it
as a .tiikaa even though its author is too modest too title
it as such. I don't recall the price of this volume, but
since its publication was unsubsidised it would be rather
more than that of the first book.

I don't know much about this Phra Mahaa Nimitr, but he seems
to be a remarkably productive monk, perhaps a Thai version
of ~Naa.namoli. Besides the above-mentioned works, he has
translated all three volumes of the Saddaniiti.

> To your list of the Pali .tiikaas below, I've added the three listed
> in CPD for comparison.

Thanks. Regarding the .tiikaa names given in my last post I
have a couple of corrections to make.

The .tiikaa by U Janakaabhiva.msa should end in
-bhaa.saa.tiikaa, not -bhaa`saa.tiikaa.

I have received an e-mail saying that the .tiikaa by U
Abhaya should be called Dhaaratthasa`ngaha, not
Saaratthasa`ngaha.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1085 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:08am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Dear Nina,

> Even with my iMac I could read the files, and the Thai came out very 
> well.
> Only one I could not open, it said: doc too large to open with plain 
> text.

I suspect you may have been trying to open it with an old
version of SimpleText. It is a rather small file, so you
shouldn't have any problem with a more heavy-duty
word-processor like Word, AppleWorks or NisusWriter.

> My Pali is not good enough to be able to understand it. What is it 
> about?

In brief, it is about sadda and attha and the relationship
between them. Sadda here refers to linguistic elements, i.e.
the minimum units of language that are capable of bearing a
meaning. Attha is the meaning that they bear. I will be expanding
on this when I translate Phra Mahaa Nimitr's explanation of the
title of the treatise.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1086 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:09am 
Subject: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Greetings all,

Here is the opening verse to the Saddatthabhedacintaa and
the commentary to it by Vicittaala`nkaara (Shwekuu Sayadaw).

I don't know if my underlining of the sa.mva.n.niya words
will work on Yahoo Groups, so I have taken the precaution of
indicating them with asterisks.

In my next post I will translate some introductory notes
from Phra Mahaa Nimitr. (Nina, these should serve to answer
your question about the subject of the treatise).

My thanks to those of you who checked the pdf files for me.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

________________________________


Saddatthabhedacintaa:

I. Ganthaarambhakathaa

1.
saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate.

(Having saluted the foremost teacher of the analysis of
sadda and attha, the teacher of the Excellent (Nibbaana),
I shall speak [a treatise], the Saddatthabhedacintaa.)

________________________________

Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii:

jinavarassa niravasesadevamanussaana.m pavarabhaave satipi
attanaa abhidheyyamaanapakara.naanuruupa.m bhagavato
thomana.m kattukaamo

"saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate" ty'ettha
*saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavaran* tyaaha. tattha
*saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti saddabhedavaadii-
atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi
pavarantyattho. dvandato suyyamaanattaa ekasesattaa ca.
*varavaadinan* ti buddha.m. buddhoti vara.m nibbaana.m
vadati siilenaati varavaadii. vuttanti asa`nkheyyaani
naamaani. sagu.nena mahesinoti.

*varan* ti ca nibbaana.m adhippeta.m. vutta~nhi varo
vara~n~nuuti ettha ca vara~n~nuuti nibbaana~n~nuu.
nibbaana~nhi sabbadhammaana.m uttamatthena varanti.

athavaa *sadda ... pavara.m varavaadinan* ti dvaya.mpi
visesana.m. visesitabba.m pana buddhanti ajjhaaharitabba.m.
buddhasseva pavaraana.m atisayapavarattaa vaadiina~nca
atisayavadittaa. saddabhede atthabhede saddatthabhede
cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati
saddatthabhedacintaa. niyatitthili`ngo hi cintaasaddo.

*abhidhiiyate* ti bhaasiyissate mayaa. abhipubbassa
dhaadhaatussa bhaasayanatthattaa paccupannasamiipepi
vattamaanavibhattippavattattaa ca. kaccaayanamatena kattari
tvaadipaccayassa katattaa abhivaadiyaati kattuvaacii.
tathaapi abhidhiiyateti padhaanakriyaaya avuttattaa
padhaanassa ca balavattaa.

*abhivaadiyaa* ti appadhaanakriyaaya vuttopi avutto naama
hoti kattaa. kesa~nci matena tvaadisabhaave katattaa
avuttoyeva kattaa. tasmaa abhivaadiyaatyetthaapi mayaa tveva
avuttakattaa da.t.thabbo.

1087 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:01am 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

On 30 Mar 2005, at 7:09 pm, Dhammanando Bhikkhu wrote:

> 1.
> saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
> abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate.
>
> (Having saluted the foremost teacher of the analysis of
> sadda and attha, the teacher of the Excellent (Nibbaana),
> I shall speak [a treatise], the Saddatthabhedacintaa.)

Sorry, that should read "foremost of teachers of...".

saddatthabhedavaadiina.m is genitive; varavaadina.m is accusative.

1088 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:38pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Venerable Bhante Dhammanando,
thank you for your answer. I am looking forward to your further
translations.
I shall ask Connie's help for opening the file.
With respect,
Nina. 
op 30-03-2005 14:08 schreef Dhammanando Bhikkhu op
dhammanando@csloxinfo.com:
> I suspect you may have been trying to open it with an old
> version of SimpleText. It is a rather small file, so you
> shouldn't have any problem with a more heavy-duty
> word-processor like Word, AppleWorks or NisusWriter.

1089 
From: connie <connieparker@intergate.com> 
Date: Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:05pm 
Subject: Re: Digest Number 416

Dear Nina,
I just copied the text into a pdf for you and paste the following reminder 
because I didn't change anything.
peace,
connie



From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com>
Subject: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Dear Jim,

> They both read correctly on my MS Windows 95 system. I noticed one
> problem though with the plain text file in Velthuis. Your non-velthuis
> palatal n (ascii 150) is only seen as a long dash in Times New Roman.
> I could not convert it to ~n in Windows but was able to do so in DOS.

Right. I notice now that I forgot to convert that character.





> Re: Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?
> I shall ask Connie's help for opening the file.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1090 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:01am 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

Thank-you for posting the opening verse along with your translation
and its Pali commentary. I look forward to your translation of some
introductory notes from Phra Maha Nimitr. Thanks also for the great
description of the two books you are working with. I'm going to see if
I can get a hard copy of the first book containing the two Pali texts.

From my initial impressions of Saddatthabhedacintaa, it strikes me as
a work that is more suitable for the advanced student who is already
well-acquainted with a traditional grammar and its linguistic
concepts. It also seems to me more of a philosophical/theoretical work
along the lines of Bhart.rhari's Vaakyapadiya. The great attention
paid to sadda and attha and the relation between the two suggests a
connection to the four profound pa.tisambhidas.

Since you're posting the Pali commentarial text untranslated, I
thought this could be an opportunity for any member to offer comments
on or to have a go at translating parts of the text if desired.

Best wishes,
Jim

> Greetings all,
>
> Here is the opening verse to the Saddatthabhedacintaa and
> the commentary to it by Vicittaala`nkaara (Shwekuu Sayadaw).
>
> I don't know if my underlining of the sa.mva.n.niya words
> will work on Yahoo Groups, so I have taken the precaution of
> indicating them with asterisks.

1091 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:45pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Re: 

> From my initial impressions of Saddatthabhedacintaa...
> It ... seems to me more of a philosophical/theoretical work
> along the lines of Bhart.rhari's Vaakyapadiya. The great attention
> paid to sadda and attha and the relation between the two suggests a
> connection to the four profound pa.tisambhidas.

This, along with other comments, brings to mind a comparison to the 
Nettipakarana attributed to Kaccayana --i.e., not a grammatical work, but a 
"hermenutical" work on the interpretation of text, and the arising of 
meaning from various factors. I have read a great deal about the Netti, but 
have never read the text itself --it will have to wait until my current 
projects subside, and I'm both more able in Pali and in Lao. 

Other news: Volume 1 of my book is now complete (vol. 2 is Kaccayana's 
original text with translation), and I am going to look into the possibility 
of mailing out a few copies to a few interested parties. The "manuscript" 
is a joy to look at, as it's typeset in parallel Burmese & Sinhalese, 
however, the cost and difficulty (and uncertainty!) of sending anything from 
Vientiane inclines me to share the text only with those who are seriously 
interested in using it as a textbook, or reading it through for the sheer 
joy/misery of disputing/error checking the text. Anyone interested may get 
in touch with me off-list. 

In other news: having already escaped the decadence of Bangkok, it seems I 
may soon escape the (diminished) decadence of Vientiane for a small town 
circa 100 kilometers north of here --this is another reason for my rushing 
to mail out the manuscript of Vol. 1, as I may soon be in a small town with 
no post office (etc.). 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
By sustained effort, earnestness, discipline, and self-control, let the wise 
man make for himself an island, which no flood overwhelms.
Random Dhammapada Verse 25

1092 
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Apr 2, 2005 4:59am 
Subject: about monastic education & etc.

Dear Jim

Yes, you are right. After following your instructions, I have been able 
to download the file. Thanks a lot.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

You wrote:

>I think you may have tried to access:
>www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/Calendar/ only without the following part of a long url address:
>
>calendar2003-04/burma_conference/papers/dhammasami.doc
>
>Just use the copy and paste commands to get it all in the url address box on your browser. This is what I did and found an interesting article on the problem of monastic and secular education in Burma and Thailand.
> 
>

1093 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:43am 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Jim,

> Thank-you for posting the opening verse along with your
> translation and its Pali commentary. I look forward to your
> translation of some introductory notes from Phra Maha
> Nimitr. Thanks also for the great description of the two
> books you are working with. I'm going to see if I can get a
> hard copy of the first book containing the two Pali texts.

Ong Teng has for some time been trying to order books from
the Buddhaghosa College people, but without any success. It
seems the quality of their scholarship is not matched by the
efficiency of their distribution. Their publications are not
for sale anywhere in Bangkok, so one must either go to the
college in person or order by mail. The latter course,
however, is hampered by the fact that they tend not to
respond to queries sent to them.

I mentioned the problem to my upa.t.thaaka and he has said
he is willing to puchase and send the books to those
interested. So if anyone would like copies of one or both
books and cannot obtain them from the college, just e-mail
me and I will send you his bank account details when we have
estimated what the cost will be. I don't think the books
would come to more than ten pounds sterling, but the postage
might be a bit steep as they're both heavy hardbacks.

> From my initial impressions of Saddatthabhedacintaa, it
> strikes me as a work that is more suitable for the advanced
> student who is already well-acquainted with a traditional
> grammar and its linguistic concepts. It also seems to me
> more of a philosophical/theoretical work along the lines of
> Bhart.rhari's Vaakyapadiya. The great attention paid to
> sadda and attha and the relation between the two suggests a
> connection to the four profound pa.tisambhidas.

Yes, I think you're right on all counts. The intended reader
of the Saddattha and its commentaries is one aspiring to be
a pa.tisambhidaapatta arahant, and is assumed to have
completed Kaccaayana-101. The study of it is to promote the
conditions for the arising of the four pa.tisambhidaa. And
it does indeed address a similar range of issues to those of
Bhart.rhari, Ma.n.dana Mi`sra, Ko.n.da and the rest of them,
though of course its handling of them is based on Buddhist
(chiefly abhidhammic) presuppositions rather than brahminical
ones.

> Since you're posting the Pali commentarial text untranslated, I
> thought this could be an opportunity for any member to offer comments
> on or to have a go at translating parts of the text if desired.

Yes, do go ahead. For the next ten days I have to take the
Vinaya classes of a fellow monk who's in hospital, but after
that I'll be able to join in.

Today I am posting the diipanii's glosses on verses 2-10. I
notice that they are for the most part not terribly expansive,
perhaps on a par with the vutti in Kaccaayana.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1094 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:43am 
Subject: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verses 2-10

II. Saddabhedacintaaka.n.da

[2]
saddo hi dubbidho cittajokaaraado'tujodara-
saddaadyattho'pakaarattaa cittajovidha gayhate.

yathaavuttasaddaadibhede vitthaaretvaa vattukaamo tesu ca
saddabheda.m taava dassetu.m *saddo hi ... gayhate* tyaaha.
tattha *hii* ti vitthaarajotako nipaato.
vitthaaravacanamidantuttho. saddo akaaraadi cittajo ca
udarasaddaadi utujo caati dubbidho. tesu cittajasseva attho
pakaarattaa atthassa ~naapakattaa cittajo-eva saddo idha
saddatthabhedacintaati vacane gayhateti.

[3]
so ca ka.n.thaadi.thaanebhibyattito tattha cittaja-
pathaviisattivi~n~nattibhuusa.mgha.t.tanajo mato.

tassa cittajasaddassa .thaanavasena bheda.m dassetu.m *so ca
... mato* ti aaha. cittajapathaviyaa *satti* samatthabhaavo
cittajapathavii satti. saa eva *vi~n~natti*
cittajapathaviisattivi~n~natti, vaciivi~n~nattiiti vutta.m
hoti.

*bhuuna.m* kammajapathaviicittajapathaviidhaatuuna.m
sa.mgha.t.tana.m bhuusa.mgha.t.tana.m.
cittajapathaviisattivi~n~nattikaara.naa bhuusa.mgha.t.tana.m
cittajapathaviisattivi~n~nattibhuusa.mgha.t.tana.m. tato
jaato cittajapathavii sattivi~n~natti bhuusa.mgha.t.tanajo.
saddo.

aya.m pana padasambandho cittajasaddassa
ka.n.thaadi.t.thaane abhibyattito paa.takabhaavato so ca
cittajasaddo vaciivi~n~nattikaara.naa bhuusa.mgha.t.tanato
tattha ka.n.thaadi.t.thaane jaatoti mato kathito
aacariyehiiti.

[4]
naabhito'ccaara.nussaahabhuutapaa.no'paropari
sa.mgha.t.tano'raka.n.thaadisirajotya'pare viduu.

*naabhito ... viduu* tyettha apare viduu pa.n.ditaa
uccaara.na-ussaahena naabhito bhuutapaa.naana.m
vaayodhaatuuna.m upari-upari sa.mgha.t.tanena ure ca
ka.n.thaadimhi ca sire ca jaatoti vadanti. ka.n.thajo na
ka.n.theyeva jaato.

naabhimhi ure sire jaato ca. taalujo na taalumhiyeva jaato.
naabhimhi ure ka.n.the sire ca jaato. eva.m
muddhaja-dantaja-o.t.thajaapiiti vutta.m hoti.

[5]
saasanassupakaarattaa maagadho'vidha gayhate
so haa'nussaavana.m pa.tisambhidaaya ca paccayo.

cittajassa desabhaasaadinaapi anekabhedattaa *saasanassu ...
paccayo* ti vutta.m. bhagavato saasanassa upakaarattaa
maagadho eva saddo idha cittajovidha gayhateti vacane
gayhate. katha.m upakaaro? so hi maagadhasaddo
kammavaacaanusaavana~nca hoti pa.tisambhidaaya paccayo ca.

"pubbayogo baahusacca.m desabhaasaa ca aagamo
paripucchaa adhigamo garusannissayo tathaa
mittasampatti cevaati pa.tisambhidapaccayaa."
(Pa.tiA. i. 7; Vis. 442; Path of Pur. XIV. 29)

[6]
ani.t.thite pade va.n.no paramattho suni.t.thita.m
pada.m pa~n~nattisaddoti saddo bhavati dubbidho.

*ani.t.thate ... dubbidho* tyettha
purisotyaadiva.n.nasamudaayasa`nkhaate pade ani.t.thite
va.n.no. ekekava.n.nasa`nkhaato saddo paramattho.

purisotyaadi suni.t.thita.m va.n.nasamudaayasa`nkhaata.m
pada.m pa~n~nattisaddo atthassa pa~n~naapanattaa
pa~n~nattiiti vuttapa~n~nattisaddo. iti maagadho saddo
dubbidho.

"sadda.m pa.thamacittena tiita.m dutiyacetasaa
naama.m tatiyacittena attha.m catutthacetasaa."
(Ma.nisaarama~njusaa.tiikaa, paccayasa`ngahavibhaaga,
Ariyava.msa's commentary on the Abhidhammatthavibhaavanii)

[7]
nekaapi sutiyaa saddaa lokene'koti vuccare
ekatthavaacakattenakoti sa`nketabhaavato.

eva.m paramatthapa~n~nattivasena maagadhasaddassa dudhaa
bheda.m dassetvaa idaani pa~n~nattisa`nkhaatassa padassa
bheda.m dassetu.m *nekaapi ... bhaavato* ti aaha.

sutiyaa savanena ekopi saddo anekepi saddaa ekakkharopi
saddo anekakkharopi saddoti vutta.m hoti.

lokena *eko* ti padasa`nkhaato eko saddoti vuccare.

kasmaa? ekatthavaacakattena eko saddoti sa`nketabhaavato.

[8]
ekakkharopya'neko'pekatthavaacakasammato
saro ta.msahito bya~njano ce'kakkharasammato.

katha.m na ekakkharova saddo ekatthavaacako anekakkharopi ca
ekattha.myeva vadatiiti *ekakkharopya'neko ... sammato* ti
aaha.

ekakkharopi saddo anekakkharopi saddo lokena
ekatthavaacakoti sammato. tasmaa lokasa`nketappakaarena
ekattha.myeva vadatiiti adhippaayo.

*ekakkharo* ti cettha dassitabba.m lokasa`nketa.m dassetu.m
*saro ... sammato* ti vutta.m. ekakkharabhuuto saro ca
anekakkharabhuuto tena sarena sahito bya~njano ca lokena
ekakkharoti sammato.

[9]
anekeva samaanepi pada'meka'mityuccate
chinnattaa cinipaatena tesa.m cekatthabhaavato.

*anekeva ... bhaavato* ti padanti ca saddoti ca
anatthantara.m. lokena padaana.m anekeva anekatthe satipi
eka.m pada.m iti uccate.

kasmaa? ya.mki~nciti ettha cinipaatena ya.m iti ki.m iti ci
iti visu.m visu.m padaana.m nipaatasamudaayabhaavena
paricchinnattaa ca, tesa.m ya.m iti ki.m iti ci iti
padaana.m ekatthabhaavato sakalanti ekatthe pavattanato ca.

"aneka.mva samaanampi pada'meka'mityuccate
chinnattaa cinipaatena tassa cekatthabhaavato."

[10]
aa bhuse'gatiyan'tye'kakkharo'tthii purisoti ca
neko ya.mki~nci'peti'tye katta.m'nekapadassa ca.

*aa bhuso ... padassa ca* iti aya.m udaahara.nagaathaa.
aabhuso gatiyanti aabhuse, i gatiyanti chedo. aabhuseti ca i
gatiyanti ca ettha ekakkharo aa iti ca i iti ca, ekoyeva
akkharo pada.m hoti itthiiti ca purisoti ca ettha
anekakkharo pada.m hoti. ya.mki~nci apetiiti ettha
anekapadassa ekatta.m ekapadatta.m hoti. ettha ca apetiiti
apa upasaggo eka.m pada.m naama vibhatyantattaa. etiiti
eka.m pada.m aakhyaatavibhatyantattaati anekaani padaani
eka.m padanti lokena vuccanti. tesa.m apagamanasa`nkhaatassa
ekassa kriyatthassa vuttattaa.

1095 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:44am 
Subject: Phra Maha Nimitr's intro

Dhammanando:

Phra Maha Nimitr begins his introduction with a
brief account of the division of Pali grammars into major
and minor ones. His taxonomy is different to the one I am
familiar with. I had thought that 'major' referred to the
Kaccaayana, Moggallaana, and Saddaniiti grammars, and
'minor' to all the rest. In Maha Nimitr's scheme 'major'
refers to pioneering grammars written in the form of suttas,
and 'minor' to derivative grammars written in verse for the
sake of easy memorization. (Grammatical .tiikaas like the
Padaruupasiddhi don't appear to fit in either category). In the
'major' category he states that there are four: the
Kaccaayana, Moggallaana, Saddaniiti, and (surprisingly) the
Saddasa`ngaha grammars. As for the minor grammars, he limits
these to texts composed in Burma and Thailand, states that
they number more than thirty, and gives as examples the
Sa`nkhyaapakaasaka of ~Naa.navilaasa, the
Vajirasaaratthasa`ngaha of Ratanapa~n~na, and the present
work, the Saddatthabhedacintaa.

If I may digress a little, the above-mentioned Saddasa`ngaha
was composed shortly before the Fifth Council by King
Mindon's Minister, U Bo Hlaing (the Aggasenaapati Wetmasut
Myoza Wunshindaw Mingyi, 1814-1878). It is not listed in
Bode's _Pali Literature of Burma_, but is discussed by Maung
Htin, in his biographical preface to Bagshawe's translation
of U Bo Hlaing's _Raajadhammasa`ngaha_. To judge from Htin's
account, there seems to be little ground (aside from the
author's pretensions) for treating the Saddasa`ngaha as
'major'. Htin's account is a little diffuse but as it is the
only information I can find on the text I will quote it in
full:

"Besides this, in the year 1231 [1869 CE] the Atwinwun
[another of U Bo Hlaing's titles] began to write a book that
was described as "_Saddasangaha_, like Ashin Buddhaghosas
_Sangaha Athakatha_, eliminating spurious words from various
Sanskrit and Magadhi grammars and listing those words that
are suitable for use in the Theravada". This was completed
in 1235 [1873 CE]. The words "listing words suitable for use
in the Theravada" that he wrote, fitted in very well with
King Mindon's cherished plans for the Fifth Sangayana. It is
not known for certain whether or not the Yaw Atwinwun wrote
the book with the Sangayana in mind.

"In connection with the _Saddasangaha_, in his
_Chiddavidhanani_ the Hsayadaw of the Mahavisuddha-yon, U
Visuddhacara, made some criticisms. In his critique he says
that Yaw Atwinwun approached the first Shweigyin
Thathanabaing, the Shweigyin Hsayadaw, Ashin U Jagara, with
a request that he should revise and correct it. The
Hsayadaws opinion was, "This is not a book with any lasting
value" and he refused to revise it. Later it was handed over
to the Mahavisuddha-yon Hsayadaw, who was to become the
second Shweigyin Thathanabaing, and he returned it
correcting the text - "in verb formation the order of words
should be reversed". In spite of his criticism he gave
praise and, when later on the author asked him to correct
the treatment of nouns - "If the order of the sentence is
not right, there will be a restless feeling." - he returned
the authors original script without correction. The
Mahavisuddha-yon Hsayadaw's criticism was "The text's true
meaning is not given." The Hsayadaw and his supporter could
discuss their differences candidly.

"When I asked the Mahapanyabala Hsayanyan about this, he
replied that the Yaw Atwinwun was a great scholar in
Sanskrit, but that in writing this book he had mixed up Pali
and Sanskrit. He had not got the Pali _gati_ right and this
was the reason for the Mahavisuddha-yon Hsayadaw's
criticism. The word _gati_ means the _athwa ala ahta atho_
(rhythm) of words.

"When a foreigner speaks or writes our own Burmese language,
we will notice that the rhythm of the words is not right. In
the same way when we speak or write something in a foreign
language, our usage and arrangement of the words may well be
wrong. That is what is meant by getting the _gati_ wrong.

"In spite of the criticisms of the Mahavisuddha-yon
Hsayadaw, it cannot be said that _Saddasangaha_ is a book to
be altogether ignored. As Mahapanyabala Hsayanyan hoped, it
has proved of great value for _sotujana_ although it is not
well-known, like a voice coming out of fog. The book could
be called a "sleeper"."

(_Raajadhammasa`ngaha_ by the Yaw Mingyi U Bo Hlaing, trans.
L.E. Bagshawe. Sape U Publishing House, 1979, pp. 40-1. My
conversion of the Burmese dates to CE might be a year out
because one cannot be certain unless one knows whether
an event occurred before or after April 15th.)

(to be continued)

_______________________________

Perhaps one of our Burmese members could remark on the
regard with which the Saddasa`ngaha is now held in Burma?

Next I will post Phra Maha Nimitr's overview of the
Saddatthabhedacintaa itself.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1096 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 11:45am 
Subject: Lanna fonts

On 30 Mar 2005, at 6:59 pm, Dhammanando Bhikkhu wrote:

> Thanks for this information. Do you know if there is yet any font
> available for the Lanna script?

I can now answer my own question: there is a collection
of twelve very beautiful Lanna fonts available at:

se-ed.net/tua-mueng/LANNA.ZIP

This site also has a guide (in Thai) for learning the Lanna script:

se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/1.pdf (consonants)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/2.pdf (vowels)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/3.pdf (spelling)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/4.pdf (numerals)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/5.pdf (use of consonants)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/6.pdf (writing exercises)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/Pali-new.pdf (reading and writing Pali)
se-ed.net/tua-mueng/pdf/Read_Pali.pdf (Pali reading exercises)

In "Pali Philology and the Study of Buddhism", K.R. Norman
remarks regarding Lanna texts:

"It is clear that in very recent years the tradition in
Thailand has been greatly influenced by Burmese and European
editions, but research carried out in libraries in Thailand*
is uncovering manuscripts which seem to be older than
anything we have available from Ceylon and Burma, and some
of the readings found in such manuscripts differ from those
found in the present Thai editions, and give support for
alternative readings which are in many ways superior to
those of our present editions. These manuscripts certainly
pre-date the Burmese Fifth and Sixth Councils, and in
content, if not in actual physical nature, perhaps go back
to the Siamese council held in 1475-77."

[* See O. von Hinueber, "Pali manuscripts of canonical texts
from North Thailand -- a preliminary report", JSS, 71, 1983,
75-88.]

I have not read the von Hinueber article that he refers to.
Does anyone know what he means by "...in many ways superior
to those of our present editions." ?

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1097 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005 7:14pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

> Ong Teng has for some time been trying to order books from
> the Buddhaghosa College people, but without any success. It
> seems the quality of their scholarship is not matched by the
> efficiency of their distribution. Their publications are not
> for sale anywhere in Bangkok, so one must either go to the
> college in person or order by mail. The latter course,
> however, is hampered by the fact that they tend not to
> respond to queries sent to them.

I think this is a problem in general for those who live outside of
South Asia and who do not speak the native language to find out about
the existence and availability of Pali texts relating to philology and
to be able to acquire them. One solution would be to find someone who
resides inside the country, is interested in the Pali language, and an
enthusiastic book-hunter/collector willing to help others acquire such
seemingly hard-to-come-by books. I know of some recent Devanagari
publications (early 90s) of the Nyaasa (Delhi) and the
Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa (Varanasi) which I would love to acqure but so
far haven't been able to.

> I mentioned the problem to my upa.t.thaaka and he has said
> he is willing to puchase and send the books to those
> interested. So if anyone would like copies of one or both
> books and cannot obtain them from the college, just e-mail
> me and I will send you his bank account details when we have
> estimated what the cost will be. I don't think the books
> would come to more than ten pounds sterling, but the postage
> might be a bit steep as they're both heavy hardbacks.

Your upa.t.thaaka's offer of help is greatly appreciated. I had a
number of Pali books sent to me from Thailand last year. In sending
money to Thailand from Canada, I found out that a major bank here
would only send bahts by wire to a bank account (for a high $30 fee)
in Thailand. It's much cheaper to send a cheque or money order in US
dollars by mail but I don't know how much the person at the other end
would have to pay to convert to bahts. I agree that the postage will
be expensive and it seems better to buy a number of books at the same
time in order to lower the cost per book. How things have changed! I
remember mailing a big box of books from Edinburgh, Scotland to Canada
for about 40p in 1973.

> Yes, I think you're right on all counts. The intended reader
> of the Saddattha and its commentaries is one aspiring to be
> a pa.tisambhidaapatta arahant, and is assumed to have
> completed Kaccaayana-101.

Perhaps you should also add Kaccaayana-401, Moggallaana-401,
Saddaniiti-401, etc., etc.

> > Since you're posting the Pali commentarial text untranslated, I
> > thought this could be an opportunity for any member to offer
comments
> > on or to have a go at translating parts of the text if desired.
>
> Yes, do go ahead. For the next ten days I have to take the
> Vinaya classes of a fellow monk who's in hospital, but after
> that I'll be able to join in.

I have started to study the diipanii but have find it hard going.
I'll keep mulling over the text for awhile and do the best I can and
acknowledging the parts I haven't a clue about. Thanks for your latest
instalment. I found your post on the Saddasa"ngaha interesting because
I've been meaning to ask about it for the last little while. You just
seem to be reading my mind and posting the right posts at the right
time these days. I first came across the term 'Saddasa"ngaha' last
year in the modern nidaanakathaa to my Thai copy of the Suttaniddesa
and have been wondering about it ever since.

Best wishes,
Jim

1098 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Apr 4, 2005 1:32am 
Subject: Lanna fonts --unicode

Bhante Dhammanando, 

All the Lanna fonts I know of are non-Unicode --I have seen several Lanna 
fonts produced by Thai academia, and while some look good, they will tend to 
have difficult input, and zero "interoperability" (in other words: the 
person you send the document to has to have exactly the same font and 
technical setup to read the same document that you created...). 

Unicode Lanna is not far down the road: Ka'onohi Kai (of the website I keep 
linking to: www.xenotypetech.com) has created a Lanna font in the distant 
past (i.e., pre-Unicode) and has proposed adapting it to become a unicode 
font in the near future. 

The one big caveat here is that Lanna "doesn't exist" on the Unicode plane 
--which means that Ka'onohi will have to "map" the font onto the Burmese 
language range. This isn't fundamentally "a bad thing", but it does mean 
that (1) with a unicode font created in this way, you could create .PDF 
files that would look identical on any computer, but (2) if you created a 
Lanna .TXT file, and sent it to someone who only had a Burmese font (but no 
Unicode Lanna) it would show up as Pali-in-Burmese-script (still legible ... 
if you can read Burmese script). 

It may be 5 years or more before Lanna "officially exists" on the Unicode 
plane, so this kind of half-way measure (i.e., creating Lanna as a font 
layer on top of Burmese or Cambodian) will be the best possible for some 
time --same goes for Unicode Lao Dhamma. 

In any case, I will let the list know if there are any new developments in 
this regard. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
He who is stained (with defilements) without self-control and truthfulness, 
is not worthy of wearing the yellow robes.
Random Dhammapada Verse 9

1099 
From: Alexander Genaud <alexgenaud@yahoo.com> 
Date: Tue Apr 5, 2005 5:21am 
Subject: Re: Lanna fonts --unicode

Hello Eisel,

I tried to look into the timeline for
Lanna/Unicode. However, the most I managed
to find was this proposal for Tai Dai:

http://www.evertype.com/standards/tai/n967.pdf

from here:

http://www.unicode.org/pending/pending.html

Perhaps we could assist in the mapping
of Lanna. Do you believe New Xishuangbanna
Tai Dai and Lanna are homomorphic?

Alex

> It may be 5 years or more before Lanna
> "officially exists" on the Unicode 
> plane, so this kind of half-way
> measure (i.e., creating Lanna as a font 
> layer on top of Burmese or Cambodian)
> will be the best possible for some 
> time --same goes for Unicode Lao Dhamma. 

1100 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Thu Apr 7, 2005 6:52am 
Subject: Re: Lanna fonts --unicode

Dear Eisel,

Thanks for the information on Unicode Lanna.

I have now inspected the Lanna fonts that I mentioned in a
previous post. They turn out not to be so useful after all.
I assume they must be intended chiefly for those working
with texts in the Lanna language, since the characters for
an initial Pali jh and ii have been left out.

> All the Lanna fonts I know of are non-Unicode --I have seen
> several Lanna fonts produced by Thai academia, and while
> some look good, they will tend to have difficult input,

I can usually get around that by designing a keyboard with
ResEdit that will roughly match the way that I input text in
the Normyn font.

> and zero "interoperability" (in other words: the person you
> send the document to has to have exactly the same font and
> technical setup to read the same document that you
> created...).

I don't imagine there will be that many of us. :)

But wouldn't a PDF file with embedded (non-Unicode) fonts be
readable by anyone?

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1101 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Thu Apr 7, 2005 6:54am 
Subject: Saddatthabhedacintaa: Mahaa Nimitr intro. cont.

Phra Mahaa Nimitr:
The name Saddatthabhedacintaa means "A Treatise Analysing
Linguistic Elements and Meaning".

[Dhammaanando: The title can be construed in several ways. A
more thorough account of it will be given in the commentary
to verse 1.]

Phra Mahaa Nimitr:
It consists of four hundred verses, with verses 1-396
presenting the substance of the treatise and verses 397-400
being the author's colophon. The word cintaa, meaning
'analysis', refers to reasoning with the aim of determining
whether [a proposition is] logical or not, and forms that
important branch of philosophy known as tarka`saastra
[science of reasoning, dialectics]. In Paali literature
there are two principal treatises dealing with
tarka`saastra, the Sambandhacintaa and the
Saddatthabhedacintaa. The Sambandhacintaa [by the Ceylonese
monk Sa`ngharakkhita  Dh.] is based upon the grammars of
the Moggallaana tradition, while the Saddatthabhedacintaa is
based upon a variety of sources, for example, the
`Sabdaarthacintaa (a Sanskrit work), the Kaccaayana,
Moggallaana, Saddaniiti, and Baalaavataara grammars, as well
as the earlier Sambandhacintaa.

The subject of the treatise is presented in four sections:

I) Saddabhedacintaa (verses 2-25): analysis of linguistic
elements, showing their origin, and classifying the
varieties of linguistic element, syllable, word, sentence,
and sentence components.
II) Atthabhedacintaa (verses 26-106): analysis of five
aspects of meaning: primary [or original or intrinsic]
meaning (sakattha), substance (dabba), indication (li`nga),
number (vacana), and syntactical function (kaaraka).
III) Saddatthabhedacintaa (verses 107-127): analysis of the
meanings that are knowable through linguistic elements,
according to which of the five kinds of meaning apply to
each kind of linguistic element.
IV) Paki.n.nakatthabhedacintaa (verses 128-396):
miscellaneous analysis of meaning. Here the author discusses
the general laws of grammar relating to vaacca, vaacaka,
samaasa, taddhita, aakhyaata, kita etc.

By studying the Saddatthabhedacintaa one will become skilled
in analysing sadda and attha and will gain a deeper
understanding of the Pali language. One will be free of
doubts concerning sadda and attha, and will be able to study
the Tipi.taka with precision, relying upon the principles of
grammar set down in this treatise as a means of determining
the meaning. As Ven. Saddhammasiri states in verse 399:

saddatthalakkha.ne bhedii yo yo nicchitalakkha.ne
so so ~naatumakicchena pahoti pi.takattayeti.

"Anyone analysing the characteristics of sadda and attha [in
the way those] characteristics have been resolved [by me],
will be able to understand the Tipi.taka with ease."

Before the Saddatthabhedacintaa was composed in Pagan
there had been many minor grammars written in verse, but
following the publication of this treatise some of these
earlier works disappeared entirely. It was thought that they
had been superseded by the more comprehensive exposition of
the new treatise. The esteem with which this treatise was
held by later generations of scholars can be seen also from
the many citations of it in .tiikaas and nissayas.

The author, Ven. Saddhammasiri Thera, was a resident of
Pagan in Burma. It is reported that he was born in the
village of Tooyawinje (sp. ??), but his temple of residence
has probably been abandoned, for its name does not appear
anywhere. There is no evidence as to the exact period this
text was composed. Modern scholars suggest that it must have
been after 1234 because it is influenced by the
Saddaniitippakara.na which was composed during the reign
of King Kyawswa (1234-1250).

[Dhammaanando: and of course before 1362, the year of its
earliest dated .tiikaa]

Phra Mahaa Nimitr:
Another work known to be by Saddhammasiri is the
Brahajjatakanissaya, a Burmese translation of the
Briihajjataka, a Sanskrit manual of astrology.

[Dhammaanando: Mahaa Nimitr then lists the .tiikaas to this
text that I have already posted to the list, and then
concludes his introduction...]

For this translation into Thai I have consulted the
following sources: Saddatthabhedacintaa-bhaa`saa.tiikaa,
Anudiipanii, Saddatthabhedacintaa-mahaa.tiikaa,
Saddatthabhedacintaavabodhi, Padaruupasiddhi, and
Saddaniitippakara.na.

I should like to thank Ven. Gandhasaaraabhiva.msa
(Dhammaacariya, Abhiva.msa) and Acharn Jamroon Thammada for
their most helpful advice. It is my hope that this
translation and exposition of the Saddatthabhedacintaa will
be useful to those interested in the Pali language and will
ensure the continuity of its correct usage in accordance
with the rules of grammar.

Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro (Parien 9)
Wat Savastivaariisiimaaraama (Khae Samsen), Bangkok
23 April 2002

1102 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Apr 8, 2005 1:08am 
Subject: Re: Lanna fonts --unicode

Bhante Dhammanando, 

> I have now inspected the Lanna fonts that I mentioned in a
> previous post. They turn out not to be so useful after all.
> I assume they must be intended chiefly for those working
> with texts in the Lanna language...

This has been a big problem with computing in any/all of the Mon & Pyu 
derived scripts: even with "Lao-Dhamma" the script is used in such a 
radically different way to express the vernacular, that almost none of the 
existing fonts can be used for Pali ... at the very least a separate 
keylayout is required. Naturally, frustration with Burmese fonts that can't 
properly input Pali are widespread for similar reasons. With Lanna, I would 
expect that subscript + vowel combinations would involve confusion similar 
to what I find with Lao-Dhamma. Really, Lanna and Lao-Dhamma are very, very 
closely related. 

There are similar issues in ensuring that a classical literary Sinhalese 
font can properly express Pali, etc. etc. --thus, the process of e-mailing 
requests for amendments to the programmers at Xenotypetech.com has been very 
prolix over the past year! But, as I say, I can vouch that their current 
Sinhala & Burmese really do work for Pali --and when they get around to 
Lanna, I'll be able to vouch for their work in that respect, too. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Ah, happily do we live without yearning (for sensual pleasures) amongst 
those who yearn (for them); amidst those who yearn (for them) we dwell 
without yearning.
Random Dhammapada Verse 199

1103 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Apr 11, 2005 0:29pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Bhante and members,

Here's some translation and notes for the commentarial part of the
first line of verse 1. I will post more later on. Instead of using the
asterisk (usually for bold) to mark underlining you could use the
underscore.

> Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii:
>
> jinavarassa niravasesadevamanussaana.m pavarabhaave satipi
> attanaa abhidheyyamaanapakara.naanuruupa.m bhagavato
> thomana.m kattukaamo
>
> "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
> abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate" ty'ettha
> *saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavaran* tyaaha.

Translation:
With respect to the excellent Conqueror's foremost state existing
among all devas and men and wishing to do a salutation to the Blessed
One which is fitting for the treatise being spoken by himself, he
said "the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda and attha" in
this (introductory verse):
Having saluted the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda
and attha,
the Speaker of the Excellent; the Saddatthabhedacintaa shall now
be spoken.

> tattha *saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti saddabhedavaadii-
> atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi
> pavarantyattho. dvandato suyyamaanattaa ekasesattaa ca.

Notes:
For "pavarantyattho. dvandato...", I think a semi-colon or something
similar (even no punctuation mark) would be better than a full stop as
the phrase beginning with dvandato doesn't seem to be a sentence. I
also wonder if there should not be a "pavara.m" in
*saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti. This was my reason for putting <the
Foremost> in angled brackets below.

Translation:
Therein, for "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m", the meaning is "<the
Foremost> with teachers who are speakers of the analysis of sadda,
speakers of the analysis of attha, and speakers of the analysis of
sadda and attha" -- from the fact of it being heard as a dvanda
compound and from the fact of the 'retention of one' (ekasesa).

Notes:
I think the use of the instrumental plural relates to the visesana
rule. According to the above, 'saddatthabhedavaadiina.m' would be
resolved as: saddabhedavaadiina~nca atthabhedavaadiina~nca
saddatthabhedavaadiina~nca. The rules for 'ekasesa' are given in the
grammars -- see Paa.n I.2.64-73, Kc 388, Sd 820-3. The example given
for Kc 388 is: puriso ca puriso ca ==> purisaa (bahuvacana) but this
does not apply here as the members of our compound do not have the
same forms (saruupaani) but note that it applies to each member per
se. Perhaps the rule at Sd 821 (viruupekaseso) for different forms
could have some bearing here. cp. Saariputto ca Moggallaano ca ==>
Saariputtaa; migo ca migii ca ==> migaa.

to be continued....

Comments and questions welcome.

Best wishes,
Jim

1104 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:15pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate.

Having saluted the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda
and attha,
the Speaker of the Excellent, I shall speak the
Saddatthabhedacintaa.

Phra Mahaa Nimitr:

Before writing a treatise the aacaariyas of old would first pay
homage to the teacher or the deity whom they revered. For
example, the authors of Sanskrit texts would pay homage to
Brahmaa, `Siiva or Sarasvatii, while authors of Buddhist
treatises would pay homage either to the Three Jewels, or to the
Buddha as the head of these. Ven. Saddhammasiri thus wrote this
verse both to express his reverence for the Buddha and to make
known his intention to write this treatise.

Although in this verse there are no words paying homage to the
Dhamma and the Sa`ngha, nevertheless it should be understood that
the author has in fact paid them homage. For when a person pays
homage to the Buddha he is implicitly also paying homage to the
Dhamma and Sa`ngha. This is based upon avinaabhaava-naya, the
principle that when certain things are necessarily connected, if
one thing is mentioned then the others are included by
implication.

Dhammaanando:

"Avinaabhaava: necessary connection of one thing with another,
inherent and essential character." (Sanskrit-English Dictionary,
Monier Williams).
Not listed in PTS Dict.
Occurs often in Abhidhamma .tiikaas, sometimes indicating
inseparability (e.g. of head-hairs from the element of solidity),
and sometimes necessity (e.g. a phala needing to have a hetu).

Mahaa Nimitr's use of this term for the inseparability of the
Three Jewels perhaps derives from the nava.tiikaa to
Sa`ngharakkhita's Subodhaala`nkaara. Sa`ngharakkhita begins his
work with a verse that appears to praise only the Dhamma:

munindavadanambhoja gabbhasambhavasundarii,
sara.na.m paa.nina.m vaa.nii mayha.m pii.nayata.m mana.m.

The nava.tiikaa remarks:

tathaa hi
lokuttaradhammanissitapariyattisa`nkhaatasabba~n~nubhaaratiyaa
manosampii.nanaasiisanaapadesena attano nissesadhammaratane
pasaado pakaasito. so pana dhammappasaado tadavinaabhaavato
buddhasa`nghesupi siddhoti ratanattayavisaya.m pa.naama.m
va`nkavuttiyaa dasseti.

"For in this manner, his [Sa`ngharakkhita's] confidence in the
Dhamma Jewel in its entirety is demonstrated by expressing a wish
to find satisfaction of mind in the scriptures that constitute
the word of the Omniscient One, upon which the supramundane
dhammas depend. Moreover, that confidence in the Dhamma is
effective also with respect to the Buddha and the Sa`ngha owing
to their inseparability from it [tadavinaabhaavato], and so in an
oblique manner he shows reverence that has [all] Three Jewels as
its scope."

_______________________________

Title of the treatise.

Abhaya Thera:
saddo ca attho ca saddatthaa. saddehi gamyamaano attho saddattho.
saddatthaa ca saddattho ca saddatthaa. saddatthaana.m bhedo
saddatthabhedo. cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati
cintaa. saddatthabhedassa cintaa saddatthabhedacintaa.
 from the Mahaa.tiikaa

Dhammaanando:
I will attempt an explanatory translation of the above.

saddatthabhedassa cintaa = saddatthabhedacintaa

The saddattha- part can be analysed in three ways.
1) saddo ca attho ca saddatthaa
A linguistic element and a meaning is saddatthaa.

2) saddehi gamyamaano attho saddattho
A meaning being gone to [= being known] by linguistic elements is
saddattho.

3) A combination of 1 and 2: saddatthaa ca saddattho ca
saddatthaa
Saddatthaa(a) and saddattho is saddatthaa(b)

Then:
saddatthaana.m bhedo saddatthabhedo
An analysis/classification of saddatthaa(b) is saddatthabhedo.

cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati cintaa
Through that treatise one reasons or discerns herein [i.e. in
regard to this subject of saddatthbhedo], thus it is a cintaa.

saddatthabhedassa cintaa saddatthabhedacintaa.
The cintaa of saddatthabhedo is the Saddatthabhedacintaa.

(to be continued...)

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1105 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:52pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

Just a quick comment on:

> cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati cintaa
> Through that treatise one reasons or discerns herein [i.e. in
> regard to this subject of saddatthbhedo], thus it is a cintaa.

I think 'etena pakara.nena ettha vaa' may be referring to two saadhana
interpretations of 'cintaa', namely, 'etena pakara.nena' relates to
kara.nasaadhana (cintaa as instrument, means) OR 'ettha'
(in this treatise) relates to adhikara.nasaadhana (cintaa as location,
place).

Best wishes,
Jim

1106 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:02pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Sorry, my quick comment below is completely off base. Please ignore.

Jim

> Dear Ven. Dhammanando,
>
> Just a quick comment on:
>
> > cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati cintaa
> > Through that treatise one reasons or discerns herein [i.e. in
> > regard to this subject of saddatthbhedo], thus it is a cintaa.
>
> I think 'etena pakara.nena ettha vaa' may be referring to two
saadhana
> interpretations of 'cintaa', namely, 'etena pakara.nena' relates to
> kara.nasaadhana (cintaa as instrument, means) OR 'ettha'
> (in this treatise) relates to adhikara.nasaadhana (cintaa as
location,
> place).
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim

1107 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:25am 
Subject: Saddasangaha & Aadiccava.msa

Dear Members,

I had a chance meeting today with Phra Maha Nimitr in the
Buddhaghosa College Library. We couldn't talk for as long as
I should have liked because my driver was waiting, but I did
take the opportunity to ask about the statement in his
preface that the Saddasangaha was a major grammar. He said
that this work was a personal favourite of the 19th century
Thai Sangharaajaa, Vajira~naa.navarorasa (Prince
Wachirayaanawororot), and that it was he who decided it
merited being classed as a major grammar. He added that it
is not classed as such by the Burmese. So that's that
little mystery cleared up.

Unfortunately Maha Nimitr doesn't speak English and won't
touch e-mail, else I would have invited him to join us, but
he did give me the phone numbers of himself and several
other Thai monks who have studied the Saddatthabhedacintaa,
either in Burma or at Wat Tha Ma O, and suggested we
contact them if we get stuck. This may come in handy when
we get to the Paki.n.naka chapter, which was covered only
selectively by Sayadaw Ujjota.

Regarding Ven. Pandita's query some months back about the
Burmese monk who lived in London in the 1920's: Maha Nimitr
(who seems to know about every Burmese monk of the last
century) suggested it may have been Ledi Sayadaw's student
Ashin Aadiccava.msa (1882-1951 -- called U Aung Myat Htut
after he disrobed). His information comes from the
biographical preface to the Thai edition of Aadiccava.msa's
Padasangaha. Before we parted he kindly presented me with a
copy of this work, saying that it was rather similar to the
Saddasangaha.

The preface states: "In 2461 (CE 1918) when Aadiccava.msa
had seventeen rains he travelled to India, Sri Lanka and
England, with the aim of learning English and spreading the
Saasanaa. Being blessed in learning languages, he was able
to master not only Pali, Sanskrit and English, but also
Hindi, Bengali, Gurumukhi, Urdu, and Japanese. After some
years of missionary work in England, France and Italy, he
returned to Burma in 2471 (CE 1928).

This would seem to place him in England at about the right
time to be the mystery transcriber of the Pa.tiA.

With Google I also found an intriguing mention of this monk
on a Burmese government literature site, on the subject of
Burmese biography. This seems to confirm the date:

http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/Perspective/persp2002/3-2002/mya.htm

"However, to readers with moral sensibilities the favourite
biographical subjects are the members of the Buddhist
Religious Order on the one hand, and the criminals on the
other. Among the former are the centenarian San-kin Sayadaw,
the reformist Ashin Ardatesa-wuntha (Adicca-vamsa)....

"....Myanmar writer Paragu points out that the earliest
modern Myanmar autobiography was written by the learned
Myanmar monk Shin Adicca-vamsa while he was in England
around 1927 and sent to Yangon to be serialized in the
British Burma Magazine, nos. 1 to 8, but as this Myanmar
monthly folded up after the 8th issue we have not seen the
latter parts of the autobiography. According to Paragu, the
autobiography was completed, though up to now, not published
in book form. It was entitled "Adicca-wuntha htay-ra
padan...."

"....Autobiography should contain a greater guarantee of
truth than any other form of biography, since the central
figure of the book appears also as a witness of the events
which he records. Shin Adicca-wuntha was so open and frank
and wrote the truth about why he had to leave the monkhood
that his followers burnt the pamphlet he issued about the
last days of his life as a monk."

Jim, thanks for the posting from the Diipanii. I see that
your rendering of the first paragraph is virtually the same
as Maha Nimitr's. I will look at the rest tomorrow.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1108 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:01pm 
Subject: Re: Saddasangaha & Aadiccava.msa

Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

I have a book entitled _Sangha and State in Burma_ by Michael
Mendelson. This book describes the leadership role of many important
Sayadaws in the early part of the 20th century. There is mention (the
only one) of a certain U Ardeissawuntha which I thought might be the
same person as "the reformist Ashin Ardatesa-wuntha (Adicca-vamsa)" in
your quote but I could be wrong. I will quote what it says:

"By the 1930s he [Bagaya Sayadaw, Paduma -- jim] took a strong stand
against separation from India, and by the time of the Round Table
discussions with the British on future independence for Burma, his
stature was such that he was consulted by participants before the
negotiations left for England. He was deeply involved in arguing
issues involving monastic courts in 1928, and in 1935 he led a
determined group of monks to exommunicate U Ardeissawuntha of
Pazundaung for his book recommending the admission of women to the
Order." -- p.291

A footnote cites a reference to the Rangoon Gazette, Sept. 10, 1935.

Best wishes,
Jim


> The preface states: "In 2461 (CE 1918) when Aadiccava.msa
> had seventeen rains he travelled to India, Sri Lanka and
> England, with the aim of learning English and spreading the
> Saasanaa. Being blessed in learning languages, he was able
> to master not only Pali, Sanskrit and English, but also
> Hindi, Bengali, Gurumukhi, Urdu, and Japanese. After some
> years of missionary work in England, France and Italy, he
> returned to Burma in 2471 (CE 1928).
>
> This would seem to place him in England at about the right
> time to be the mystery transcriber of the Pa.tiA.
>
> With Google I also found an intriguing mention of this monk
> on a Burmese government literature site, on the subject of
> Burmese biography. This seems to confirm the date:
>
> http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/Perspective/persp2002/3-2002/mya.htm
>
> "However, to readers with moral sensibilities the favourite
> biographical subjects are the members of the Buddhist
> Religious Order on the one hand, and the criminals on the
> other. Among the former are the centenarian San-kin Sayadaw,
> the reformist Ashin Ardatesa-wuntha (Adicca-vamsa)....
....

1109 
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:37am 
Subject: Re: Phra Maha Nimitr's intro

Dear Bhante Dhammanando

You wrote:

>Phra Maha Nimitr begins his introduction with a brief account of the division of Pali grammars into major and minor ones. His taxonomy is different to the one I am
>familiar with. I had thought that 'major' referred to the Kaccaayana, Moggallaana, and Saddaniiti grammars, and 'minor' to all the rest. In Maha Nimitr's scheme 'major' refers to pioneering grammars written in the form of suttas,and 'minor' to derivative grammars written in verse for the sake of easy memorization. (Grammatical .tiikaas like the Padaruupasiddhi don't appear to fit in either category). In the 'major' category he states that there are four: the Kaccaayana, Moggallaana, Saddaniiti, and (surprisingly) the
>Saddasa`ngaha grammars. As for the minor grammars, he limits these to texts composed in Burma and Thailand, states that they number more than thirty, and gives as examples the
>Sa`nkhyaapakaasaka of ~Naa.navilaasa, the Vajirasaaratthasa`ngaha of Ratanapa~n~na, and the present work, the Saddatthabhedacintaa. 
>
That taxonomy of Phra Maha Nimitr is identical with what we in Burma 
have known all along.

If a grammarian, pioneer or not, sets out a book in the form of suttas, 
he is founding an independent and self-contained system of grammar to 
describe the Pali language. He may be heavily influenced by his 
predecessors yet he has full liberty to differ from them if he chooses.

Viewed in this way, there are altogether four Pali grammatical systems, 
namely, Kaccaayana, Moggallaana, Saddaniiti and Saddasa`ngaha. They are 
called "major" grammars. Padaruupasiddhi, and other commentaries don't 
have a separate category. They, on the contrary, are viewed as 
subservient to the particular system they are commenting upon; 
Padaruupasiddhi, for instance, belongs to Kaccaayana system, for it is a 
commentary on Kaccaayana suttas using a different order.

On the other hand, those tending to have narrower scopes, that is, those 
choosing to explain certain topics or concepts are not presented in 
suttas. They usually come in versified form, and viewed as "minor" grammars.

>If I may digress a little, the above-mentioned Saddasa`ngaha was composed shortly before the Fifth Council by King Mindon's Minister, U Bo Hlaing (the Aggasenaapati Wetmasut
>Myoza Wunshindaw Mingyi, 1814-1878). It is not listed in Bode's _Pali Literature of Burma_, but is discussed by Maung Htin, in his biographical preface to Bagshawe's translation of U Bo Hlaing's _Raajadhammasa`ngaha_. 
>
"Raajadhammasa`ngaha" is a book on political theory. I have never heard 
of "Bagshawe", the translator, but the preface author Maung Htin seems 
to be Dr. Htin Aung, the late rector of Rangoon University; he had 
doctorates in English and law from Oxford. Anyway, he was not a Pali 
scholar. This fact has distorted his translation of technical Burmese 
used in religious literature.

>To judge from Htin's account, there seems to be little ground (aside from the author's pretensions) for treating the Saddasa`ngaha as 'major'. Htin's account is a little diffuse but as it is the only information I can find on the text I will quote it in full: 
>
I would give my view later.

>"Besides this, in the year 1231 [1869 CE] the Atwinwun [another of U Bo Hlaing's titles] began to write a book that was described as "_Saddasangaha_, like Ashin Buddhaghosas
>_Sangaha Athakatha_, eliminating spurious words from various Sanskrit and Magadhi grammars and listing those words that are suitable for use in the Theravada". This was completed
>in 1235 [1873 CE]. The words "listing words suitable for use in the Theravada" that he wrote, fitted in very well with King Mindon's cherished plans for the Fifth Sangayana. It is not known for certain whether or not the Yaw Atwinwun wrote the book with the Sangayana in mind. 
>
The quotation you give, "listing those words that are suitable for use 
in the Theravada" is questionable. I have never seen the text myself, 
but certainly it is not a list of words.

>"In connection with the _Saddasangaha_, in his _Chiddavidhanani_ the Hsayadaw of the Mahavisuddha-yon, U Visuddhacara, made some criticisms. In his critique he says that Yaw Atwinwun approached the first Shweigyin Thathanabaing, the Shweigyin Hsayadaw, Ashin U Jagara, with a request that he should revise and correct it. The Hsayadaws opinion was, "This is not a book with any lasting value" and he refused to revise it. Later it was handed over to the Mahavisuddha-yon Hsayadaw, who was to become the second Shweigyin Thathanabaing, and he returned it correcting the text - "in verb formation the order of words should be reversed". In spite of his criticism he gave praise and, when later on the author asked him to correct the treatment of nouns - "If the order of the sentence is
>not right, there will be a restless feeling." - he returned the authors original script without correction. The Mahavisuddha-yon Hsayadaw's criticism was "The text's true
>meaning is not given." The Hsayadaw and his supporter could discuss their differences candidly.
> 
>
I have heard of, but never read, Chiddavidhanani, but I am almost 
certain it is a Burmese book. Still I have doubts over the translated 
quotes "in verb formation the order of words should be reversed", and 
"If the order of the sentence is not right, there will be a restless 
feeling", and "the text's true meaning is not given".

>"When I asked the Mahapanyabala Hsayanyan about this, he replied that the Yaw Atwinwun was a great scholar in Sanskrit, but that in writing this book he had mixed up Pali and Sanskrit. He had not got the Pali _gati_ right and this was the reason for the Mahavisuddha-yon Hsayadaw's criticism. The word _gati_ means the _athwa ala ahta atho_
>(rhythm) of words.
>
>"When a foreigner speaks or writes our own Burmese language,we will notice that the rhythm of the words is not right. In the same way when we speak or write something in a foreign
>language, our usage and arrangement of the words may well be wrong. That is what is meant by getting the _gati_ wrong.
> 
>
The problem is with "pali-gati". I just can't think how in the world 
Maung Htin has managed to translate it as "rhythm". It is not how we in 
Burma understand the word. It should be rendered instead as "style and 
usage". What Hsayanyan means is that the style and usage of Pali 
language used in Saddasangaha has been so influenced by Sanskrit that it 
has appeared not genuine Pali. (On account of this mistranslation of 
"paligati", I have got doubts over the translations of the other quotes 
already mentioned)

Now about the treatise itself. It is still extant as a manuscript (I 
don't know it exists whether as palm leaves or as a paper manuscript) at 
Abhayaaraama Temple (Mandalay, Burma), which belongs to none other than 
Sayadaw U Silananda of Dhammananda Vihara, LA, USA. If someone can take 
the trouble to contact him, travel to Burma and get it copied, it would 
benefit all.

I have never seen the text, but I do know that it is formed of sutta, 
vutti and examples, just like Kaccaayana. I come to know it from U Tin 
Lwin, my Pali professor in Burma, who did doctorate research on the 
Sandhi chapter of that text as an overseas student of SOAS (London). He 
managed to finish all but the introduction, which other pressing tasks 
didn't allow him to complete.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

1110 
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:38am 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Jim

I have given some comments here.

[Note: Nina, you should follow the translation I have given here using RG]

You wrote:

>>Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii:
>>
>>jinavarassa niravasesadevamanussaana.m pavarabhaave satipi attanaa abhidheyyamaanapakara.naanuruupa.m bhagavato thomana.m kattukaamo
>>
>>"saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate" ty'ettha *saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavaran* tyaaha.
>> 
>>
>
>Translation:
>With respect to the excellent Conqueror's foremost state existing among all devas and men and wishing to do a salutation to the Blessed One which is fitting for the treatise being spoken by himself, he said "the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda and attha" in this (introductory verse):
> Having saluted the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda
> and attha,
> the Speaker of the Excellent; the Saddatthabhedacintaa shall now
> be spoken.
> 
>
You translation has ignored "pi", a single indeclinable yet very 
important for this context. I would rather translate it as:

"Even though there is the highest state of the excellent Conqueror among 
all devas and men, (the master), who wishes to do for the Blessed One a 
salutation that is fitting for the treatise to be delivered by himself, 
said . . ."

What the commentator means is this: the Buddha is the greatest among all 
men and gods --- not only in the circle of grammarians. However, the 
author wishes to make his salutation fitting for his work. That is why 
he chooses to praise the Buddha as the greatest grammarian.

>>tattha *saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti saddabhedavaadii- atthabhedavaadii -saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi pavarantyattho. dvandato suyyamaanattaa ekasesattaa ca.
>> 
>>
>Notes:
>For "pavarantyattho. dvandato...", I think a semi-colon or something similar (even no punctuation mark) would be better than a full stop as the phrase beginning with dvandato doesn't seem to be a sentence. 
>
Yes, I agree. It isn't a sentence.

>I also wonder if there should not be a "pavara.m" in *saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti. This was my reason for putting <the Foremost> in angled brackets below.
> 
>
I think it is not necessary. The commentator has the right to quote the 
text he wishes to comment upon either in full or in part. It is up to 
the readers to understand the missing parts.

Cf: Pubba'ngamaati tena pa.thamaghaaminaa hutvaa samannaagataa. 
(Dh-.a-1-21)

The example above is a comment on "manopubba'ngamaa" even though only 
"pubba'ngamaa" is quoted.

>Translation:
>Therein, for "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m", the meaning is "<the Foremost> with teachers who are speakers of the analysis of sadda,speakers of the analysis of attha, and speakers of the analysis of sadda and attha" -- from the fact of it being heard as a dvanda
>compound and from the fact of the 'retention of one' (ekasesa).
> 
>
I have to disagree again. The phrase "sadda . . .vaadiihi aacariyehi" is 
of ablative case, not of instrumental. When we use RG:

sadda . . .vaadiihi ---> vaadiihi (IAD - Identical Adjective relation: 
see RG - 15)
vaadiihi ---> aacariyehi (COC - Contrast Comparison relation: see RG - 11)

Then it should be translated as ". . . greater than the teachers who are 
speakers of . . . sadda and attha"

The intent of the commentator is to indicate that the genitive case of 
"saddatthabhedavaadiina.m" takes on the role of ablative case. See 
Kaccaayana sutta (309): "Dutiyaapa~camiina~nca"

Moreover, "dvandato" should not be translated as "as a dvanda compound" 
Notice the ablative sense of the suffix "to" here. To understand this 
usage, I would have to quote from one of my earlier posts.

" Next there is the problem of the ablative case in dhaatumhaa, though 
no one has raised it. It is in fact a convention used in building 
grammatical suttas. It isn't explicitly defined in Kaccaayana nor 
Ruupasiddhi, but it can be found in Moggallana (See the sutta 
"pa~ncamiya.m parassa" --- its meaning, in short, is that whenever a 
grammatical entity is given in ablative case within a sutta, the 
particular process or treatment denoted by that sutta is concerned with 
what follows that entity, not with what precedes it. This convention, 
and other given there, come to be used in vutti and commentaries like 
Ruupasiddhi. I think these conventions come from the Sanskrit 
grammatology and those fluent in Sanskrit should try to find out their 
origin" (Digest - number - 387)

According to that convention, "dvandato suyyamaanattaa" should be 
translated as "from the fact of its being heard after a dvanda compound"

But what does it exactly mean?

A rule of thumb in the Burmese tradition is that any word related to a 
dvanda compound can be interpreted as related to each member of the 
dvanda compound.
[Cf: . 
Kaamaraagaabhinivesavinibandhapaligedhapariyu.t.thaanajjhosaanahetuuti 
kaamaraagaabhinivesahetu, kaamaraagavinibandhahetu, 
kaamaraagapaligedhahetu, kaamaraagapariyu.t.thaanahetu, 
kaamaraaga-ajjhosaanahetuuti attho. (An-a-2-139)]

Here we should notice that "sadda" and "attha" are combined into a 
dvanda compound. When the resulting "saddattha" is combined with the 
following "bheda" to become "saddatthabheda", it can be interpreted to 
be equivalent to a dvanda compound "saddabheda-atthabheda" ("the 
analysis of sadda and the analysis of attha") When it is copounded to 
the following "vaadii", it becomes "sa ddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii 
(the speakers of the analysis of sadda, and the speakers of the analysis 
of attha)".

But there is still one class left: the speakers of the analysis of both 
sadda and attha. To get this sense, "saddattha" is related to "bheda" as 
a whole, and subsequently, "saddatthabheda" is related to "vaadii" as a 
whole. It is to embrace this class that the commentator says, 
"ekasesattaa ca"

What is "ekasesa"? It is a philosophical attempt to explain a seeming 
inconsistency in the language.

For instance, take the word "purisaa" in nominative plural. It may mean 
two men in one context but one hundred in another. If the sense is 
different, why should the linguistic form be the same? Some grammarians 
answer that if purisaa means one hundred men, it is really a dvanda 
compound of one hundred forms of "purisa" resulting in the form 
"purisapurisa, etc". Then one "purisa" is retained (ekasesa) with all 
others dropped. On the other hand, if it means two men, it is a dvanda 
compound formed of two "purisa"s.

In other words, they claim that "purisaa" meaning two men and "purisaa" 
meaning one hundred men are in fact different words even though similar 
in form.

In our case, the commentator indicates by "ekasesattaa" that there are 
actually two forms of "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m" combined into a dvanda 
compound --- one meaning "the speakers of the analysis of sadda, and the 
speakers of the analysis of attha" and another meaning "the speakers of 
the analysis of sadda and attha". Since they have the same form, one is 
dropped.

When we try to translate the verse in accord with the commentary, it 
should be:

"Having saluted the Speaker of the Excellent, who is greater than the 
teachers who speak of the analysis of linguistic forms, than the 
teachers who speak of the analysis of meaning, and than the teachers who 
speak of the analysis of both linguistic forms and meaning . . ."

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1111 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Apr 13, 2005 11:05am 
Subject: Re: Phra Maha Nimitr's intro

Dear Bhante,

Thank you for the information on the Saddasa`ngaha.

Ven. Pandita wrote:

> If a grammarian, pioneer or not, sets out a book in the form
> of suttas, he is founding an independent and self-contained
> system of grammar to describe the Pali language. He may be
> heavily influenced by his predecessors yet he has full
> liberty to differ from them if he chooses.
>
> Viewed in this way, there are altogether four Pali
> grammatical systems, namely, Kaccaayana, Moggallaana,
> Saddaniiti and Saddasa`ngaha. They are called "major"
> grammars.

I see. If a grammar being arranged in the form of suttas is
all that is required for it to be classed as "major", I'm a little
surprised that there are *only* four. I wonder, were others
written and later lost?

> "Raajadhammasa`ngaha" is a book on political theory. I have
> never heard of "Bagshawe", the translator, but the preface
> author Maung Htin seems to be Dr. Htin Aung, the late rector
> of Rangoon University; he had doctorates in English and law
> from Oxford.

His real name is U Htin Fatt. From Bagshawe's account he
does not seem to be the same as the person you mention:

"U Htin Fatt, on the other hand, has little to say about
himself, and an introduction is called for. He has been a
prominent feature of the Burmese literary scene for most of
his long life, mainly under his usual pen name of "Maung
Htin" Born in 1909, he started his literary career at the
Rangoon University, as an undergraduate, writing in both
Burmese and English for various magazines. He continued to
write after leaving the University in 1934, as well as
performing the duties of a township officer for the
government. When the war came, he served as Deputy Secretary
in the Information Section of Dr. Ba Maw's Foreign office,
where he wrote a play on a story provided by U Nu, the
future Prime Minister. With the war's end, he shared the
responsibility of organizing the broadcasting service. The
great success of his novel Nga Hpa and other stories,
published in 1947 gave a promise of a more interesting
livelihood than government service and in 1949 he turned to
full-time literary work, joining the staff of the Hanthawadi
newspaper. Since then his literary production has been
large, including short stories and translations from English
into Burmese - Lafcardio Hearn, H.G.Wells, and Swift's
"Gulliver's Travels" - and he has given much service to
literary and historical commissions."

> Anyway, he was not a Pali scholar. This fact has distorted
> his translation of technical Burmese used in religious
> literature.

When quoting the passage I left out a footnote in which either
the writer or the translator admits ignorance in this area:

"I am not fully conversant with the grammatical terms in
this passage and may have misunderstood."

But the footnotes are all a mess -- there's no indication of
which are Maung Htin's and which are Bagshawe's, though it's
evident both have contributed to them.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1112 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Apr 13, 2005 0:26pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Bhante,

> In our case, the commentator indicates by "ekasesattaa" that
> there are actually two forms of "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m"
> combined into a dvanda compound --- one meaning "the
> speakers of the analysis of sadda, and the speakers of the
> analysis of attha" and another meaning "the speakers of the
> analysis of sadda and attha". Since they have the same form,
> one is dropped.

Thanks for your clarification of the Diipanii passage,
especially the excellent explanation of ekasesa.

Dear members,

Anyone wishing to further explore the subject of ekasesa may
consult verses 270-284 of the Saddatthabhedacintaa.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1113 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Apr 13, 2005 9:11pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Ven. Pandita,

Thank-you for the very helpful comments and for pointing out my
mistakes.

> You translation has ignored "pi", a single indeclinable yet very
> important for this context. I would rather translate it as:

I didn't ignore "pi". I simply translated it as "and" on the basis of
one of the common usages (samuccaya) of 'api' although this may not be
the right choice or a poor one at best. Your translation with "even
though" sounds better to me and your reason for it is clear. I'm still
unfamiliar with all the ways in which 'api' or 'pi' can be used. It is
really a difficult word for me and to complicate matters further are
its combinations with other particles. I see that the usages of 'api'
is divided into seven: sambhaavana, garahaa, apekkhaa, samuccaya,
pa~nha, sa.mvara.na, and aasiisaa according to Abh 1183 and 'even
though' seems to belong to 'sambhaavana' (supposition, possibility)
and according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the 2nd meaning of
'though' is given as: (even) on the supposition that...

> "Even though there is the highest state of the excellent Conqueror
> among all devas and men, (the master), who wishes to do for the
> Blessed One a salutation that is fitting for the treatise to be
> delivered by himself, said . . ."

I will respond to the rest of your comments in a subsequent post after
I've given them more thought.

Best wishes,
Jim

1114 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:20am 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Jim & members,

> I'm still unfamiliar with all the ways in which 'api' or
> 'pi' can be used. It is really a difficult word for me and
> to complicate matters further are its combinations with
> other particles. I see that the usages of 'api' is divided
> into seven: sambhaavana, garahaa, apekkhaa, samuccaya,
> pa~nha, sa.mvara.na, and aasiisaa according to Abh 1183 and
> 'even though' seems to belong to 'sambhaavana' (supposition,
> possibility) and according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary,
> the 2nd meaning of 'though' is given as: (even) on the
> supposition that...

Sambhaavane in the Abh. passage is from sambhaavanaa rather
than sambhaavana. The meaning then is praising or
honouring, rather than supposition. The Padaruupasiddhi
gives the example "api dibbesu kaamesu" in the passage, "api
dibbesu kaamesu, merumpi vinivijjhitvaa gaccheyya." The
Abh.tiikaa gives the same words in verse 187 of the
Dhammapada:

api dibbesu kaamesu, rati.m so naadhigacchati,
ta.nhakkhayarato hoti, sammaasambuddhasaavako

"Even in heavenly sensual pleasures he [the pa.n.dita]
obtains no delight.
The disciple of the Sammaasambuddha delights in the
destruction of craving."

But this is not entirely clear to me. Where exactly did the
grammarians perceive the praise that api is meant to convey?
Are dibbaa kaamaa being praised (i.e. for their superiority
to maanusaa kaamaa)? Or is api merely highlighting dibbaa
kaamaa as a means of praising the pa.n.dita who is
indifferent to them? Obviously the latter is the point of
the line as a whole, but I am curious about the function of
api in particular.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1115 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:44am 
Subject: Major vs. Minor Grammars

Re: Major vs. Minor: 

>> Viewed in this way, there are altogether four Pali
>> grammatical systems, namely, Kaccaayana, Moggallaana,
>> Saddaniiti and Saddasa`ngaha. They are called "major"
>> grammars.
>
>I see. If a grammar being arranged in the form of suttas is
>all that is required for it to be classed as "major", I'm a little
>surprised that there are *only* four. I wonder, were others
>written and later lost?

There are other criteria. The "Major" grammars subsequent to Kacc. each 
"broke off" from the earlier tradition(s) to some considerable extent 
--although this spirit of criticism and re-invention is hardly visible to 
modern readers (who are, perhaps, accustomed to more open hostility and 
sectarianism in such matters --the Pali grammarians never evince any such 
rancour as is common to modern academia). In any case, Malalasekera's 
_History of Pali Literature in Sri Lanka_ (approximate title --i.e., from 
memory) does adumbrate the "controversies" that separate the Mogg. school 
from the Kacc. --and each new "Major" grammar was considered to have founded 
a new school of thought in the pedagogy of the language. Again, unlike 
modern controversies, I do not think there was any attempt to render earlier 
texts obsolete --but Malalasekera does draw attention to pointed differences 
of opinion between Mogg. & Kacc. --as well as between Buddhaghosa & Kacc. 
(although I find his argument less substantive on the latter point). 

In short: no, I would not say that verse vs. prose is the only criterion for 
a "Major" grammar. It may also be pointed out that most of the minor works 
declare themselves as such --being explicitly identified with one "Major" 
grammar's tradition to the exclusion of others in their introductory verses. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Even from afar like the Himalaya mountain the good reveal themselves. The 
wicked, though near, are invisible like arrows shot by night.
Random Dhammapada Verse 304

1116 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:01am 
Subject: Phra Maha Nimitr on verse 1

Phra Mahaa Nimitr:

The words _saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m_, "the Foremost
of speakers of the analysis of sadda and attha", is a term
that identifies the Buddha by one of his qualities. Even
though the Buddha was the foremost in every way among devas
and men, nevertheless the author chose to refer to the Buddha's
superiority among grammarians, this being an appropriate
thing to mention in a treatise on the subject of grammar. As
the Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii explains:

jinavarassa niravasesadevamanussaana.m pavarabhaave satipi
attanaa abhidheyyamaanapakara.naanuruupa.m bhagavato
thomana.m kattukaamo saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m
varavaadina.m abhivaadiya
saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyatety'ettha
_saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavaran_ tyaaha.

"Even though the excellent Conqueror has the foremost state
among all devas and men, (the author), wishing to pay a
tribute to the Blessed One that would be fitting for the
treatise to be delivered by himself, spoke the words
_saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m_ here [in the verse:
saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m /
abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate]."

Dhammanando:

Thanks to Jim and Ven. Pandita for your renderings of the
above. I have preferred "wishing to pay tribute" for
"thomana.m kattukaamo", rather than "wishing to do salutation".

In the Abhidhaanappadiipikaa "thomana" is listed in verses
118-9 which cover words connected with praise. I think
"salute" and its derivatives would be better for words like
namakkaara and vandanaa given in verses 426-7.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1117 
From: "abhidhammika" <suanluzaw@bodhiology.org> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 0:02pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Sayadaw Dhammanando, Sayadaw Ashin Pandita (and all)

How are you?

Sayadaw Dhammanando wrote:

"but I am curious about the function of api in particular."

The following passage from the Ganthaarambakathaa of 
Abhidhammatthavibhaavanii.tiikaa might shed some light on the 
sambhaavanaa sense of 'api'. 

Please link the line "tiihaakaarehi bhagavato thomanaa kataa 
hoti" with the passage "Tattha devadattaadiisu virodhisattesupi 
niccam hitajjhaasayataa, aparipaakagatindriyaanam 
indriyaparipaakakaalaagamanaca aasayo naama. Tadaasattaanam pana 
laabhasakkaaraadinirapekkhacittassa yaanattayamukhena 
sabbadukkhaniyyaanikadhammadesanaa payogo naama."

Ma.nima`njuusaa, the commentary on the above .Tiikaa explains "Api" 
in "virodhisattesupi" as follows.

"Api saddo ... sambhaavanattho vaa, virodhisattesupi niccam 
hitajjhaasayataa hoti, ko pana vaado avirodhisattesuuti attho."

With five-fold touch bow,

Suan Lu Zaw



Ettaavataa ca hetuphalasattuupakaarasampadaavasena 
tiihaakaarehi bhagavato thomanaa kataa hoti. Tattha 
hetusampadaa naama mahaakaru.naasamaayogo 
bodhisambhaarasambhara.naca. Phalasampadaa pana aa.napahaana-
aanubhaavaruupakaayasampadaavasena catubbidhaa. Tattha 
sabbautaaa.napada.t.thaanam maggaaa.nam, tammuulakaani ca 
dasabalaadiaa.naani aa.nasampadaa. Savaasana
sakalasamkilesaanamaccantamanuppaadadhammataapaadanam 
pahaanasampadaa. Yathicchitanipphaadane aadhipaccam 
aanubhaavasampadaa. Sakalalokanayanaabhisekabhuutaa pana 
lakkha.naanubyajanappa.tima.nitaa attabhaavasampatti 
ruupakaayasampadaa naama. Sattuupakaaro pana aasayapayogavasena 
duvidho. Tattha devadattaadiisu virodhisattesupi niccam 
hitajjhaasayataa, aparipaakagatindriyaanam 
indriyaparipaakakaalaagamanaca aasayo naama. Tadaasattaanam pana 
laabhasakkaaraadinirapekkhacittassa yaanattayamukhena 
sabbadukkhaniyyaanikadhammadesanaa payogo naama.

--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, Dhammanando Bhikkhu 
<dhammanando@c...> wrote:


Dear Jim & members,

> I'm still unfamiliar with all the ways in which 'api' or
> 'pi' can be used. It is really a difficult word for me and
> to complicate matters further are its combinations with
> other particles. I see that the usages of 'api' is divided
> into seven: sambhaavana, garahaa, apekkhaa, samuccaya,
> pa~nha, sa.mvara.na, and aasiisaa according to Abh 1183 and
> 'even though' seems to belong to 'sambhaavana' (supposition,
> possibility) and according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary,
> the 2nd meaning of 'though' is given as: (even) on the
> supposition that...

Sambhaavane in the Abh. passage is from sambhaavanaa rather
than sambhaavana. The meaning then is praising or
honouring, rather than supposition. The Padaruupasiddhi
gives the example "api dibbesu kaamesu" in the passage, "api
dibbesu kaamesu, merumpi vinivijjhitvaa gaccheyya." The
Abh.tiikaa gives the same words in verse 187 of the
Dhammapada:

api dibbesu kaamesu, rati.m so naadhigacchati,
ta.nhakkhayarato hoti, sammaasambuddhasaavako

"Even in heavenly sensual pleasures he [the pa.n.dita]
obtains no delight.
The disciple of the Sammaasambuddha delights in the
destruction of craving."

But this is not entirely clear to me. Where exactly did the
grammarians perceive the praise that api is meant to convey?
Are dibbaa kaamaa being praised (i.e. for their superiority
to maanusaa kaamaa)? Or is api merely highlighting dibbaa
kaamaa as a means of praising the pa.n.dita who is
indifferent to them? Obviously the latter is the point of
the line as a whole, but I am curious about the function of
api in particular.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1118 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:38pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Venerable Bhante Pandita,
op 13-04-2005 13:38 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@gmail.com

>>tattha *saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti saddabhedavaadii- atthabhedavaadii
-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi pavarantyattho. dvandato suyyamaanattaa
ekasesattaa ca. 
> [Note: Nina, you should follow the translation I have given here using RG]
N: Thank you, I am glad you draw my attention to it.
Bh: The phrase "sadda . . .vaadiihi aacariyehi" is
> of ablative case, not of instrumental. When we use RG:
> 
> sadda . . .vaadiihi ---> vaadiihi (IAD - Identical Adjective relation:
> see RG - 15)
N: Identical Adjective relation1 (IAD)
Here a noun in adjectival use is related to a noun it modifies. The
adjective must follow the case of the substantive but may differ in gender
and number.
mahataa purisena =...with (a/ the) great man
mahataa ---> purisena (IAD)
***
N: Applying it, is sadda a noun in adjectival use?

Bh: vaadiihi ---> aacariyehi (COC - Contrast Comparison relation: see RG -
11)
N: B. Contrastive Comparison Relation1 (COC)
When two things or persons have an attributive difference, the noun
expressing the entity of a lesser degree of quality is related to the other
representing
the attribute itself.
E.g, so asmaahi paapiyataro =... He (is) worse than us.
asmaahi ---> paapiyataro (COC)
aya.m saccamaggaa a~n~no =... This (path is) different from the path of
truth.
saccamaggaa ---> a~n~no (COC)

Bh: Then it should be translated as ". . . greater than the teachers who are
> speakers of . . . sadda and attha"
> 
> The intent of the commentator is to indicate that the genitive case of
> "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m" takes on the role of ablative case. See
> Kaccaayana sutta (309): "Dutiyaapa~camiina~nca"
N: This is difficult for me, but perhaps the ti after
saddatthabhedavaadiinan denotes that the commentator wants to elucidate?
I have trouble with the attho: pavarantyattho. Translated as : this is the
meaning? 
Bh: What is "ekasesa"? It is a philosophical attempt to explain a seeming
> inconsistency in the language.
....
> In our case, the commentator indicates by "ekasesattaa" that there are
> actually two forms of "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m" combined into a dvanda
> compound --- one meaning "the speakers of the analysis of sadda, and the
> speakers of the analysis of attha" and another meaning "the speakers of
> the analysis of sadda and attha". Since they have the same form, one is
> dropped.
N: ekasesatta means: the fact (state) of one left?
Bh: When we try to translate the verse in accord with the commentary, it
> should be:
> 
> "Having saluted the Speaker of the Excellent, who is greater than the
> teachers who speak of the analysis of linguistic forms, than the
> teachers who speak of the analysis of meaning, and than the teachers who
> speak of the analysis of both linguistic forms and meaning . . ."
N: Thank you very much.
With respect,
Nina.

1119 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:14pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Suan,
please, would you translate this for me in English? It is difficult for me.
Thank you,
Nina. 
op 14-04-2005 18:02 schreef abhidhammika op suanluzaw@bodhiology.org:
> 
> Please link the line "tiihaakaarehi bhagavato thomanaa kataa
> hoti" with the passage "Tattha devadattaadiisu virodhisattesupi
> niccam hitajjhaasayataa, aparipaakagatindriyaanam
> indriyaparipaakakaalaagamanaca aasayo naama. Tadaasattaanam pana
> laabhasakkaaraadinirapekkhacittassa yaanattayamukhena
> sabbadukkhaniyyaanikadhammadesanaa payogo naama."
> 
> Ma.nima`njuusaa, the commentary on the above .Tiikaa explains "Api"
> in "virodhisattesupi" as follows.
> 
> "Api saddo ... sambhaavanattho vaa, virodhisattesupi niccam
> hitajjhaasayataa hoti, ko pana vaado avirodhisattesuuti attho."

1120 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:10pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1

Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

> Sambhaavane in the Abh. passage is from sambhaavanaa rather
> than sambhaavana.

Thanks for pointing this out. It is understood as 'sambhaavanaa' in
the Saddaniiti passage on p. 884 in Ch. 27 and in the CPD entry for
'api'.

> The meaning then is praising or honouring, rather than supposition.

Yes, this is supported by its definition in the Saddaniiti:
sambhaavanaati ukka.msanaa thomanaa (Ch. 4). I think the word is
derived from a causative stem like the causative verb 'sambhaaveti'
defined in Sadd. as: sambhaavetiiti yassa kassaci gu.na.m sambhaaveti
sambhaavayati su.t.thu pakaaseti ukka.mseti (Ch 1). The verb
'pakaaseti' and its cognates are often found in the commentaries in
the sense of explaining. So this could be a clue--cp. 'sa.mva.n.neti'
(praise) with 'sa.mva.n.nanaa' (commentary).

The meaning of 'supposition' is found in the Conspectus Terminorum (in
French) in the appendices to Smith's ed. of Sadd. under 4.2.3.2:
"supposition sambhaavanaa 884,15 (sa.mkaava.t.thaana ?)". The word
'sambhaavanaa' also appears in one of the nine types of
kammadhaarayas: sambhaavanaapubbapada (eg. dhammo
ti buddhi dhammabuddhi). The Conspectus defines this at 5.2.2.2 as: "a
contenu d'un jugement sambhaavanaapubbapada (fonction de iti)".
However, it now seems to me that these definitions may not be right.

[...]

> But this is not entirely clear to me. Where exactly did the
> grammarians perceive the praise that api is meant to convey?
> Are dibbaa kaamaa being praised (i.e. for their superiority
> to maanusaa kaamaa)? Or is api merely highlighting dibbaa
> kaamaa as a means of praising the pa.n.dita who is
> indifferent to them? Obviously the latter is the point of
> the line as a whole, but I am curious about the function of
> api in particular.

I think 'sambhaavanaa' could be linked to 'highlighting' or
'focusing'. I looked up 'even' in the colossal _A Comprehensive
Grammar of the English Language_ by Randolph Quirk et al and found an
interesting category of adverbials called 'focusing subjuncts' that
contain many of the translations of api/pi often met with. Focusing
subjuncts are further divided into two subcategories: 1) restrictives
(exclusives and particularizers) and 2) additives. "Additive subjuncts
indicate that the utterance concerned is additionally true in respect
of the part focused: [jim--these are:]
again, also, either, equally, even, further, likewise, neither,
nor, similarly, too, as well as, in addition" -- p.604

Best wishes,
Jim

1121 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:38am 
Subject: Pali Education in Lao P.D.R.

Although I walk past the Lao "Sangha College" frequently, I do not yet have 
a clear notion as to how they formally teach Pali. I managed to purchase a 
copy of one of their textbooks --which is excellent, but a Xerox of a 
pre-revolutionary (hand-written!) book. However, the textbook in question 
is merely a primer for the Lao-Dhamma *script*, not the Pali language. I 
clipped the following short article from the internet; it does indicate that 
the formal study of Pali proceeds there at a "demanding" and "academic" 
level. I would be very interested to see what textbooks they're using --in 
the long term, I'm sure I could arrange for my own book to be translated 
into Lao, and produced at low cost (just have a good book with the tables of 
declension and conjugation would probably be a big help ... even if there 
were no Lao instruction in the text).
E.M.
----------------------------------
[QUESTION:]
- Are there any places in Laos which offer Buddhist studies at an 
academically high level? 

[ANSWER:] 

Yes, there is the Sangha College at Vat Ong Teu. 

Today, Vat Ong Teu remains an important temple during celebrations in the 
city. However, there is another feature which makes this particular temple 
one of the most important in all of Laos. 

That is, the Buddhist school officially known as Sangha College. 
Otherwise called Buddhist College or Vat Ong Teu School by the locals. The 
school shares its grounds with Vat Ong Teu (or Ong Teu Temple). 

The college was originally created in 1925 to address the needs of monks 
who wanted to pursue Buddhist studies at an academically higher level - a 
level that goes further than what may be taught in temples. Its name at that 
time was "Hong hien pa bali eyut dtee tum". It is also sometimes called, by 
local scholars as, Higher School of Pali. 

The school's purpose is primarily scholary and academic. Buddhist monks 
who choose to go there to study after completing high school are those who 
take Buddhist studies extremely serious and wish to further their knowledge 
on, not only a spiritual level but, an academic one. And like any college or 
university there are requirements and expectations. 

Studies at this school include the entire range of Buddhist studies 
including the languages of Pali, "tum" and Lao. In addition, there are 
dhamma, vinnaya, history and literature studies, to name a few 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Distinctly understanding this (difference) the wise (intent) on heedfulness 
rejoice in heedfulness, delighting in the realm of Ariyas.
Random Dhammapada Verse 22

1122 
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Apr 15, 2005 6:02am 
Subject: about api

Dear Bhante and Jim

I would like to reply here to the comments of you both. And I would like 
also tell Dakagyi U Suan that this is what I understand of the 
Sambhaavanaa and Garahaa concepts in Pali and to correct me if I am wrong.

Jim wrote:

>>I'm still unfamiliar with all the ways in which 'api' or 'pi' can be used. It is really a difficult word for me and to complicate matters further are its combinations with
>>other particles. I see that the usages of 'api' is divided into seven: sambhaavana, garahaa, apekkhaa, samuccaya, pa~nha, sa.mvara.na, and aasiisaa according to Abh 1183 and 'even though' seems to belong to 'sambhaavana' (supposition,possibility) and according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the 2nd meaning of 'though' is given as: (even) on the supposition that...
>>
My intended sense for "pi / api" is "even" only. The word "though" is 
included because the clause "jinavarassa niravasesadevamanussaana.m 
pavarabhaave satipi" is an Absolute clause (See RG - 20).

Then Bhante wrote:

>Sambhaavane in the Abh. passage is from sambhaavanaa rather than sambhaavana. The meaning then is praising or honouring, rather than supposition. The Padaruupasiddhi gives the example "api dibbesu kaamesu" in the passage, "api dibbesu kaamesu, merumpi vinivijjhitvaa gaccheyya." 
>
I have to agree with Bhante here. We should take Sambhaaavanaa of the 
sense "praising, honouring", and I have taken "api" here as having that 
very sense.

>But this is not entirely clear to me. Where exactly did the grammarians perceive the praise that api is meant to convey? Are dibbaa kaamaa being praised (i.e. for their superiority to maanusaa kaamaa)? Or is api merely highlighting dibbaa kaamaa as a means of praising the pa.n.dita who is indifferent to them? Obviously the latter is the point of
>the line as a whole, but I am curious about the function of api in particular.
>
The English word "even" is the best available equivalent of "api" having 
the senses of "Sambhaavanaa", and its opposite, "garahaa (disapproval)". 
Let's see some English examples through the eyes of ancient Pali 
grammarians.

"(1) Even Buddhas cannot escape death. (2) It is out of the question for 
ordinary mortals like us."
In (1) above, "even" has the sense of Sambhaavanaa, which suggests 
implicit praise for, i.e., a favourable opinion of, Buddhas, and 
automatically implies the existence of the opposite, which is made 
explicit by (2). You would notice that (1) is not complete without (2).

"(3) Even the devil himself would not commit such an act. (4) It is out 
of the question for a good man like me"
In (3) above, "even" has the sense of Garahaa, which suggests implicit 
dislike for the devil, and automatically implies the existence of the 
opposite, which is made explicit by (4). (3) is not complete without (4).

"Even though the Buddha himself visited the town, the foolish people 
failed to achieve enlightenment"

Here "even" indicates implicit praise for the Buddha in the subordinate 
clause, and the opposite is expressed in the main clause.
To sum up, the senses of Sambhaavanaa and Garahaa complement each other 
either in consecutive sentences or in different clauses.

Some Pali examples:

(1) yadipi so buddha.m passati. (2) tathaapi dhamma.m sotu.m na icchati.
Trs.: (1) Even though he meets the Buddha . . . (2) (He) has no wish 
to listen to the dhamma.

Here "api" in (1) indicates Sambhaavanaa while "tathaapi" in (2) 
suggests Garahaa.

That sentence can be paraphrased as a single sentence:

So buddha.m passantopi dhamma.m sotu.m na icchati. (Translation is the same)

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1123 
From: "abhidhammika" <suanluzaw@bodhiology.org> 
Date: Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:56am 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1 : To Nina

Dear Nina (and all)

How are you?

You asked:

"please, would you translate this for me in English? It is difficult 
for me."

The following are rather spontaneous rough translations of the 
relevant Pali passages.

"hetuphalasattuupakaarasampadaavasena tiihaakaarehi bhagavato 
thomanaa kataa hoti." 

"Glorification of the Buddha is done by three attributes in terms of 
completeness of cause, result and benefiting of sentient beings."

"Sattuupakaaro pana aasayapayogavasena duvidho. Tattha 
devadattaadiisu virodhisattesupi niccam hitajjhaasayataa, 
aparipaakagatindriyaanam indriyaparipaakakaalaagamanaca aasayo 
naama. Tadaasattaanam pana laabhasakkaaraadinirapekkhacittassa 
yaanattayamukhena sabbadukkhaniyyaanikadhammadesanaa payogo naama."

"Benefiting of sentient beings, on the other hand, is of two kinds 
in terms of wish and effort. There, the capacity for always wishing 
advantage even in the opponents like Devadatta and the like, and 
waiting for the time of maturation of receptivity of those who 
haven't yet reached the ripening of faculties for insight are called 
wish. To the other receptive sentient beings, on the other hand, 
delivery of teaching for liberation from all the miseries by the 
three lead vehicles (of three characteristics), having the mind 
without concern for gifts and fame, is called effort."

"Api saddo ... sambhaavanattho vaa, virodhisattesupi niccam
hitajjhaasayataa hoti, ko pana vaado avirodhisattesuuti attho."

"Alternatively, the term "Api" has the sense of praise, the 
line "the Buddha has the capacity for always wishing advantage even 
in the opponents," has the meaning "What (more) is there to say in 
the case of the non-opponents?" "

I hope the above translations give you some insights.

With regards,

Suan 



--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@x> wrote:

Dear Suan,
please, would you translate this for me in English? It is difficult 
for me.
Thank you,
Nina.
op 14-04-2005 18:02 schreef abhidhammika op suanluzaw@...:
>
> Please link the line "tiihaakaarehi bhagavato thomanaa kataa
> hoti" with the passage "Tattha devadattaadiisu virodhisattesupi
> niccam hitajjhaasayataa, aparipaakagatindriyaanam
> indriyaparipaakakaalaagamanaca aasayo naama. Tadaasattaanam pana
> laabhasakkaaraadinirapekkhacittassa yaanattayamukhena
> sabbadukkhaniyyaanikadhammadesanaa payogo naama."
>
> Ma.nima`njuusaa, the commentary on the above .Tiikaa explains "Api"
> in "virodhisattesupi" as follows.
>
> "Api saddo ... sambhaavanattho vaa, virodhisattesupi niccam
> hitajjhaasayataa hoti, ko pana vaado avirodhisattesuuti attho."

1124
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Fri Apr 15, 2005 3:30pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1 : To Nina
 
    Dear Suan,
Thank you very much for the trouble. I like this passage very much.
Nina. 
op 15-04-2005 16:56 schreef abhidhammika op suanluzaw@bodhiology.org:

> 
> "hetuphalasattuupakaarasampadaavasena tiihaakaarehi bhagavato
> thomanaa kataa hoti."
>
 
1125
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Fri Apr 15, 2005 3:30pm 
Subject: Re: about api
 
    Venerable Bhante Pandita,
I find the examples very clear, thank you.
I shall look up RG 20
With respect,
Nina. 
op 15-04-2005 12:02 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@gmail.com:

> The English word "even" is the best available equivalent of "api" having
> the senses of "Sambhaavanaa", and its opposite, "garahaa (disapproval)".
> Let's see some English examples through the eyes of ancient Pali
> grammarians.
> 
> "(1) Even Buddhas cannot escape death. (2) It is out of the question for
> ordinary mortals like us."
> In (1) above, "even" has the sense of Sambhaavanaa, which suggests
> implicit praise for, i.e., a favourable opinion of, Buddhas, and
> automatically implies the existence of the opposite, which is made
> explicit by (2). You would notice that (1) is not complete without (2).
.....
 
1126
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Apr 17, 2005 1:00pm 
Subject: Re: about api
 
    Dear Ven. Pandita,

> My intended sense for "pi / api" is "even" only. The word "though"
> is included because the clause "jinavarassa
> niravasesadevamanussaana.m pavarabhaave satipi" is an Absolute
> clause (See RG - 20).

In "(See RG - 20)", what does the '20' stand for? I could not find it
in RG which only goes to p. 19. I think you must be referring to
the Absolute Clause section starting on p. 15. I agree that 'though'
goes with the locative absolute clause.

> Then Bhante wrote:
>
> >Sambhaavane in the Abh. passage is from sambhaavanaa rather than
sambhaavana. The meaning then is praising or honouring, rather than
supposition. The Padaruupasiddhi gives the example "api dibbesu
kaamesu" in the passage, "api dibbesu kaamesu, merumpi vinivijjhitvaa
gaccheyya."
> >
> I have to agree with Bhante here. We should take Sambhaaavanaa of
> the sense "praising, honouring", and I have taken "api" here as
> having that very sense.

I spent some time investigating the term found in Sanskrit.
I didn't think I'd find much more in the Pali texts on what is meant
by 'sambhaavanaa'. In order to find out more it sometimes helps
to look in the Sanskrit linguistic texts for further information. Of
course, one has to bear in mind that usage can differ widely between
the two related languages. Here are some of my findings:

1) It is the neuter 'sambhaavanam' that is used by Paa.nini instead of
the feminine form. This could explain the use of the neuter in Abh
1183.

2) There is a sutra in Panini's work that treats 'api' as a
karmapravacaniiya in the uses of padaartha, sambhaavana,
anvavasarga, garhaa, and samuccaya. (api.h
padaarthasambhaavanaanvavasargagarhaasamuccaye.su 1.4.96)

3) In his translation of Panini's work, S.C. Vasu takes 'sambhaavana'
to mean possibility, supposition---just as in the dictionaries. This
is puzzling to me because I cannot make this connection in the
explanations found in the Kaa"sikaav.rtti and its 2 subcommentaries.
'Possibility, supposition' could be due to 'api' being used with the
optative (li"n).

4) The Kaa"sikaav.rtti glosses 'sambhaavanam' with
"adhikaarthavacanena "sakterapratighaataavi.skara.nam." (1.4.96). I
read here a synonym 'aavi.skara.nam' (making clear) for
'sambhaavanam'. Jinendrabuddhi in his Nyaasa adds 'pakaa"sanam'
(elucidation) as a second one. Recall part of the Saddaniiti
explanation of 'sambhaaveti': su.t.thu *pakaaseti* ukka.mseti
(emphasis mine) which I think is important as it links to
Jinendrabuddhi's 'pakaa"sanam'. ' "sakterapratighaata' is unclear (the
non-opposition of shakti (m.) ??).

5) "adhikaarthavacanena" (with an exaggerated statement or assertion)
is revealing though I think 'exaggerated' (as in the dictionaries)
carries a negative overtone. It depends on who is listening, for
instance, a non-believer might take the same assertion as exaggerated
or far-fetched while a believer might take it in a positive light (as
elevated). In Apte's entry for 'adhikaarthavacana' there is added:
"(whether of praise or blame)" and " = stuti-nindaa-phalakam
arthavaada-vacanam". Here, the pair 'stuti-nindaa' means 'praise or
blame' but I'm unsure about 'phalakam' (the shield of praise or
blame??).

6) Two examples are given in the Kaa"sikaa for this use of 'api': "api
si~ncenmuulakasahasram / api stuyaadraajaanam / " which Vasu
(questionably) translates as: possibly may sprinkle a thousand trees
(in one instant); he may praise, possibly, the king.

I don't know if any of this really helps. I have attached below my
transcription of the relevant parts of the glosses on 1.4.96. My
understanding of Sanskrit is rather limited.

Best wishes,
Jim

sambhaavanam = adhikaarthavacanena "sakterapratighaataavi.skara.nam /
api si~ncenmuulakasahasram / api stuyaadraajaanam /
--Kaa"sikaav.rtti 1.4.96

_adhikaarthavacanena_ iti / adhikaartho muulakasahasrasekaadi.h, tasya
vacanena sekaadaavarthe kriyaayaa.m
yacchakterapratighaatasyaavi.skara.nam prakaa"sana.m tatsambhaavanam
/ _api si~ncenmuulakasahasram / api stuyaadraajaanam_ iti / tasya seke
stutau ca samarthya na vihatyata ityastha.h / sambhaavane'lamiti cet
siddhaaprayoge (3.3.154) iti li"n / --Jinendrabuddhi's Nyaasa

adhikaarthavacaneneti tatsambhaavanamityartha.h / api si~ncediti /
sambhaavane li"naa tasyaiva du.skaravi.sayataamapiraaha /
--Haridatta's Padama~njarii
 
1127
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:52am 
Subject: Re: about api
 
    Dear Bhante & Suan,

Thanks very much for your examples and explanations.
Sambhaavanaa is clear to me now. I should much appreciate it
if you would comment on the remaining five uses of api (though
only if you are not too busy). I have listed them below, with
tentative translations.


3. apekkhaa (var. pekkhaa) (focussing?)

The example given is from the Paatimokkha:

ayampi dhammo aniyato
"This training rule is indeterminate."

I have no idea what purpose api serves here.

4. samuccaye (collective)

Examples:

itipi araha.m
antampi antagu.nampi aadaaya

I wonder, would api-samuccaye be the same as the
api-sampi.n.danatthe that one sometimes meets with in the
commentaries? For example, the Udaana to the Appaayuka Sutta
reads:

ye keci bhuutaa bhavissanti ye vaapi,
sabbe gamissanti pahaaya deha.m
ta.m sabbajaani.m kusalo viditvaa,
aataapiyo brahmacariya.m careyyaa ti
(Ud. 48)

The Atthakathaa then glosses api on the first line:

"api" saddo sampi.n.danattho. tena nibbattamaanepi
sa`nga.nhaati.

5. pa~nhe (interrogative)

api bhante bhikkha.m labhittha?

This one seems simple enough.

6. sa.mvara.ne (closing, obstructing)
Example:

apidhaana.m
"A lid."

Does sa.mvara.na only apply where api is used as a prefix?

7. aasi.msaa / aasiisaa (hoping)

No examples given in the Padaruupasiddhi or
Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.tiikaa.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando
 
1128
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Apr 18, 2005 10:29am 
Subject: Re: Re: about api
 
    Dear Ven. Dhammanando,

> 7. aasi.msaa / aasiisaa (hoping)
>
> No examples given in the Padaruupasiddhi or
> Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.tiikaa.

Th CPD gives some examples but doesn't say how it came up with them.
The entire article for 'api' is really quite long (just over 7
columns) and at the beginning it lists the 7 traditional meanings. No.
7 is:

(VII) aasa.msaa (cf. "sa"nkaa in Am-k l.c. and see below A (1) (a, 2 &
3), of which Abh-suuci gives no examples;...

A api (1) prothetic: (a) in the beginning of the sentence...

(2) expectative = perhaps, may be (with pot. (or indic. ??)); Sn 417
(ap'ettha mudu vindemaa, api assaadanaa siyaa) = SN I 124,6*;... [7
other examples given]

(3) optative (or deliberative) (with pot.; cf. (2)); Vin III 25,17
(ap'aaha.m Buddha.m paccakkheyya.m; cf. yan nuunaaha.m Buddha.m p...,
ib. 24,31);.. [3 other examples given]

Jim
  
1129
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Apr 18, 2005 11:36am 
Subject: Re: Re: about api (corrections)
 
    Corrections:

> (2) expectative = perhaps, may be (with pot. (or indic. ??)); Sn 417
> (ap'ettha mudu vindemaa, api assaadanaa siyaa) = SN I 124,6*;... [7
> other examples given]

Sn 417 should read Sn 447, and 'vindemaa' should be 'vindema'.

The whole verse is:

447. Medava.n.na.m va paasaa.na.m vaayaso anupariyagaa:
ap'ettha mudu vindema, api assaadanaa siyaa. --PTS ed. p.77

K.R. Norman's translation:
447. A bird circled a stone which looked like fat, (thinking)
"Perhaps we shall find something soft here, perhaps there may be
(something) sweet." --The Group of Discourses II, p,47

I think 'perhaps' is similar to 'possibly'.

Jim
 
1130
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Tue Apr 19, 2005 8:17am 
Subject: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verses 11-15
 
    [11]
sotaalambana'maapanno sa`nketena vavatthito
atthassa ~naapako saddo naa'sante kaara.nadvaye.

he.t.thaa attho pakaarattaati vacana.m anussaritvaa maagadho
vaa hotu dami.labhaasaadi vaa. sabbo cittajasaddo
kaara.nadvayasampannoyeva atthopakaaroti niyametu.m
_sotaalambana ... dvaye_ ti vutta.m.

sotapasaadassa aapaathamaagatattaa ca, aya.m saddo
imassatthassa vaacakoti sa`nketena pubbeyeva vavatthitattaa
ca, cittajo saddo atthassa ~naapako. etasmi.m kaara.nadvaye
asante na ~naapako.

[12]
bhedaabhedakabhuutattha.m pu.n.na.m vohaaranissita.m
naanaapada.m vibhaaveti ya.m ta.m vaakyanti vuccati.

padasseva vaakyanti vattabbataakaara.m dassetu.m aaha
_bhedaabhedaka ... vuccate_ ti. vohaaranissita.m lokaana.m
vacane nissita.m. yathaavohaara.m pakatipaccayaadivibhaagena
kappetvaa nipphaaditanti vutta.m hoti. _naanaapadan_ ti
iminaa tulyaadhikara.na.m lokopacaaragaha.nasiddhiti hi
vutta.m.

ettha lokavohaarato saddassa siddhanti attho.
vohaaranissita.m ya.m naanaapada.m niila~nca ta.m uppala~nca
ra~n~no purisoti-aadika.m visesanavisesyabhuuta.m attha~nca
puriso gacchati, odano pacitvaa bhu~njateti-aadika.m
kriyaakaarakaparipu.n.na.m attha~nca vibhaaveti. ta.m
vaakyanti vuccate. yathaavutta.m attha.m vacatiiti vaakyanti
viggaho.

ettha ca _vohaaranissitan_ ti visesanena lokehi avoharita.m
kusalaa ruupa.m cakkhumaati-aadika.m
a~n~nama~n~nasambandha.m nippayojana.m naanaapada.m
nivatteti.

[13]
ani.t.thite pade va.n.no vaak'khara.m ni.t.thite pada.m
vaakya.m tassamudaayo tama~n~no~n~naapekkhalakkha.na.m.

_ani.t.thi ... lakkha.na.m_ vaa apare nayo. purisoti pade
ani.t.thite pu iti ri iti so iti ekeko va.n.no akkhara.m
naama. ni.t.thite pana pada.m naama. tassamudaayo
padasamudaayo vaakya.m naama. ta.m vaakya.m
a~n~no~n~naapekkhalakkha.na.m. na yo vaa so vaa
padasamudaayoti iminaa dasa daa.limaa kusalaa ruupa.m
cakkhumaati-aadika.myeva pa.tikkhipati. _ani.t.thite_
tyaadi-imissaa gaathaayapi "ekaakhyaato padacayo siyaa
vaakya.m sakaarako" ti [note 1] aparehi vuttagaathaayapi
vaakyattho eva veditabbo. a~n~nama~n~nasambandhattho vuccati
etena padasamudaayenaati vaakyanti.

imasmi.m vaakyavaadamhi idha vutto purimo pacchimo ca dve
nayaa. aparehi vuttanayo ekoti tiisu nayesu majjhimanayo eva
sabbasa`ngaahako. na itare dve nayaa. purimanayo hi saraa
sare lopa.m, akkhinaa kaa.no, sama.no ca braahma.no
caatyaadiina.m visesanavisesitabbabhaavato
aparipu.n.nakriyaakaarakattaa ca na sa.mgaahako.

tathaa aparehi vuttanayopi aakhyaatavirahaana.m "satthaaraa
desito aya.m dhammo" ti [note 2] aadiina.m
kaarakavirahaana.m "ra~n~no puriso" tyaadiina~nca [note 3]
sabbavaakyaana.m na sa`ngaahakoti ete dve nayaa
yathaalaabhanayaa naama.

[14]
pa.ti~n~naa-upamaa-hetu-udaahara.na-niggama-
vasenaa'vayavaa pa~ncavidhaa vaakye yathaaraha.m.

_pa.ti~n~naa ... rahan_ tyattha pa.ti~n~naa ... ggamavasena
vaakye avayavaa pa~ncavidhaa yathaaraha.m. padhaana.m katvaa
vuttavacana.m _pa.ti~n~naa_ naama. nidassana.m
_udaahara.na.m_ naama. ime dhammaa kusalaati-aadi viya
niggamanavacana.m _niggamana.m_ naama. pa~ncavidhaati
sabbasa`ngaahakavasena vutta.m. na hi sabbasmi.m vaakye
pa~nca pa~nca avayavaa honti. katthaci ekoyeva vaa dveyeva
vaa tayoyeva vaa cattaaroyeva vaa katthaci pa~ncapi
yathaaraha.m honti. tenaaha yathaaraha~nca.

[15]
yathaa mahaanase evamaggi dahanadhuumato
manyate kattha dhamminosiddhito'calamatthake.

pa~ncaavayavasampanna.m vaakya.m udaaharanto "_yathaa mahaa
... calamatthake_" ti aaha. _mahaanase_ ti bhattapacanagehe.
dahana.m u.nha.m, _dhamminosiddhito_ ti dhammino asiddhitoti
chedo. upameyyassa asiddhitotyattho.

_acalamatthake_ ti pabbatamatthake.

yathaa mahaanase aggidahanato ca dhuumato ca _manyate_
~naayate. eva.m aggi manyate. tattha manyati dhammino
aggissa asiddhito acalamatthaketi nidassetabbo.

ettha ca yathaa ... aggiiti upamaa. evanti niggamana.m.
dahanadhuumatoti ~naapakahetu. te ~naapakahetu ca tividho
sabhaavahetu byatirekahetu kaariyahetuuti. aggi atthi
natthiiti ~naatu.m uddhana.t.thaane hatthena paraamasante
yena u.nhena aggi atthiiti jaanaati. ta.m u.nha.m
sabhaava~naapakahetu. paraamasante yena siitena aggi
natthiiti jaanaati. ta.m byatireka~naapakahetu. dhuumassa
agginaa kaariyattaa kattabbattaa aggissa phalattaa dhuumo
kaariya~naapakahetu. eva.m aggi manyateti pa.ti~n~naa.
padhaanavacanattaa. acalamatthaketi udaahara.na.m.
upameyya-aggissa nidassanattaa.

yathaa mahaanase aggidahanadhuumato manyate. kattha aggiiti.
acalamatthaketi vaakye pana cattaaro avayavaa. evanti
niggamanassa hiinattaa.

iminaa nayena aparipu.n.naavayavaani vaakyaani
da.t.thabbaani. saraa sare lopanti vaakye pa.ti~n~naa ekaava.

_________________
Notes

1. Abhidhaanappadiipikaa 106
2. Kaccaayana 60
3. Baalaavataara 216
 
 1131
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:14am 
Subject: Two texts unknown to me

    Hello, 

Below are two texts I've never before seen. #1 is in Sinhalese script 
--apparently-- I would be interested to know if it is also in the Sinhalese 
language, or if it is pure Pali. #2 seems like a very mainstream 
publication --but I have never seen a copy, and would be pleased if anyone 
would "review" it for me, as it would cost me quite a bit to order it here 
in Laos. 

E.M. 

#1
THERA, KACCAYANA MAHA AND SANGHANANDI MAHA THERA. 

Kaccayana Vutti. The Standard Grammar of The Pali Language. 

Revised and Edited by The Ven'ble Dharmakirti Sri Dharmarama. Published by 
Fredrick Perera Abayasinha Appuhamy at The Satyasamuccaya Press, 1904. 127 
pages. Private green imitation leather binding. (Pluviusin). No title on 
back. A few pages repaired with tape. With some yellow spots. Good. * * Text 
in Sinhalese. 

#2
Johansson, Rune E.A. 

PALI BUDDHIST TEXTS An introductory reader and grammar 

Fine condition RoutledgeCurzon 1998 Third rev. ed Paperback 160 pages This 
introductory book centres on a collection of original Pali Buddhist texts, 
each selected to represent a formulation of a Buddhist idea. There are 
detailed explanations of technical terms, vocabularies, translations and 
commentaries for each text, and a chapter comparing Pali with Sanskrit.
Bookseller Inventory #DX44403 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Even as a fire consumes all obstacles, both great and small, a monk, who 
delights in heedfulness and who views heedlessness with fear, consumes 
attachments, both great and small.
Random Dhammapada Verse 31
  
1132
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:38am 
Subject: Re: Two texts unknown to me
 
    Dear Eisel,

On 20 Apr 2005, at 3:14 pm, navako wrote:

> #2 seems like a very mainstream publication --but I have
> never seen a copy, and would be pleased if anyone would
> "review" it for me, as it would cost me quite a bit to order
> it here in Laos.
>
> Johansson, Rune E.A.
>
> PALI BUDDHIST TEXTS An introductory reader and grammar

This is a very modern-style Pali course that seems aimed at
a student who's virtually a tabula rasa as far as
language-learning is concerned. It can be quite good as
a starter for someone whose education has included little
or no instruction in formal grammar.

Each of its 52 chapters begins with a short Sutta passage,
followed by an explanatory vocabulary list, a translation of
the passage, and then an explanation of the grammar in it.
These explanations don't go deeply into anything but are
clear and unintimidating. The author is (was?) a
psychologist and his choice of Sutta passages is weighted
towards those of psychological interest (much the same
selection as you'll find in his _Psychology of Nirvana_).

At the end is an appendix with rudimentary lists of the
inflections of nouns and verbs.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando
 
1133
From: "abhidhammika" <suanluzaw@bodhiology.org> 
Date: Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:14am 
Subject: Re: about api
 
    Dear Sayadaw Dhammanando, Sayadaw Ashin Pandita (and all)

How are you?

Sayadaw Dhammanando Bhikkhu wrote:

"3. apekkhaa (var. pekkhaa) (focussing?)

The example given is from the Paatimokkha:

ayampi dhammo aniyato
"This training rule is indeterminate."

I have no idea what purpose api serves here."

Suan:

Apekkhaa (looking back) refers back to the previous cases.

ayampi dhammo aniyato
"This training rule, too, is indeterminate."

A suitable paraphrase would be:

"As the previous training rules under discussion are indeterminate, 
so is this one."

DB:

"I wonder, would api-samuccaye be the same as the
api-sampi.n.danatthe that one sometimes meets with in the
commentaries?"

S:

Yes, according to the Jambudiipa Temple Sayadaws at Kambhaae in 
Rangoon who compiled Tipi.taka Pali-Myanmar Dictionary Volumes (A-
vaggo). But, they noted that Tipi.taka Niyam and Shewraesaung (Gilt 
Temple) Niyam (Saddaa Rule Guides) mentioned their differences. 
Unfortunately, I have no access to those guides.

DB:

"6. sa.mvara.ne (closing, obstructing)
Example:

apidhaana.m
"A lid."

Does sa.mvara.na only apply where api is used as a prefix?"

S:

Apidhaana.m to mean a lid is a separate noun entry in the Tipi.taka 
Pali-Myanmar Dictionary where it also notes the occurrence of the 
form "pidhaana.m" from Dhammapada Atthakathaa.

DB:

"7. aasi.msaa / aasiisaa (hoping)

No examples given in the Padaruupasiddhi or
Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.tiikaa."

S:

Api meyya (me ayya) evam hoti - . Section 527, Paaraajikaka.n.da, 
Vinaya Pi.taka.

Good lord, such a wish happens to me that ..!


With fivefold-touch bow,

Suan



--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, Dhammanando Bhikkhu 
<dhammanando@c...> wrote:

Dear Bhante & Suan,

Thanks very much for your examples and explanations.
Sambhaavanaa is clear to me now. I should much appreciate it
if you would comment on the remaining five uses of api (though
only if you are not too busy). I have listed them below, with
tentative translations.


3. apekkhaa (var. pekkhaa) (focussing?)

The example given is from the Paatimokkha:

ayampi dhammo aniyato
"This training rule is indeterminate."

I have no idea what purpose api serves here.

4. samuccaye (collective)

Examples:

itipi araha.m
antampi antagu.nampi aadaaya

I wonder, would api-samuccaye be the same as the
api-sampi.n.danatthe that one sometimes meets with in the
commentaries? For example, the Udaana to the Appaayuka Sutta
reads:

ye keci bhuutaa bhavissanti ye vaapi,
sabbe gamissanti pahaaya deha.m
ta.m sabbajaani.m kusalo viditvaa,
aataapiyo brahmacariya.m careyyaa ti
(Ud. 48)

The Atthakathaa then glosses api on the first line:

"api" saddo sampi.n.danattho. tena nibbattamaanepi
sa`nga.nhaati.

5. pa~nhe (interrogative)

api bhante bhikkha.m labhittha?

This one seems simple enough.

6. sa.mvara.ne (closing, obstructing)
Example:

apidhaana.m
"A lid."

Does sa.mvara.na only apply where api is used as a prefix?

7. aasi.msaa / aasiisaa (hoping)

No examples given in the Padaruupasiddhi or
Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.tiikaa.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando
 
1134
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:16pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1
 
    Dear Ven. Pandita,

Thank-you for your comments below. I have learnt something new.

> >Translation:
> >Therein, for "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m", the meaning is "<the
Foremost> with teachers who are speakers of the analysis of
sadda,speakers of the analysis of attha, and speakers of the analysis
of sadda and attha" -- from the fact of it being heard as a dvanda
> >compound and from the fact of the 'retention of one' (ekasesa).
> >
> >
> I have to disagree again. The phrase "sadda . . .vaadiihi
> aacariyehi" is of ablative case, not of instrumental. When we use
RG:
>
> sadda . . .vaadiihi ---> vaadiihi (IAD - Identical Adjective
> relation: see RG - 15)
> vaadiihi ---> aacariyehi (COC - Contrast Comparison relation: see
> RG - 11)
>
> Then it should be translated as ". . . greater than the teachers who
> are speakers of . . . sadda and attha"
>
> The intent of the commentator is to indicate that the genitive case
> of "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m" takes on the role of ablative case.
> See Kaccaayana sutta (309): "Dutiyaapa~camiina~nca"

The 'contrast comparison relation' comes under 'vibhatta' in Kc 275
which gives the following two examples: (with the abl.) yato
pa.niitataro vaa visi.t.thataro vaa natthi; (and with the gen.)
channavutiina.m paasa.n.daana.m dhammaana.m pavara.m yadida.m
sugatavinayo. The latter one with 'pavara.m' is syntactically similar
to our 'saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m'. I was unfamiliar with the
term 'vibhatta' (separated, separation) and its use with the genitive
even though I knew about the abl. use with comparatives in -tara
and -tama.

I had earlier understood the gen. use in 'saddatthabhedavaadiina.m
pavara.m' to belong to Kc 304 (niddhaara.ne ca) but now it seems clear
that it properly belongs under 'vibhatta' in Kc 275. Mmd 275 explains
the difference between the niddhaara.na and vibhatta uses which I have
transcribed and attached below for anyone interested.

Best wishes,
Jim

excerpt:
vibhatta.m naama vibhajana.m puthakkara.na.m // vibhattanti hi
vipubbassa bhaja puthakkara.netiimassa ruupa.m // vibhajana.m pana
duvidha.m avibhattivibhajana.m / vibhattivibhajana~nca //

tattha avibhattivibhajana.m naama gosveka.m ka.nhappakaara.m gahetvaa
samudaayato avinimuttasseva gu.nasampadhaara.na.m // ta.m yathaa //
ka.nhaa gaaviina.m sampannakhiiratamaa // saamaa naariina.m
dassaniiyatamaatyaadiina.m // tattha hi gosamudaayato vaa
naarisamudaayato vaa avinimuttaava ka.nhasaamaadayo hontiiti //
iidisesu .thaanesu niddhaara.ne [206] ceti cha.t.thiivibhatti hoti //

vibhattivibhajana.m naama tatra samudaaya.m hitvaa eka.m
puthakkatamavayava.m gahetvaa tena puthakkatenaavayavena saha
gu.nasampadhaara.na.m // ta.m yathaa // yato pa.niitataro vaa
visi.t.thataro vaa natthi / channavutiina.m paasa.n.daana.m
dhammaana.m pavara.m / yadida.m sugatavinayanti aadi // tattha hi
channavutipaasa.n.dekadesa.m sugatavinaya~nca katova gahetvaa
samudaaya.m katvaa tatra channavutipaasa.n.dekadesa.m sugatavinayato
tvapakassa channavutipaasa.n.dekadesena saha gu.nasampadhaara.na.m
hoti // idameviihaadhippeta.m // Mmd 275 (part), Zabu Press, 1929
 
1135
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:36am 
Subject: Re: Two texts unknown to me 
 
    Bhante Dhammanando, 

Thanks very much for the review --I believe I will "give it a miss". 
Conversely, the 1904 edition of Kaccayana + Vutti (in Sinhalese script) may 
be too good to pass up (given my current activities). 

I would assume the Vutti itself is in Sinhalese (rather than Pali) --but 
there will probably be enough of both Pali and English in the text to make 
the purchase worthwhile. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Weeds are the bane of fields, delusion is the bane of mankind. Hence what is 
given to those rid of delusion yields abundant fruit.
Random Dhammapada Verse 358
 
1136
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:34am 
Subject: Corrections to the relations in Diipanii on Verse 1
 
    Dear Jim and Nina

I made a very bad mistake in giving relations of the verse 1. Please 
forgive me if I have misled or confused you with my error but the 
correct relations should be as follows:

saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi ---> aacariyehi 
(IAD)
aacariyehi ---> pavara.m (COC)
*saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti ---> attho (POS - Possessor relation. See 
RG -12)
saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi 
pavaranti ---> attho.(NIO)

Please feel free if you have any other questions for me.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

ps: In Sri Lanka, this is the season of thunderstorms, which have made 
the wireless networks down. I am a wireless user, and I am finding it 
difficult even to check my email regularly. The Burmese temple in 
Colombo (I don't live there though) has an ADSL connection with LAN for 
several temple computers, but both the modem and router there have been 
damaged by a close lightning strike (still not repaired yet now). Please 
forgive me for my late posts.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1137
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:36am 
Subject: Re: about api
 
    Dear Jim

You wrote:

>In "(See RG - 20)", what does the '20' stand for? I could not find it in RG which only goes to p. 19. I think you must be referring to the Absolute Clause section starting on p. 15. I agree that 'though' goes with the locative absolute clause.
> 
>
I have extracted RG from a compilation of my lecture notes, turned it 
into PDF and uploaded. I think page numbers have been modified at the 
time of extraction. Unfortunately, the PDF file is no longer in my 
machine, I have to download it again. It is a lesson for me and thanks a 
lot for pointing it out.

>I spent some time investigating the term found in Sanskrit.
>I didn't think I'd find much more in the Pali texts on what is meant
>by 'sambhaavanaa'. In order to find out more it sometimes helps
>to look in the Sanskrit linguistic texts for further information. Of
>course, one has to bear in mind that usage can differ widely between
>the two related languages. Here are some of my findings:
>
>1) It is the neuter 'sambhaavanam' that is used by Paa.nini instead of
>the feminine form. This could explain the use of the neuter in Abh
>1183.
>
>2) There is a sutra in Panini's work that treats 'api' as a
>karmapravacaniiya in the uses of padaartha, sambhaavana,
>anvavasarga, garhaa, and samuccaya. (api.h
>padaarthasambhaavanaanvavasargagarhaasamuccaye.su 1.4.96)
> 
>
karmapravacaniiya (Pali. kammappavacaniiya) is, from what I understand 
the term, a sort of adverb, and different from the usage we are 
discussing here.

>3) In his translation of Panini's work, S.C. Vasu takes 'sambhaavana'
>to mean possibility, supposition---just as in the dictionaries. This
>is puzzling to me because I cannot make this connection in the
>explanations found in the Kaa"sikaav.rtti and its 2 subcommentaries.
>'Possibility, supposition' could be due to 'api' being used with the
>optative (li"n).
>
>4) The Kaa"sikaav.rtti glosses 'sambhaavanam' with
>"adhikaarthavacanena "sakterapratighaataavi.skara.nam." (1.4.96). I
>read here a synonym 'aavi.skara.nam' (making clear) for
>'sambhaavanam'. Jinendrabuddhi in his Nyaasa adds 'pakaa"sanam'
>(elucidation) as a second one. Recall part of the Saddaniiti
>explanation of 'sambhaaveti': su.t.thu *pakaaseti* ukka.mseti
>(emphasis mine) which I think is important as it links to
>Jinendrabuddhi's 'pakaa"sanam'. ' "sakterapratighaata' is unclear (the
>non-opposition of shakti (m.) ??).
>
>5) "adhikaarthavacanena" (with an exaggerated statement or assertion)
>is revealing though I think 'exaggerated' (as in the dictionaries)
>carries a negative overtone. It depends on who is listening, for
>instance, a non-believer might take the same assertion as exaggerated
>or far-fetched while a believer might take it in a positive light (as
>elevated). In Apte's entry for 'adhikaarthavacana' there is added:
>"(whether of praise or blame)" and " = stuti-nindaa-phalakam
>arthavaada-vacanam". Here, the pair 'stuti-nindaa' means 'praise or
>blame' but I'm unsure about 'phalakam' (the shield of praise or
>blame??).
>
>6) Two examples are given in the Kaa"sikaa for this use of 'api': "api
>si~ncenmuulakasahasram / api stuyaadraajaanam / " which Vasu
>(questionably) translates as: possibly may sprinkle a thousand trees
>(in one instant); he may praise, possibly, the king.
>
>I don't know if any of this really helps. I have attached below my
>transcription of the relevant parts of the glosses on 1.4.96. My
>understanding of Sanskrit is rather limited.
>
I think it should be helpful, but it's not the case for me. I do know 
some Sanskrit, but the field I know something of is only Poetics 
(Ala.mkaara'saastra), not the classic grammars.

with metta

Ven. Pandita
 
1138
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:33am 
Subject: Re: Corrections to the relations in Diipanii on Verse 1
 
    Venerable Bhante Pandita,
thank you very much. I hope the network is repaired, I understand the
discomfort.

op 23-04-2005 10:34 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@gmail.com:

> 
> saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi ---> aacariyehi
> (IAD)

Identical adjective relation,
Here a noun in adjectival use is related to a noun it modifies. The
adjective must follow the case of the substantive but may differ in gender
and number.
mahataa purisena =...with (a/ the) great man
mahataa ---> purisena (IAD)
Nandaa naama saro = (the) lake Nandaa by name---
Nandaa ---> saro (IAD)
------
Thus saddabhedavaadii modifies aacariyehi .
--------------
Bh: > aacariyehi ---> pavara.m (COC)

N:Contrastive Comparison Relation1 (COC)
When two things or persons have an attributive difference, the noun
expressing the entity of a lesser degree of quality is related to the other
representing
the attribute itself.
E.g, so asmaahi paapiyataro =... He (is) worse than us.
asmaahi ---> paapiyataro (COC)
aya.m saccamaggaa a~n~no =... This (path is) different from the path of
truth.
saccamaggaa ---> a~n~no (COC)
-------
N: Thus, he is more excellent than the teachers (who are analysers of...)
Is this correct?
Bh: *saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti ---> attho (POS - Possessor relation. See
> RG -12)
N: Possessor Relation3 (POS)
When a thing or person belongs to another, the latter is related to the
former in Possessor Relation.
bhikkhuno patto =... (The/A) monk's bowl
bhikkhuno ---> patto (POS)
-------
N: This helps, I had trouble with pavarantyatthho. The possessor is
saddatthabhedavaadiinan, and they possess the meaning?

>Bh: saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi
> pavaranti ---> attho.(NIO)
>-------
N: Nominal Identity (Ordinary) Relation2 [NIO]
so aacariyo = He (is/was) (a/the) teacher.
so ---> aacariyo (NIO)
--------------
Thus, pavaram is the attho, the meaning.
I am not sure my applications are all right.
With respect,
Nina.
 
1139
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:53pm 
Subject: Re: Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii, verse 1
 
    Dear Ven. Pandita,

> Moreover, "dvandato" should not be translated as "as a dvanda
> compound" Notice the ablative sense of the suffix "to" here. To
> understand this usage, I would have to quote from one of my earlier
> posts.
>
> " Next there is the problem of the ablative case in dhaatumhaa,
> though no one has raised it. It is in fact a convention used in
> building grammatical suttas. It isn't explicitly defined in
> Kaccaayana nor Ruupasiddhi, but it can be found in Moggallana (See
> the sutta "pa~ncamiya.m parassa" --- its meaning, in short, is that
> whenever a grammatical entity is given in ablative case within a
> sutta, the particular process or treatment denoted by that sutta is
> concerned with what follows that entity, not with what precedes it.
> This convention, and other given there, come to be used in vutti and
> commentaries like Ruupasiddhi. I think these conventions come from
> the Sanskrit grammatology and those fluent in Sanskrit should try to
> find out their origin" (Digest - number - 387)

A parallel sutra can be found in Paa.nini's grammar at 1.1.67
(tasmaadityuttarasya). But I don't think it applies here to 'dvandato'
for one only has to ask what is the subsequent (para) of 'dvandato' on
which a grammatical operation is to be carried out? The suffix '-to'
can stand for other cases in addition to the ablative as shown in Sd
493 (tatiyaa-pa~ncamii-cha.t.thii-sattamiyatthesu to kvaci). It is
also my understanding that the '-to' can denote either singular or
plural. I have gone over most of the uses of the ablative case and
have not yet been able to find one to fit the context of our
'dvandato'.

I agree with you that my translation with "as a dvanda compound" is
not right but I'm not in agreement with your translation either:

> According to that convention, "dvandato suyyamaanattaa" should be
> translated as "from the fact of its being heard after a dvanda
> compound"

What is being heard after a dvanda compound?

I'm looking at taking 'dvandato' to be in the locative case instead of
the ablative ie. "from the fact of its (meaning) being heard (or read)
*in* a dvanda compound" and 'dvandato' can also extend to include
'ekasesattaa' ie. "from the fact of the retention of one (in a dvanda
compound)". What do you think?

I thought your explanation of 'ekasesa' and its application to the
dvanda compound was brilliant and straightforward. Just to be sure
I've understood the dvanda compound in question correctly I will
partially resolve it as follows:

'saddatthabhedavaadiina.m' is the retention of one of the following:
saddatthabhedavaadiina~nca (1); saddatthabhedavaadiina~nca

saddatthabhedavaadiina~nca (1) ==>
saddabhedavaadiina~nca atthabhedavaadiina~nca

Best wishes,
Jim
 
1140
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:04am 
Subject: More comments on the relations in Diipanii on Verse 1
 
    Dear Nina

Here are some answers to your questions.

You wrote:

>>saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi ---> aacariyehi
>>(IAD) 
>>
>Identical adjective relation,
>Here a noun in adjectival use is related to a noun it modifies. The adjective must follow the case of the substantive but may differ in gender and number.
>mahataa purisena =...with (a/ the) great man
>mahataa ---> purisena (IAD)
>Nandaa naama saro = (the) lake Nandaa by name---
>Nandaa ---> saro (IAD)
>------
>Thus saddabhedavaadii modifies aacariyehi .
> 
>
Correct.

>--------------
>Bh: > aacariyehi ---> pavara.m (COC)
>
>N:Contrastive Comparison Relation1 (COC)
> When two things or persons have an attributive difference, the noun
>expressing the entity of a lesser degree of quality is related to the other
>representing
>the attribute itself.
>E.g, so asmaahi paapiyataro =... He (is) worse than us.
> asmaahi ---> paapiyataro (COC)
> aya.m saccamaggaa a~n~no =... This (path is) different from the path of
>truth.
> saccamaggaa ---> a~n~no (COC)
>-------
>N: Thus, he is more excellent than the teachers (who are analysers of...)
>Is this correct?
> 
>
Correct again!

>Bh: *saddatthabhedavaadiinan* ti ---> attho (POS - Possessor relation. See RG -12)
> 
>
>N: Possessor Relation3 (POS)
> When a thing or person belongs to another, the latter is related to the
>former in Possessor Relation.
>bhikkhuno patto =... (The/A) monk's bowl
>bhikkhuno ---> patto (POS)
>-------
>N: This helps, I had trouble with pavarantyatthho. The possessor is
>saddatthabhedavaadiinan, and they possess the meaning?
> 
>
No. The possessor is "saddatthabhedavaadiinanti" --- the whole phrase 
together with "iti". It should be rendered as "the word 
'saddatthabhedavaadiina.m', etc. " and it possesses the meaning. (It is 
such terms that should never be translated)

You should also note that the real phrase being explained here is 
"saddatthabhedavaadiina.m parava.m" even though only the first word is 
quoted.

>>Bh: saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi pavaranti ---> attho.(NIO)
>> 
>>
>-------N: Nominal Identity (Ordinary) Relation2 [NIO]
>so aacariyo = He (is/was) (a/the) teacher.
>so ---> aacariyo (NIO)
>--------------
>Thus, pavaram is the attho, the meaning.
> 
>
No. The whole quotation 
"saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi aacariyehi 
pavaranti" (including "iti") is taken as an indeclinable compound and 
related to "attho" in NIO. The quotation can be translated or not, 
resulting in two versions:
1. The phrase "saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi 
aacariyehi pavara.m" is the meaning of the word 
"saddatthabhedavaadiina.m (parava.m)". (OR)

2. . . . "the one greater than the speakers of the analysis of 
linguistic forms, than the speakers of the analysis of meaning, and than 
the speakers of the analysis of linguistic forms and meaning" is the 
meaning of the word "saddatthabhedavaadiina.m (parava.m)".

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1141
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Apr 27, 2005 8:09am 
Subject: about dvandato, etc.
 
    Dear Jim

You wrote:

>>Moreover, "dvandato" should not be translated as "as a dvanda compound" Notice the ablative sense of the suffix "to" here. To understand this usage, I would have to quote from one of my earlier posts.
>>
>>" Next there is the problem of the ablative case in dhaatumhaa, though no one has raised it. It is in fact a convention used in building grammatical suttas. It isn't explicitly defined in Kaccaayana nor Ruupasiddhi, but it can be found in Moggallana (See the sutta "pa~ncamiya.m parassa" --- its meaning, in short, is that whenever a grammatical entity is given in ablative case within a sutta, the particular process or treatment denoted by that sutta is concerned with what follows that entity, not with what precedes it. This convention, and other given there, come to be used in vutti and commentaries like Ruupasiddhi. I think these conventions come from the Sanskrit grammatology and those fluent in Sanskrit should try to find out their origin" (Digest - number - 387) 
>>
>A parallel sutra can be found in Paa.nini's grammar at 1.1.67 (tasmaadityuttarasya). But I don't think it applies here to 'dvandato' for one only has to ask what is the subsequent (para) of 'dvandato' on which a grammatical operation is to be carried out? 
>
My answer would be as follows:

First, the origin of this rule.

Paa.niino ca tuuriyaani ca yoggaani ca senaa caati 
paa.nituuriyayoggasenaa, taasama'ngaani paa.nituuriyayoggasena'ngaani, 
dvandato parattaa a'ngasaddo paccekamabhisambajjhate. (Padaruupasiddhi 
- 210)

Trs.: Living beings, musical instruments, carriages, and army are 
(collectively termed) *paa.nituuriyayoggasenaa.* Their components are 
(termed) *paa.nituuriyayoggasena'nga*. The word /a'nga/ should be 
individually related (to each compound member) since it follows a dvanda 
compound.

What meant by "dvandato parattaa" is:
paa.nituuriyayoggasena'ngaani == (i.e., equivalent to) paa.nya'ngaani ca 
tuuriya'ngaani ca yogga'ngaani ca sena'ngaani ca.

It should be noted here that this rule cannot be limited to only within 
compounds, for:

bhikkhusaama.neraa gacchanti == bhikkhuu ca gacchanti, saama.neraa ca 
gacchanti.
(monks & novices go) (monks go and novices also go)

In some contexts, however, this rule is not applicable. For instance:

ga'ngayamunaa ettha missayanti. (= The rivers Ganges and Yamuna mix here)

In the example above, it makes no sense to relate the verb "missayanti" 
to each of "ga'ngaa" and "yamunaa", for mixing cannot happen alone, 
i.e., we can't say "Ganges mixes and Yamuna mixes".

In our case, "saddattha (sadda + attha)" is a dvanda comp. and "bheda" 
is "being heard after that dvanda". It would be combined with 
"saddattha" as a Tappurisa comp. So when this rule is applied:

saddatthabheda == ( i.e., is equivalent to the hypothetical form) 
saddabheda-atthabheda

Note that the former, as a whole, is no longer a dvanda compound but the 
latter is a dvanda, with this rule still applicable. So when combined 
furthermore with "vaadii" as a Tappurisa comp.:

saddatthabhedavaadii == saddabheda-atthabheda-vaadii == 
saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii

Now the content of "saddatthabhedavaadii" is two categories of teachers, 
namely, "The speakers of the analysis of linguistic forms" and "The 
speakers of the analysis of meanings".

On the other hand, if we omit to use the rule "dvandato parattaa" 
altogether (we have the right to do so given the exception above):

saddatthabheda (= the analysis of both linguistic forms and meanings)
saddatthabhedavaadii (= the speakers of the analysis of both linguistic 
forms and meanings)

Now we have got two identical forms of "saddatthabhedavaadii" --- the 
former meaning the first two categories of teachers while the latter, 
the last category. When these are combined into a dvanda compound, its 
hypothetical form would become 
"saddatthabhedavaadiisaddatthabhedavaadii" having all three categories 
as its content. Then, using the principle of "ekasesa", one form is 
dropped and the other is retained.

The commentator indicates the account above by the clause "dvandato 
suyyamaanattaa ekasesattaa ca"

>The suffix '-to'can stand for other cases in addition to the ablative as shown in Sd
>493 (tatiyaa-pa~ncamii-cha.t.thii-sattamiyatthesu to kvaci). It is also my understanding that the '-to' can denote either singular or plural. I have gone over most of the uses of the ablative case and have not yet been able to find one to fit the context of our
>'dvandato'. 
>
With the Padaruupasiddhi text in view, we can understand "para.m" after 
"dvandato".

>I agree with you that my translation with "as a dvanda compound" is not right but I'm not in agreement with your translation either: 
>
>>According to that convention, "dvandato suyyamaanattaa" should be translated as "from the fact of its being heard after a dvanda compound" 
>>
>What is being heard after a dvanda compound? 
>
"Bheda" is being heard after the dvanda "saddattha", and "vaadii", after 
the dvanda "saddabheda-atthabheda".

>I'm looking at taking 'dvandato' to be in the locative case instead of the ablative ie. "from the fact of its (meaning) being heard (or read)*in* a dvanda compound" and
>
If ablative case works, I think there would be no need to assume 
locative case.

> 'dvandato' can also extend to include 'ekasesattaa' ie. "from the fact of the retention of one (in a dvanda compound)". What do you think? 
>
You mean ". . . from the facts of its (meaning) being heard, and of the 
retention of one, in a dvanda compound". But how will you deduce all 
three categories of teachers from this phrase?


with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1142
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Apr 27, 2005 2:24pm 
Subject: Re: More comments on the relations in Diipanii on Verse 1
 
    Venerable Bhante Pandita,
Your explanations are very clear and useful,
thank you very much.
With respect, 
Nina. 
op 26-04-2005 10:04 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@gmail.com:

> 
>>> saddabhedavaadii-atthabhedavaadii-saddatthabhedavaadiihi ---> aacariyehi
>>> (IAD)
 
1143
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Apr 30, 2005 11:55am 
Subject: Re: about dvandato, etc.
 
    Dear Ven. Pandita,

Thanks for your explanation but I'm afraid I'm unclear as to what you
mean by "this rule" and would like some clarification before I go
any further in my response. I have tried to give you some idea of the
problem below.

> >>Moreover, "dvandato" should not be translated as "as a dvanda
compound" Notice the ablative sense of the suffix "to" here. To
understand this usage, I would have to quote from one of my earlier
posts.
> >>
> >>" Next there is the problem of the ablative case in dhaatumhaa,
though no one has raised it. It is in fact a convention used in
building grammatical suttas. It isn't explicitly defined in Kaccaayana
nor Ruupasiddhi, but it can be found in Moggallana (See the sutta
"pa~ncamiya.m parassa" --- its meaning, in short, is that whenever a
grammatical entity is given in ablative case within a sutta, the
particular process or treatment denoted by that sutta is concerned
with what follows that entity, not with what precedes it. This
convention, and other given there, come to be used in vutti and
commentaries like Ruupasiddhi. I think these conventions come from the
Sanskrit grammatology and those fluent in Sanskrit should try to find
out their origin" (Digest - number - 387)
> >>
> >A parallel sutra can be found in Paa.nini's grammar at 1.1.67
(tasmaadityuttarasya). But I don't think it applies here to 'dvandato'
for one only has to ask what is the subsequent (para) of 'dvandato' on
which a grammatical operation is to be carried out?
> >
> My answer would be as follows:
>
> First, the origin of this rule.

I would have thought "this rule' still refers to the "pa~ncamiya.m
parassa" rule (Mg I.15) but it seems that you have another rule in
mind from my reading of what follows.

> Paa.niino ca tuuriyaani ca yoggaani ca senaa caati
> paa.nituuriyayoggasenaa, taasama'ngaani
> paa.nituuriyayoggasena'ngaani, dvandato parattaa a'ngasaddo
> paccekamabhisambajjhate. (Padaruupasiddhi - 210)

This is from the gloss on Ruup 359 (relating to
samaahaaradvandas).

> Trs.: Living beings, musical instruments, carriages, and army are
> (collectively termed) *paa.nituuriyayoggasenaa.* Their components
> are (termed) *paa.nituuriyayoggasena'nga*. The word /a'nga/ should
> be individually related (to each compound member) since it follows
> a dvanda compound.
>
> What meant by "dvandato parattaa" is:
> paa.nituuriyayoggasena'ngaani == (i.e., equivalent to)
> paa.nya'ngaani ca tuuriya'ngaani ca yogga'ngaani ca
> sena'ngaani ca.
>
> It should be noted here that this rule cannot be limited to only
> within compounds, for:

Now it seems "this rule" refers to the "dvandato parattaa..." comment.
But this is not a rule (sutta) as I understand it.

Let's also compare:

dvandato pubbe suyyamaano itisaddo pacceka.m yojetabboti aaha "iti
bhavo iti abhavo"ti. Sv-abhinava.t I.368 ad Sv I.91 (on
'itibhaavaabhaavakathaa').

If we take -bhavaabhava- as a dvanda, then the word 'iti' being heard
before the dvanda is joined to each member of the dvanda. I'm doubtful
that 'dvandato' here is in the ablative since the 'iti' comes before,
not after. It might work if we take 'dvandato pubbe as 'earlier than
the dvanda' but I'm not sure about this.

I will stop here until we get "this rule" thing cleared up.

Best wishes,
Jim
 
1144
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Tue May 3, 2005 1:22am 
Subject: Re: about api
 
    Dear Suan,

Sorry for the slow reply. I have been away on retreat and am
just catching up with a backlog of e-mails. Thank you for these
explanations. I think the usages of api are all clear to me now.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

On 20 Apr 2005, at 10:14 pm, abhidhammika wrote:

> Suan:
>
> Apekkhaa (looking back) refers back to the previous cases ....
  
1145
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue May 3, 2005 7:25am 
Subject: Pali-English Dictionary & Pali Encyclopedia?

    (1) A rather strange new project has sprung up on the internet, a Pali 
Encyclopedia (i.e., written in Pali): 

http://pi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 

(2) Although I had seen that Mettanet's Pali-English dictionary had made it 
onto the web, this is the first I've noticed that the "reverse direction" 
(i.e., English-Pali) dictionary had been digitized and distributed. At last 
I can look up such words as "Kangaroo" (mahsasavisesa???) from the comfort 
of the internet cafe. 

http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/dict-ep/ 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
I do not call him a Brahmana merely because he is born of a (Brahmin) womb 
or sprung from a (Brahmin) mother. He is merely a "Bhovadi" (one addressed 
as "Sir") if he is with impediments. He who is free from impediments, free 
from clinging - him I call a Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 396
  
1146
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed May 4, 2005 8:11am 
Subject: Re: about dvandato, etc.
 
    Dear Jim

You wrote:

>Thanks for your explanation but I'm afraid I'm unclear as to what you mean by "this rule" and would like some clarification before I go any further in my response. I have tried to give you some idea of the problem below. 
>
>>My answer would be as follows: First, the origin of this rule. 
>>
>
>I would have thought "this rule' still refers to the "pa~ncamiya.m parassa" rule (Mg I.15) but it seems that you have another rule in mind from my reading of what follows.
> 
>
Yes, what I mean is "dvandato suyyamaanattaa".

>>Paa.niino ca tuuriyaani ca yoggaani ca senaa caati paa.nituuriyayoggasenaa, taasama'ngaani paa.nituuriyayoggasena'ngaani, dvandato parattaa a'ngasaddo
>>paccekamabhisambajjhate. (Padaruupasiddhi - 210) This is from the gloss on Ruup 359 (relating to samaahaaradvandas). 
>>
>>Trs.: Living beings, musical instruments, carriages, and army are (collectively termed) *paa.nituuriyayoggasenaa.* Their components are (termed) *paa.nituuriyayoggasena'nga*. The word /a'nga/ should be individually related (to each compound member) since it follows a dvanda compound.
>>
>>What meant by "dvandato parattaa" is:
>>paa.nituuriyayoggasena'ngaani == (i.e., equivalent to) paa.nya'ngaani ca tuuriya'ngaani ca yogga'ngaani ca sena'ngaani ca.
>>
>>It should be noted here that this rule cannot be limited to only within compounds, for:
>> 
>>
>Now it seems "this rule" refers to the "dvandato parattaa..." comment. But this is not a rule (sutta) as I understand it.
> 
>
Yes, it is not a sutta. My choice of words has been influenced by the 
terminology of Burmese Pali grammarians. They usually call such things 
niyaam (Pali. niyaama), meaning "law, rule, etc.". But I think we can 
clear up things a little by terming it an "interpretative convention" 
--- concerned with dvanda compounds in this case.

>Let's also compare:
>
>dvandato pubbe suyyamaano itisaddo pacceka.m yojetabboti aaha "iti bhavo iti abhavo"ti. Sv-abhinava.t I.368 ad Sv I.91 (on 'itibhaavaabhaavakathaa').
>
>If we take -bhavaabhava- as a dvanda, then the word 'iti' being heard before the dvanda is joined to each member of the dvanda. I'm doubtful that 'dvandato' here is in the ablative since the 'iti' comes before, not after. It might work if we take 'dvandato pubbe as 'earlier than the dvanda' but I'm not sure about this.
>
No. It should be taken as ablative; see:
Pubbayoge - pubbeva sammodhaa iccevamaadi.(Kaccaayanavutti - 275)

Here we should clear it up again. Ablative case related to "pubba" is 
defined by actual usage while ablative case indicating that something 
coming after it should be dealt with is a paribhaasaa --- a technical 
convention in classic grammars used chiefly in forming suttas, and in 
other technical explanations.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1147
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed May 4, 2005 11:00am 
Subject: Re: about dvandato, etc.
 
    Dear Ven. Pandita,

Thanks for the clarification.

> >dvandato pubbe suyyamaano itisaddo pacceka.m yojetabboti aaha "iti
bhavo iti abhavo"ti. Sv-abhinava.t I.368 ad Sv I.91 (on
'itibhaavaabhaavakathaa').
> >
> >If we take -bhavaabhava- as a dvanda, then the word 'iti' being
heard before the dvanda is joined to each member of the dvanda. I'm
doubtful that 'dvandato' here is in the ablative since the 'iti' comes
before, not after. It might work if we take 'dvandato pubbe as
'earlier than the dvanda' but I'm not sure about this.
> >
> No. It should be taken as ablative; see:
> Pubbayoge - pubbeva sammodhaa iccevamaadi.(Kaccaayanavutti - 275)

"sammodhaa" should read "sambodhaa". The error is in the CSCD version
of Kc which contains numerous other typos as well. My Burmese printed
paperback ed. of Kc shows "sambodhaa" and a word search on the CSCD
shows that it's in common use with "pubbeva".

> Here we should clear it up again. Ablative case related to "pubba"
is
> defined by actual usage while ablative case indicating that
something
> coming after it should be dealt with is a paribhaasaa --- a
technical
> convention in classic grammars used chiefly in forming suttas, and
in
> other technical explanations.

I'm familiar with the term "paribhaasaa". According to the
Suttaniddesa, the suttas are categorized into four types: sa~n~naa
(definition), adhikaara (governing rule), paribhaasaa (key to
interpretation), and vidhi (statement of a general rule). In Vasu's
translation of Paa.nini's grammar, two additional categories are
given: niyama (restrictive rule) and atide"sa (extended application by
analogy) --Vol. 1, p. 1.

Best wishes,
Jim
 
1148
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat May 7, 2005 4:28am 
Subject: Pali grammar/education in Thailand 
 
    I posted a few articles to the list on (the decline of) Pali education in 
Burma and Sri Lanka, as I recall, but this is the first on the state of 
things in Thailand. This is torn from the pages of the Bangkok post, and 
written by a monk whom I would be very interested to meet. I've heard vague 
statements about problem's with "The King's Kaccayana" (and how this is 
related to the dismally low level of Pali literacy in Thailand), but this is 
the first article I've seen that "spells it out". Worth reading right 
through to the end (the portion about grammatical textbooks differing from 
Kaccayana begins about half-way through), even if it is a bit erratic in 
composition, and has some strange tangents along the way.
E.M.
------
[Title:] Anna and the retarded education
[Subtitle:] That monastic education is trapped in the past and by rules 
which are as quixotic as they are anachronistic 

[Main text:]
The good news about a Buddhist monastic education is that it has served 
Thailand and most Buddhist countries in Asia as the main thrust of literacy 
for hundreds of years. This is attested to in the records of foreigners and 
Christian missionaries in Asia who were surprised by the high literacy rate 
among native Buddhists in countries such as Sri Lanka, Burma, Siam and 
Mongolia. 

The monastic system provided many boys from poor rural areas a way up the 
social ladder. Many leaders in Asia were educated or supported by monks or 
nuns before attaining success in life. However, this does not mean that the 
traditional monastic education and training is the foundation of an advanced 
learning system as required by modern society. 

The bad news about education in Buddhist monasteries in Thailand is that it 
is based almost exclusively on memorization; critical thinking plays little 
part. It is conditioned by the traditional system of feudal obedience. No 
student has the right to question his teachers. 

This is in contrast with the liberal and critical attitude of early Buddhist 
monastic training expounded by the Buddha in the canonical literature. This 
does not condone any concept of obedience to a guru. The message opf the 
Buddha encourages his listeners not to believe in him nor accept his 
teachings without putting them to the test of thorough and critical 
analysis. 

Monks here are taught to accept the teachings of their master without 
question. Criticism or analysis of any passage or myth about the life of 
Buddha is neither welcome nor tolerated. 

Worse than the rigid system of religious orthodoxy in the monastic 
philosophy of education is that students in this education system are not 
encouraged to study the Tipitaka, the very canonical literature of Buddhism. 
Instead, their studies are limited to the commentaries from the Mahavihara 
monastery in Sri Lanka of the 5th century C.E. [Note: this was one of 
Buddhadasa's "Big issues" for about 40 years; but he did not bring about any 
change outside of the monasteries he founded --E.M.]. The traditional 
system of exegesis is based on fables and tales written by commentators and 
preserved in the Pali language, which is believed to be the language of the 
state of Magadha, the legendary root language of the cosmos, spoken by the 
Buddha. 

Despite the fact the legend of the root language of Pali as the language of 
the Buddha [sic.] has no support in the Tipitaka, this belief is one of the 
distinctive characteristics of Theravada Buddhism, which is the only form of 
the religion that takes the language as the one and only sacred language of 
Buddhism. Based on this assumption Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan, Chinese 
or Mongolian are seen as heterodox. 

Even worse than this is that the text on Pali grammar, mandated for national 
Pali examination in Thailand differs greatly from books of Pali grammar 
taught in other Theravada countries. Not only is this book without 
references, thus preventing readers from learning about the history and 
origin of Pali, its format is not based on the traditional book of grammar 
in Pali that was known in Sri Lanka or Burma. 

The Pali Grammar Book, whitten by Somdet Phra Mahasamanchao Krom Phra 
Vajirayanvarosos, classified Pali grammar into four parts: morphology, parts 
of speech, syntax, and the prosody system of division [sic.] not shared in 
books of Pali grammar taught in other Theravada countries. Nowhere in this 
authoritative book does the princely monk acknowledge his sources. 

The alien format of the grammar was taken from Victorian English. The 
source of the format, of course, was taken from his English instructor when 
he was a young prince. This could have been Anna Leonowens, who was 
employed by King Rama IV to educate the royal children. 

Because of the authority of the princely monk, who later became the leader 
of Buddhism in Thailand, the syllabus cannot be changed. Monks and novices 
are forced to memorize the paradigms, and the hybrid Pali grammar posed in a 
modern European language; the learning style is like parrots without any 
clear understanding of its true meaning. The translation they learn is 
based entirely on what their teacher tells them; no independent thinking is 
allowed. It is not surprising therefore that the Thai translation of Pali 
literature is quite different in several details from that of other scholars 
in the Pali language and from other Theravada Buddhist countries. 

Worse than this already bad news is that there is no way for the Thai feudal 
monastic system to reform monastic education, as it is closely intertwined 
with the monarchy and pride of ecclesiastical feudalism. 

The adverse effect of the current traditional monastic education is obvious 
in Thai society, where monks are taken as leaders. When scholars and civic 
leaders are pushing for education reform, their efforts are retarded by 
monks who see the child-centred model of modern education as sacriligious to 
the Buddhist ideal in which Dharma should be the centre. 

Attached to this traditional value, so-called the Dharma [sic.] as they 
interpret the religion, is Buddhist cauvinism and religious complacency. 
Anna might not have expected the influence of her teaching in the court of 
Siam to have lasted this long. 

[Afterword:] Mettanando Bhikkhu is a staunch critic of the Ecclesiastical 
Council, and a former physician with an MA from Oxford University and a 
doctorate from Hamburg University, Germany. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Who strives not when it is time to strive, who though young and strong is 
indolent, who is low in mind and thought and lazy, that idler never finds 
the way to wisdom.
Random Dhammapada Verse 280
 
1149
From: robert kirkpatrick <rjkjp1@yahoo.com> 
Date: Sat May 7, 2005 6:20am 
Subject: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand
 
    Dear navako,
I disagree with preyty much all of the venerables
conclusions. What do you like about it?
Robertk
--- navako <navako@metta.lk> wrote:

> 
> I posted a few articles to the list on (the decline
> of) Pali education in 
> Burma and Sri Lanka, as I recall, but this is the
> first on the state of 
> things in Thailand. This is torn from the pages of
> the Bangkok post, and 
> written by a monk whom I would be very interested to
> meet. I've heard vague 
> statements about problem's with "The King's
> Kaccayana" (and how this is 
> related to the dismally low level of Pali literacy
> in Thailand), but this is 
> the first article I've seen that "spells it out". 
> Worth reading right 
> through to the end (the portion about grammatical
> textbooks differing from 
> Kaccayana begins about half-way through), even if it
> is a bit erratic in 
> composition, and has some strange tangents along the
> way.
> E.M.
> ------
> [Title:] Anna and the retarded education
> [Subtitle:] That monastic education is trapped in
> the past and by rules 
> which are as quixotic as they are anachronistic 
> 
> [Main text:]
> The good news about a Buddhist monastic education is
> that it has served 
> Thailand and most Buddhist countries in Asia as the
> main thrust of literacy 
> for hundreds of years. This is attested to in the
> records of foreigners and 
> Christian missionaries in Asia who were surprised by
> the high literacy rate 
> among native Buddhists in countries such as Sri
> Lanka, Burma, Siam and 
> Mongolia. 
> 
> The monastic system provided many boys from poor
> rural areas a way up the 
> social ladder. Many leaders in Asia were educated
> or supported by monks or 
> nuns before attaining success in life. However,
> this does not mean that the 
> traditional monastic education and training is the
> foundation of an advanced 
> learning system as required by modern society. 
> 
> The bad news about education in Buddhist monasteries
> in Thailand is that it 
> is based almost exclusively on memorization;
> critical thinking plays little 
> part. It is conditioned by the traditional system
> of feudal obedience. No 
> student has the right to question his teachers. 
> 
> This is in contrast with the liberal and critical
> attitude of early Buddhist 
> monastic training expounded by the Buddha in the
> canonical literature. This 
> does not condone any concept of obedience to a guru.
> The message opf the 
> Buddha encourages his listeners not to believe in
> him nor accept his 
> teachings without putting them to the test of
> thorough and critical 
> analysis. 
> 
> Monks here are taught to accept the teachings of
> their master without 
> question. Criticism or analysis of any passage or
> myth about the life of 
> Buddha is neither welcome nor tolerated. 
> 
> Worse than the rigid system of religious orthodoxy
> in the monastic 
> philosophy of education is that students in this
> education system are not 
> encouraged to study the Tipitaka, the very canonical
> literature of Buddhism. 
> Instead, their studies are limited to the
> commentaries from the Mahavihara 
> monastery in Sri Lanka of the 5th century C.E.
> [Note: this was one of 
> Buddhadasa's "Big issues" for about 40 years; but he
> did not bring about any 
> change outside of the monasteries he founded
> --E.M.]. The traditional 
> system of exegesis is based on fables and tales
> written by commentators and 
> preserved in the Pali language, which is believed to
> be the language of the 
> state of Magadha, the legendary root language of the
> cosmos, spoken by the 
> Buddha. 
> 
> Despite the fact the legend of the root language of
> Pali as the language of 
> the Buddha [sic.] has no support in the Tipitaka,
> this belief is one of the 
> distinctive characteristics of Theravada Buddhism,
> which is the only form of 
> the religion that takes the language as the one and
> only sacred language of 
> Buddhism. Based on this assumption Buddhist
> scriptures in Tibetan, Chinese 
> or Mongolian are seen as heterodox. 
> 
> Even worse than this is that the text on Pali
> grammar, mandated for national 
> Pali examination in Thailand differs greatly from
> books of Pali grammar 
> taught in other Theravada countries. Not only is
> this book without 
> references, thus preventing readers from learning
> about the history and 
> origin of Pali, its format is not based on the
> traditional book of grammar 
> in Pali that was known in Sri Lanka or Burma. 
> 
> The Pali Grammar Book, whitten by Somdet Phra
> Mahasamanchao Krom Phra 
> Vajirayanvarosos, classified Pali grammar into four
> parts: morphology, parts 
> of speech, syntax, and the prosody system of
> division [sic.] not shared in 
> books of Pali grammar taught in other Theravada
> countries. Nowhere in this 
> authoritative book does the princely monk
> acknowledge his sources. 
> 
> The alien format of the grammar was taken from
> Victorian English. The 
> source of the format, of course, was taken from his
> English instructor when 
> he was a young prince. This could have been Anna
> Leonowens, who was 
> employed by King Rama IV to educate the royal
> children. 
> 
> Because of the authority of the princely monk, who
> later became the leader 
> of Buddhism in Thailand, the syllabus cannot be
> changed. Monks and novices 
> are forced to memorize the paradigms, and the hybrid
> Pali grammar posed in a 
> modern European language; the learning style is like
> parrots without any 
> clear understanding of its true meaning. The
> translation they learn is 
> based entirely on what their teacher tells them; no
> independent thinking is 
> allowed. It is not surprising therefore that the
> Thai translation of Pali 
> literature is quite different in several details
> from that of other scholars 
> in the Pali language and from other Theravada
> Buddhist countries. 
> 
> Worse than this already bad news is that there is no
> way for the Thai feudal 
> monastic system to reform monastic education, as it
> is closely intertwined 
> with the monarchy and pride of ecclesiastical
> feudalism. 
> 
> The adverse effect of the current traditional
> monastic education is obvious 
> in Thai society, where monks are taken as leaders. 
> When scholars and civic 
> leaders are pushing for education reform, their
> efforts are retarded by 
> monks who see the child-centred model of modern
> education as sacriligious to 
> the Buddhist ideal in which Dharma should be the
> centre. 
> 
> Attached to this traditional value, so-called the
> Dharma [sic.] as they 
> interpret the religion, is Buddhist cauvinism and
> religious complacency. 
> Anna might not have expected the influence of her
> teaching in the court of 
> Siam to have lasted this long. 
> 
> [Afterword:] Mettanando Bhikkhu is a staunch critic
> of the Ecclesiastical 
> Council, and a former physician with an MA from
> Oxford University and a 
> doctorate from Hamburg University, Germany. 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
> Who strives not when it is time to strive, who
> though young and strong is 
> indolent, who is low in mind and thought and lazy,
> that idler never finds 
> the way to wisdom.
> Random Dhammapada Verse 280 
>
 
1150
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun May 8, 2005 6:56am 
Subject: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand

    Robert Kirkpatrik, 

I'd be interested to know the particular arugments you disagree with in the 
article (and why) --the specific reason that I thought it was worth posting 
to the list was its description of the divergence from Kaccayana (and 
traditional Pali grammar generally) that the official Pali books used in 
Thailand represent. I would be very interested to hear any arguments in 
favour of the current Thai grammatical textbooks / approach --or 
contradicting the point more generally.
It is probably needless to say that I find his short paragraph about the 
Pali language as such a bit odd --i.e., I really do not know what he means 
to imply by saying that the Pali canon itself contains no argument for the 
special importance of the Pali language (why would it have to? Surely the 
fact that it is written in Pali is sufficient reason for learning Pali in 
order to read it?). The comparison to translated suttas in Tibetan, Chinese 
etc., is also rather odd --and I wonder what motivated it. Thai attitudes 
toward Chinese Buddhism seem especially open and accepting; Buddhadasa did 
much to popularize a kind of Thai flirtation with Zen sources, and the 
inter-mingling of Chinese and Thai ceremonies (i.e., the most visible parts 
of the two religions) are evident just about everywhere in Thailand. Aside 
from Santi Ashoke, and a small list of other official enemies (officially 
referred to as "Non-Buddhist cults attempting to resemble Buddhism", rather 
than "Buddhist sects"), the orthodox hierarchy seems quite content to break 
bread with Mahayanists and other "Heterodox" sects.
Of course, fulminations against the monarchy's corruption of the sangha are 
always a welcome sight in a major Thai publication --such as the Bangkok 
Post. There are many hard questions that are not being asked in Thailand 
--such as why bloodline and "pride of birth" seems to establish (or reserve) 
rank and authority for Orthodox monks in Thai Buddhism, i.e., directly 
contrary to the Vinaya. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those, who practise the seven Factors (Mindfulness, Investigation of the 
Dhamma, Energy, Rapture, Calmness, Concentration, Equanimity), and have 
freed themselves from attachments, attain Nibbana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 89
 
1151
From: robert kirkpatrick <rjkjp1@yahoo.com> 
Date: Sun May 8, 2005 8:18am 
Subject: Re: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand
 
    Dear E. M.
The whole article reads as if the venerable has
insights into the Dhamma beyond those of the
Theravada tradition. He disparages Buddhaghosa and the
Mahavihara, he thinks his "critical analysis" can
detect right and wrong. Unfortunately far from being
rare- as the article implies- this obeisance to the
God of western scientific methodolgy and ideas is
widespread in Thailand and growing, one only has to
look at the popularity of books by Buddadasa.
Just another sign of the eventual disappearance of the
sasana.
His disbelief in Pali/magadha as being the Buddha's
language is bizarre (but bound to find adherents).
Robert


--- navako <navako@metta.lk> wrote:
> 
> Robert Kirkpatrik, 
> 
> I'd be interested to know the particular arugments
> you disagree with in the 
> article (and why) --the specific reason that I
> thought it was worth posting 
> to the list was its description of the divergence
> from Kaccayana (and 
> traditional Pali grammar generally) that the
> official Pali books used in 
> Thailand represent. I would be very interested to
> hear any arguments in 
> favour of the current Thai grammatical textbooks /
> approach --or 
> contradicting the point more generally.
> It is probably needless to say that I find his
> short paragraph about the 
> Pali language as such a bit odd --i.e., I really do
> not know what he means 
> to imply by saying that the Pali canon itself
> contains no argument for the 
> special importance of the Pali language (why would
> it have to? Surely the 
> fact that it is written in Pali is sufficient reason
> for learning Pali in 
> order to read it?). The comparison to translated
> suttas in Tibetan, Chinese 
> etc., is also rather odd --and I wonder what
> motivated it. Thai attitudes 
> toward Chinese Buddhism seem especially open and
> accepting; Buddhadasa did 
> much to popularize a kind of Thai flirtation with
> Zen sources, and the 
> inter-mingling of Chinese and Thai ceremonies (i.e.,
> the most visible parts 
> of the two religions) are evident just about
> everywhere in Thailand. Aside 
> from Santi Ashoke, and a small list of other
> official enemies (officially 
> referred to as "Non-Buddhist cults attempting to
> resemble Buddhism", rather 
> than "Buddhist sects"), the orthodox hierarchy seems
> quite content to break 
> bread with Mahayanists and other "Heterodox" sects.
> Of course, fulminations against the monarchy's
> corruption of the sangha are 
> always a welcome sight in a major Thai publication
> --such as the Bangkok 
> Post. There are many hard questions that are not
> being asked in Thailand 
> --such as why bloodline and "pride of birth" seems
> to establish (or reserve) 
> rank and authority for Orthodox monks in Thai
> Buddhism, i.e., directly 
> contrary to the Vinaya. 
> 
> E.M. 
> 
> -- 
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
> Those, who practise the seven Factors (Mindfulness,
> Investigation of the 
> Dhamma, Energy, Rapture, Calmness, Concentration,
> Equanimity), and have 
> freed themselves from attachments, attain Nibbana.
> Random Dhammapada Verse 89 
>
 
1152
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon May 9, 2005 5:38am 
Subject: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand 
 
    Robert Kirkpatrick, 

It seems that we agree --i.e., about the issues in the article about which 
you controvert its author.
*However*, you said that you disagreed with *all* of the article's 
conclusions --and it seems that you either agree with (or have omitted to 
comment on?) the conclusions I drew attention to, namely:
(1) The modern Thai-Pali grammars/textbooks in use since Rama V are 
problematic --or at least represent a significant departure from the 
Kaccayana-centred traditions of teaching Pali in Burma.
(2) This is symptomatic of the type of problems arising from the active 
involvement/interference of the "Blue Blood" caste of modern Thailand --as 
the author of the article put it, the intersection of "Feudal" power 
structures with the proper functioning of the sangha.
There is a third important issue that the article raises, and it is indeed 
an echo of the issues raised by Buddhadasa (being in turn derived from a Sri 
Lankan critique dating back to Dhammapala and his generation):
(3) The hierarchy of modern Thai orthodoxy "Discourages" the reading of 
primary source sutta material by requiring that all examinations are based 
on the content of the commentarial glosses.
The third issue is indeed a weighty one --and I do not think that many 
Westerners understand what is "at stake" here. From an outsider's 
perspective it seems as if there's a clique of bourgeois modernizers (both 
in Sri Lanka and, more recently, in Thailand) who have an inexplicable 
distaste for the commentaries. The reality is a more nuanced struggle --and 
in Thailand the flashpoint has been (1) the institution of the examinations, 
and (2) the dissolution of the Thammayut Nikaya's separate examinations (the 
latter were based on primary source knowledge of the Vinaya --which many 
justifiably considered to be more worthy of memorization than the versions 
of the Jataka stories found in the Dhp-A! [commentary to the Dhammapada]). 
Both of these are *modern* historical events --and do not represent some 
kind of "traditional" Buddhism to which "modernizers" (like Buddhadasa) 
relate as outsiders.
The gap between the actual content of the primary source (e.g., the 
Dhammapada or the Abhidhammapitaka) and the (often Jataka-derived) stories 
artifically associated with the text through commentaries or even later 
sub-commentaries is sometimes very deep, and very broad. I think it is 
quite wrong to suppose that it is only a "modern" concern to emphasise the 
greater importance of the primary source. In modern Thailand, knowledge of 
the Abhidhamma-pitaka is especially filtered through the mythology of 
sub-commentaries and interpretations --as Buddhadasa said, it is a "Rat's 
nest" that modern Thais have made out of the Abhidhamma (not the 
Buddhavacana itself) that was the object of his life-long criticism. Many 
Westerners mistake this for an actual attack on the value of the Abhidhamma 
and the commentaries as such.
Again, in case you think this complaint is simply the intrusion of "Modern, 
western, scientific perspectives", I can point to one very palpable 
illustration of how far the interpretation has veered from the original 
Pali, and that is the recitation of the Abhidhamma to summon ghosts and 
"Communicate with the dead" in various Thai festivals. I think that this 
would raise the eyebrow of even the most traditional Abhidhamma scholars of 
Burma --i.e., it would surprise sincere, Pali-literate monks, who have no 
"modernizing" agenda (but who are also culturally alien to the accretions of 
Thai tradition).
On a very clear, very fundamental issue of the vinaya such as assigning 
rank to monks based on their royal bloodline, caste, wealth, or the 
influence of their family, I *do not* see how the categories of "modern" or 
"scientific" apply. There is no subtle question of interpretation at stake 
here --just a blatant, fundamental corruption of the discipline that has 
come to be called "Orthodox" by the authorities currently in power. I do no 
unfairly single out Thailand on this issue --but it is noteworthy that the 
corruption was (in effect) carried back to Sri Lanka in the form of the 
"Siam Nikaya", being the first sect/order there to define its membership by 
caste/bloodline. But I will not digress about corruption in Sri Lanka --for 
it is another topic.
Finally, I have to note that there is almost nothing ancient in the Thai 
adaptations of Theravada Buddhism. There is no sense in which the Thais 
could be called Theravada before the 13th century --and most of the 
prominent features of the modern cult of Thai Buddhism have a much later 
date still. The first attempts at constructing a Thai Ramayana date from 
the Chakri Dynasty --and this became a major public cult only circa Rama 
III. The artificiality and late-origin of such traditions as worshipping a 
three-headed Brahma (looking nothing like any Brahma to be found in India!) 
are a startling contrast to any of the older, more continuous religious 
traditions elsewhere in the region --i.e., Cambodia and Burma --although I 
use the latter names only as toponyms (not as ethnic groupings --as we would 
then have to distinguish Mon, Champa, etc. etc.).
In short, it is hardly surprising that the minority of Thai monks who 
actually read the original Pali should be a bit startled at how far the use 
made of the same sources has drifted from its meaning in modern Thailand. 
And who, really, is to say to such erudite monks that they ought instead to 
be over-awed by the value of "tradition" instead? I think the latter is a 
most un-Buddha-like sentiment --and a defensive one-- to which only a small 
number of authority figures cling.
The controversies raised by such critics of the currently ruling orthodoxy 
are very worthy of consideration and reconsideration; one can hardly say 
that these are quibbles over minor points of the Vinaya, such as (proudly) 
illustrate the history of orthodoxy in Burma (e.g., 200 years of debate over 
wearing the robe on one shoulder or two, etc.). 

E.M. 

> Dear E. M.
> The whole article reads as if the venerable has
> insights into the Dhamma beyond those of the
> Theravada tradition. He disparages Buddhaghosa and the
> Mahavihara, he thinks his "critical analysis" can
> detect right and wrong. Unfortunately far from being
> rare- as the article implies- this obeisance to the
> God of western scientific methodolgy and ideas is
> widespread in Thailand and growing, one only has to
> look at the popularity of books by Buddadasa.
> Just another sign of the eventual disappearance of the
> sasana.
> His disbelief in Pali/magadha as being the Buddha's
> language is bizarre (but bound to find adherents).
> Robert



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Just as the creeper overspreads a Sal-tree and destroys it, the man who 
allows his wickedness to overcome him, suffers as much as his enemy would 
have him suffer.
Random Dhammapada Verse 162

1153
From: robert kirkpatrick <rjkjp1@yahoo.com> 
Date: Mon May 9, 2005 6:12am 
Subject: Re: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand
 
    Hi E.M.
I was in a hurry so sorry for not responding properly
to your last mail. As you point out I didn't reply to
all of it.
--- navako <navako@metta.lk> wrote:

> 
> Robert Kirkpatrick, 
> 
> It seems that we agree --i.e., about the issues in
> the article about which 
> you controvert its author.
> *However*, you said that you disagreed with *all*
> of the article's 
> conclusions --and it seems that you either agree
> with (or have omitted to 
> comment on?) the conclusions I drew attention to,
> namely:
> (1) The modern Thai-Pali grammars/textbooks in
> use since Rama V are 
> problematic --or at least represent a significant
> departure from the 
> Kaccayana-centred traditions of teaching Pali in
> Burma.

===============
This is hard to evaluate. I know one Thai (mr.
Somporn) who has done translations of the
Abhidhammathasangaha, the Netti-pakarana and other
books. he is on teh government committee overseeing
Tipitaka translations and I know they take a great
deal of care. No doubt there are room for improvements
(many).


> (2) This is symptomatic of the type of problems
> arising from the active 
> involvement/interference of the "Blue Blood" caste
> of modern Thailand --as 
> the author of the article put it, the intersection
> of "Feudal" power 
> structures with the proper functioning of the
> sangha.
> There is a third important issue that the article
> raises, and it is indeed 
> an echo of the issues raised by Buddhadasa (being in
> turn derived from a Sri 
> Lankan critique dating back to Dhammapala and his
> generation):
=========



> (3) The hierarchy of modern Thai orthodoxy
> "Discourages" the reading of 
> primary source sutta material by requiring that all
> examinations are based 
> on the content of the commentarial glosses.
> The third issue is indeed a weighty one --and I do
> not think that many 
> Westerners understand what is "at stake" here. From
> an outsider's 
> perspective it seems as if there's a clique of
> bourgeois modernizers (both 
> in Sri Lanka and, more recently, in Thailand) who
> have an inexplicable 
> distaste for the commentaries. The reality is a
> more nuanced struggle --and 
> in Thailand the flashpoint has been (1) the
> institution of the examinations, 
> and (2) the dissolution of the Thammayut Nikaya's
> separate examinations (the 
> latter were based on primary source knowledge of the
> Vinaya --which many 
> justifiably considered to be more worthy of
> memorization than the versions 
> of the Jataka stories found in the Dhp-A!
> [commentary to the Dhammapada]). 
> Both of these are *modern* historical events --and
> do not represent some 
> kind of "traditional" Buddhism to which
> "modernizers" (like Buddhadasa) 
> relate as outsiders.
> The gap between the actual content of the primary
> source (e.g., the 
> Dhammapada or the Abhidhammapitaka) and the (often
> Jataka-derived) stories 
> artifically associated with the text through
> commentaries or even later 
> sub-commentaries is sometimes very deep, and very
> broad. I think it is 
> quite wrong to suppose that it is only a "modern"
> concern to emphasise the 
> greater importance of the primary source. In modern
> Thailand, knowledge of 
> the Abhidhamma-pitaka is especially filtered through
> the mythology of 
> sub-commentaries and interpretations --as Buddhadasa
> said, it is a "Rat's 
> nest" that modern Thais have made out of the
> Abhidhamma (not the 
> Buddhavacana itself) that was the object of his
> life-long criticism. Many 
> Westerners mistake this for an actual attack on the
> value of the Abhidhamma 
> and the commentaries as such.
> Again, in case you think this complaint is simply
> the intrusion of "Modern, 
> western, scientific perspectives", I can point to
> one very palpable 
> illustration of how far the interpretation has
> veered from the original 
> Pali, and that is the recitation of the Abhidhamma
> to summon ghosts and 
> "Communicate with the dead" in various Thai
> festivals. I think that this 
> would raise the eyebrow of even the most traditional
> Abhidhamma scholars of 
> Burma --i.e., it would surprise sincere,
> Pali-literate monks, who have no 
> "modernizing" agenda (but who are also culturally
> alien to the accretions of 
> Thai tradition).

===========
This example about commnunicating with the dead you
give can't be used to discrdeit Abhidhmma and the
commentaries because they are deeply against ritual -
especially such as you mention above. I am sure you
will find no such reference anywhere in the
commentaries.

It is encouraging to hear that the higher ups in the
sangha are requiring monks to understand the suttas
based on what the ancient commentaries say rather than
their own interpretations, guesses, or views of
Buddhadasa and his followers. It is worrying that you
write against the Jatakaatthakatha, a very helpful and
profound text.
===============
> On a very clear, very fundamental issue of the
> vinaya such as assigning 
> rank to monks based on their royal bloodline, caste,
> wealth, or the 
> influence of their family, I *do not* see how the
> categories of "modern" or 
> "scientific" apply. There is no subtle question of
> interpretation at stake 
> here --just a blatant, fundamental corruption of the
> discipline that has 
> come to be called "Orthodox" by the authorities
> currently in power. I do no 
> unfairly single out Thailand on this issue --but it
> is noteworthy that the 
> corruption was (in effect) carried back to Sri Lanka
> in the form of the 
> "Siam Nikaya", being the first sect/order there to
> define its membership by 
> caste/bloodline. 
======================

The article said something about there being no
precedent for any royal involvement in choosing Sangha
leaders. However King Asoka himself was the instrument
invloved in cleaning the Sangha 2300 years ago and
encouraged his son Mahinda to go to Sri lanka (where
he was the leader of the monks)...


Robertk
 
1154
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue May 10, 2005 1:58am 
Subject: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand 
 
    Robert Kirkpatrick, 

Again, I think we agree more than we disagree --or else you omit to comment 
on points about which we may differ. 

A little bit of confusion on a few points that I feel I should clarify 
before moving on: 

> This is hard to evaluate. I know one Thai (mr.
> Somporn) who has done translations of the
> Abhidhammathasangaha, the Netti-pakarana and other
> books...

This is, strictly speaking, not related to the point I was making; I was 
specifically commenting on the central textbook used in teaching (and 
testing) Thai monks on their Pali --which is the composition of one of the 
princely sons of Rama IV --I believe he also penned the "official" Thai 
interpretation of the Vinaya, of which I used to own an English translation 
(I donated it to the library). The full royal title of the monk in question 
was reported in the article I posted --and the question of "significant 
digression" from Kaccayana, etc., was directed to this particular text, not 
the sum total of all translation efforts in Thailand. The specific text has 
been reported to be problematic by a number of people "in the know", and the 
article provided some interesting remarks about the nature of the problem. 
I think one significant comment on the quality of Pali being learnt from the 
official method came to me from Peter Skilling, who basically stated that 
the only monks really learning Pali were doing so by non-orthodox/non-exam 
methods (either subsequent to or instead of the orthodox route) --such as 
the Burmese method still practiced at Wat Ta Ma Oh. The latter is 
Kaccayana, not "The King's Kaccayana" --the difference between the two being 
the substance of what I was trying to draw attention to. Other, more recent 
and ongoing works by the translation committee --be what they may-- are 
(strictly speaking) spurious to the question of the quality of the grammar, 
pedagogy, and examination system through which the majority of Thai monks 
are "processed". 

> This example about commnunicating with the dead you
> give can't be used to discrdeit Abhidhmma and the
> commentaries ...

You seem here to have (180 degrees) misinterpreted the meaning of my 
statement. I was trying to state that neither I nor Buddhadasa felt that 
the Abhidhammapitaka was "bad", but rather that cultural accretions (that 
are not based in the text) such as communicating with the dead are clear 
signals as to what a mess has been made of "interpreting" the Abhidhamma. I 
know full well that the Abhidhamma (especially the 7th book, the K.V.) is 
explicitly opposed to witchcraft of various kinds, and contains refutations 
of many folk-beliefs contemporary with its authorship (e.g., that the Buddha 
was 20 feet tall). 

> ... because they are deeply against ritual -
> especially such as you mention above.

Yes, THAT IS PRECISELY WHY I CHOSE THIS EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE MY POINT. It 
is a clear case of the Thai "interpretation" widely diverging from the 
primary source text --and, yes, that Thai interpretation is inculcated in 
the monastic system of education. Thus, your statement is posed as if to 
contradict me, but precisely what I was stating is that the "modern" 
emphasis on a return to the source text *does not* discredit the text in 
question --although many traditional/ritualists depict (i.e., misrepresent) 
their opponents in the other camp in this manner precisely because they hold 
such beliefs. Thus, if you actually believe that chanting the summaries of 
the Abhidh. can summon the dead, you would regard someone who contradicts 
the point as "discrediting" the text (i.e., because they discredit the 
ritual); from our shared perspective, someone like Buddhadasa *is not* 
discrediting the Abhidhamma! He is just trying to insist on reading and 
understanding the source text --and hopefully basing the religion of 
Buddhism on that instead of crass superstition. 

> It is encouraging to hear that the higher ups in the
> sangha are requiring monks to understand the suttas
> based on what the ancient commentaries ...

I really wonder if this is an informed opinion --i.e., in contrast to 
Mettanando (i.e., the monk who authored the article that you're disagreeing 
with), do you have any direct knowledge of the content of the examinations 
(and how they relate to the commentaries *or* the primary text)? I have 
read several studies, from several angles, including quotations from the 
examinations --I feel I'm about as well informed on the problem as I can be 
without sitting the exams (or reading the originals in Thai). You seem to 
be taking an unexamined, dogmatic position on the grounds that "The 
commentaries are good --therefore any exam based on the commentaries are 
good". This is just as problematic as to say "Plato is good, therefore an 
exam about Plato must be good" --obviously, it is possible for an exam to be 
badly flawed, or to relate in a problematic way to the source text, 
irrespective of the "goodness" of the source text in question. In the 
instance of the devolution of the Thai examination system, there is a 
significant difference between testing on Sutta content (or Vinaya content) 
and the King's official interpretation thereof --which is a selective 
mishmash that is not always well rooted in the commentaries *or* the 
Buddhavacana. 

I disagree with you utterly, and think it is absurd to generalize about all 
commentaries being of equal value. I recall a sutta that begins with the 
Buddha wandering about a series of Kutis, thinking to himself "Do many monks 
live here?" twice, then asking another monk aloud, "Say, do many monks live 
around here?"; at this point the commentary stipulates that because the 
Buddha was all-knowing, it is impossible that he actually had any doubt as 
to the precise number of monks living there, and that he only pretended not 
to know (even in asking himself!) in order to instigate the discussion that 
follows --and that he knew in advance (with his future-seeing eye) would 
follow. Clearly, in such a case, the sentiment and real content of the 
commentary is very different from the substance of the source text --and 
shows an additional layer of "deification" intersecting with an original 
text in which the Buddha appears as a more "naturalistic" human figure. 
There are numerous other texts (inclduing commentaries) in which the 
opposite view is taken, i.e., that the Buddha being "all knowing" simply 
meant that he had fully comprehended samsara and nibbana, not that he had 
arithmatical precision in knowing every triviality on earth --but if we 
treat all commentaries as inviolable (simply because they "are" 
commentaries!) it will lead to many absurdities becoming entrenched. 

Finally, there is nothing "modern" about regarding Buddhavacana as being of 
greater importance than 5th century opinions about the Buddhavacana. If you 
don't know the Patimokkha, you can't practice it --and the official (Royal) 
Thai gloss on the Patimokkha seems to diverge from both the letter and the 
spirit of the original in many respects. The latter has been translated 
into English. Thus, e.g., it stipulates that the Patimokkha rule against 
teaching the Dhamma to someone bearing a knife or sword doesn't actually 
apply to an aristocrat or a Sikh wearing a weapon "To show a martial spirit" 
(a convenient interpretation, as Rama V, VI, & VII had taken to wearing a 
sword, in the fashion of European aristocrats!) --in fact, the rule is 
virtually nullified by the official interpretation. I disagree with this 
"commentary" utterly; obviously, the rule against teaching to someone 
wearing a sword is meant to be applied in the same way as the rule against 
teaching someone holding an umbrella (NB: a sign of royal blood in ancient 
India!) or the two rules against teaching someone wearing shoes. 

> It is worrying that you
> write against the Jatakaatthakatha, a very helpful and
> profound text.

When did I write "against" it? It is certainly a popular part of the Pali 
literature, but it is very much a separate text from the Dhammapada --and 
often the interpretations and contextualizing stories it imposes on the 
verses are quite alien to the purposes of the source text --especially where 
we can trace the verse back to an earlier usage elsewhere in the Suttapitaka 
(i.e., prior to the composition of the Dhammapada itself --which wasn't even 
originally composed in Pali, but represents a post-canonical collection of 
verses). Will you now say that I am "against" the Dhammapada? Is knowing 
something about a text a form of opposition to it? Most likely it is. Well 
then, I am opposed to everything --and whatever I learn about comes into 
opposition to me. 

> ... and
> encouraged his son Mahinda to go to Sri lanka (where
> he was the leader of the monks)...

Risible. Mahinda was the first Buddhist monk to set foot on Sri Lanka --he 
was the first missionary and senior-most monk on the island thereafter. 
This is not related to teenage Royal monks assuming positions of superior 
authority to older, sometimes better educated monks, the day after they 
matriculate, because of their Royal blood in modern Thailand. Obviously, 
following the Vinaya, a poor Issan farmer who has been a monk for 20 rains 
should be superior in rank to a Blue Blood in his first year --but if the 
latter is assigned "Abbot-hood" or some other title/position of practical 
authority (often involving handling money on behalf of the sangha ... don't 
even get me started) he is in a position to lord his authority over elder 
monks --and so the caste system that exists in society (outside the sangha) 
is reproduced inside the sangha. Have you read the Vinaya's statements on 
the caste system? Wait, why go so far afield? Why don't *you* explain to 
*me* what Mahinda's mission to Sri Lanka has to do with the Royal blood 
gaining higher rank for monks in modern Thailand? Go on, convince me that 
this has a shred of legitimacy in the Theravada tradition, R.K., I'm tired 
of being the only one talking about the Vinaya in this discussion. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
As rust sprung from iron eats itself away when arisen, even so his own deeds 
lead the transgressor to states of woe.
Random Dhammapada Verse 240
 
1155
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Tue May 10, 2005 0:11pm 
Subject: Re: Pali grammar/education in Thailand
 
    Dear Eisel,

My own assessment of the weaknesses of monastic education in
Thailand differs somewhat from that of Phra Mettanando. I
did complete the Nak Tham course back in the 1980's and have
also sat in on Pali classes taught according to the national
Parien curriculum (though without taking the exams). I think
Mettanando focusses on rather trifling matters and misses
the most important flaw of all: that the monks just don't
study enough texts. It is absurd that a Thai monk can
complete the nine-year Parien course and so be ranked as a
top scholar, without having read even a single Nikaaya of
the Sutta Pi.taka, nor any of the seven books of the
Abhidhamma. But I will write more about this tomorrow. For
now, just a few comments on your latest post:

> You seem here to have (180 degrees) misinterpreted the
> meaning of my statement. I was trying to state that neither
> I nor Buddhadasa felt that the Abhidhammapitaka was "bad",
> but rather that cultural accretions (that are not based in
> the text) such as communicating with the dead are clear
> signals as to what a mess has been made of "interpreting"
> the Abhidhamma.

Do you mean reciting the maatikaas at Thai funerals?

Nobody seems to know the origin of this use of the
Abhidhamma. Perhaps its roots lie not in an interpretation
of the Abhidhamma's contents but in one or another of the
stories about the miraculous effects of reciting the text. I
am thinking of King Du.t.thagaaminii being cured of his
insomnia through listening to monks chanting the Yamaka
(DA. ii. 640), or the Atthasaalinii's story of the bats who
went to heaven after listening to two bhikkhus recite the
Abhidhamma (DhsA. 17).

But then again, it could be a purely local folk development
with no textual support, like the northern custom of
women trying to improve their fertility by listening to monks
recite the Pubbakicca to the Paatimokkha.

> Finally, there is nothing "modern" about regarding
> Buddhavacana as being of greater importance than 5th century
> opinions about the Buddhavacana. If you don't know the
> Patimokkha, you can't practice it --and the official (Royal)
> Thai gloss on the Patimokkha seems to diverge from both the
> letter and the spirit of the original in many respects. The
> latter has been translated into English. Thus, e.g., it
> stipulates that the Patimokkha rule against teaching the
> Dhamma to someone bearing a knife or sword doesn't actually
> apply to an aristocrat or a Sikh wearing a weapon "To show a
> martial spirit" (a convenient interpretation, as Rama V, VI,
> & VII had taken to wearing a sword, in the fashion of
> European aristocrats!) --in fact, the rule is virtually
> nullified by the official interpretation.

I don't think this is the case. The training rule itself refers
to a person who has a knife "in his hand."

na satthapaa.nissa agilaanassa dhamma.m desessaamii ti
sikkhaa kara.niiyaa

If the Buddha had meant "attached to his person" he could
easily have said so. I would guess the point is that the
person wishing to be taught should show his willingness by
assuming a non-threatening demeanour. Sikhs don't wear
their ceremonial daggers in order to scare people.

> I disagree with this "commentary" utterly; obviously, the
> rule against teaching to someone wearing a sword is meant to
> be applied in the same way as the rule against teaching
> someone holding an umbrella (NB: a sign of royal blood in
> ancient India!) or the two rules against teaching someone
> wearing shoes.

I think you're right that the parasol in question is
probably an indication of rank and that etiquette required
it to be set aside as a sign of humility. The problem with
understanding the sekhiyas is that neither their origin
stories nor the Vinaya atthakatthaas and .tiikaas have very
much to say, so one is in most cases reduced to relying on
guesswork.

> This is not related to teenage Royal monks assuming
> positions of superior authority to older, sometimes better
> educated monks, the day after they matriculate, because of
> their Royal blood in modern Thailand.

By 'modern' do you mean 'contemporary', or are you just
talking about 19th century developments? If you mean
contemporary, could you give an example? I am a little
surprised to hear that there is anyone of royal stock in the
monkhood nowadays. For the most part the rich, the royal,
and the well-educated don't become monks (except for
once-in-a-lifetime temporary upasampadaas).

___________________________

A few comments on Mettanando's article:

> [Title:] Anna and the retarded education

Ouch. It seems that Mettanando enjoys being provocative, but
like Sulak Sivaraksa he always stops slightly short of saying
anything that could lead to a lese majeste charge. Any
mention of Anna Leonowens is sure to raise people's hackles
in royalist circles.

> The bad news about education in Buddhist monasteries in
> Thailand is that it is based almost exclusively on
> memorization; critical thinking plays little part. It is
> conditioned by the traditional system of feudal obedience.

"Feudal obedience" seems a grotesque overstatement to me.


> No student has the right to question his teachers.

If Mettanando means that one may not ask a teacher questions
then it's false (though for all I know it may be true of Wat
Dhammakaya, where he originally trained; but this is a most
peculiar temple). If he means that one may not challenge or
disagree with a teacher, then it's true that this would be
considered impolite if one did it during a lesson. Classroom
etiquette requires that doubts and disagreements be
expressed privately when the lesson is over. It's common
that at the end of a lesson a teacher will stay behind for
an hour or more responding to objections from the more
difficult students (like me!).


> This is in contrast with the liberal and critical attitude
> of early Buddhist monastic training expounded by the Buddha
> in the canonical literature. This does not condone any
> concept of obedience to a guru. The message opf the Buddha
> encourages his listeners not to believe in him nor accept
> his teachings without putting them to the test of thorough
> and critical analysis.

He's been listening to too many Californians.

saddhassa, bhikkhave, saavakassa satthusaasane pariyogaahiya
vattato ayamanudhammo hoti: 'satthaa bhagavaa,
saavako'ham'asmi; jaanaati bhagavaa, naaha.m jaanaamii 'ti
(MN. i. 480)

> Monks here are taught to accept the teachings of their
> master without question. Criticism or analysis of any
> passage or myth about the life of Buddha is neither welcome
> nor tolerated.

I'm not quite sure what he has in mind here. Possibly he
means his own articles in which he draws upon his medical
knowledge to offer new interpretations of various episodes
in the Suttas. As far as I know, nobody has threatened to
burn him at the stake for it. There just isn't very much
interest in what might have caused the Buddha's backache
or what sort of fever Moggallaana was suffering from.


> Worse than the rigid system of religious orthodoxy in the
> monastic philosophy of education is that students in this
> education system are not encouraged to study the Tipitaka,
> the very canonical literature of Buddhism.

This is true.

> Instead, their studies are limited to the commentaries from
> the Mahavihara monastery in Sri Lanka of the 5th century C.E.

Also one Thai Pali composition: the Ma`ngalatthadiipanii, a
lengthy 13th century .tiikaa to the Ma`ngala Sutta.

> The traditional system of exegesis is based on fables and
> tales written by commentators and preserved in the Pali
> language, which is believed to be the language of the state
> of Magadha, the legendary root language of the cosmos,
> spoken by the Buddha.
>
> Despite the fact the legend of the root language of Pali as
> the language of the Buddha [sic.] has no support in the
> Tipitaka, this belief is one of the distinctive
> characteristics of Theravada Buddhism, which is the only
> form of the religion that takes the language as the one and
> only sacred language of Buddhism. Based on this assumption
> Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan, Chinese or Mongolian are
> seen as heterodox.

Eisel, you were wondering in another post why he would raise
this point. I suspect it is part of his ecumenism, which he
pushes much further than most ecumenically-minded Thai monks
would be willing to go. I understand it is his wish that the
three main bhikkhu-paramparaas be reunited. To advance this
agenda he rarely loses an opportunity to chip away at the
planks that support Theravaadin exclusivism and
conservatism. One such plank is the idea of Maagadha-bhaasaa
as the muulabhaasaa. Another is Buddhaghosa's gloss on the
term sakanirutti in the Cullavagga's chandaso episode
("sakaaya niruttiyaa" ti ettha sakaa nirutti naama
sammaasambuddhena vuttappakaaro maagadhiko vohaaro. VinA.
vi. 1214), as opposed to the popular modern interpretation
that each should learn the teaching in his own tongue.


> Even worse than this is that the text on Pali grammar,
> mandated for national Pali examination in Thailand differs
> greatly from books of Pali grammar taught in other Theravada
> countries. Not only is this book without references, thus
> preventing readers from learning about the history and
> origin of Pali, its format is not based on the traditional
> book of grammar in Pali that was known in Sri Lanka or
> Burma.

In other words, it's not Warder and it's not Kaccaayana. But
this doesn't in itself constitute a criticism. I will leave further
discussion of Prince V's grammar until tomorrow.


> Of course, fulminations against the monarchy's corruption of
> the sangha are always a welcome sight in a major Thai
> publication --such as the Bangkok Post. There are many hard
> questions that are not being asked in Thailand --such as why
> bloodline and "pride of birth" seems to establish (or
> reserve) rank and authority for Orthodox monks in Thai
> Buddhism, i.e., directly contrary to the Vinaya.

The monarchy's involvement with the sangha today is confined
to things like offering ka.thina robes to monks residing in the
thirty or so designated royal temples, going to pay respects
to various eminent acharns, and annually handing out
ceremonial fans to those monks who have been selected for
administrative offices by the sangha. I'm not aware of
anything here that could be called corruption. I think the
days when a king or a prince could step in and do the sort
of things done by Rama IV and Prince Vajira~naa.navarorasa
(and lots of Burmese kings of yore) are now well passed.
For one thing there is too much regional resistance to
Bangkok-imposed centralization and standardization.
Why not let sleeping dogs lie?

Best wishes,

Dhammanando
 
1156
From: "rahula_80" <rahula_80@yahoo.com> 
Date: Thu May 12, 2005 2:52am 
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?
 
    Hi,

Just curious, who is the present Boden Professor of Sanskrit?

Metta,
Rahula

--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@n...> 
wrote:
> a quick correction:
> 
> >Gombrich has recently retired, and I infer from the fact that Oxford is
> >still advertising for a replacement, that none has yet been selected.
> 
> An appointment has been made. He will be coming to Oxford in 
Autumn 
> 2005. Unfortunately (from this point of view) he is a specialist in 
> Indian sciences and Vedic.
> 
 
1157
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:37am 
Subject: Re: about dvandato, etc.
 
    Dear Jim

Sorry for my late reply. The cause is networking problems still unsolved 
by my ISP.

You wrote:

>"sammodhaa" should read "sambodhaa". The error is in the CSCD version of Kc which contains numerous other typos as well. My Burmese printed paperback ed. of Kc shows "sambodhaa" and a word search on the CSCD shows that it's in common use with "pubbeva".
> 
>
Thank you for your correction. At present, I have no access to many 
Burmese sources except CSCD.

>I'm familiar with the term "paribhaasaa". According to the Suttaniddesa, the suttas are categorized into four types: sa~n~naa (definition), adhikaara (governing rule), paribhaasaa (key to interpretation), and vidhi (statement of a general rule). In Vasu's translation of Paa.nini's grammar, two additional categories are given: niyama (restrictive rule) and atide"sa (extended application by analogy) --Vol. 1, p. 1.
> 
>
Ok. Then I hope we have nothing left to argue over as regards what we 
have discussed.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1158
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun May 15, 2005 8:18am 
Subject: Re: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?
 
    Dear members,

Just to let you know that Rahula has gotten the answer to his
question. I received the following from him and yes, it would have
been appropriate for him to post the information here.

"I have found the answer. Prof. Richard Gombrich informed me that he
is Christopher Minkowski, not sure whether it's appropriate to post on
the list."

Best wishes,
Jim

> Hi,
>
> Just curious, who is the present Boden Professor of Sanskrit?
>
> Metta,
> Rahula
 
1159
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun May 15, 2005 0:55pm 
Subject: Re: Sabhc-d 1 (varavaadina.m)
 
    Dear Members (and Ven. Dhammanando),

I was away for a week and have gotten behind in my contributions to
our study of the Saddatthabhedacintaa with its diipanii. I will only
be here for a little less than a month before I have to go away again
for two weeks including a week in Toronto. I have booked a room for
June 15-22 at the summer residence of Trinity College, U of T which is
just a block away from Canada's largest library.

I would now like to set aside our discussions on
_saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m_ and its commentary and move on to
the commentary _varavaadina.m_ (the Speaker of the Excellent). I did
start researching it some weeks ago but much still remains to be done
before I'm ready to post. Because the title of the text is rather long
for the subject line, I think it would be better to use an
abbreviation. Unfortunately the CPD does not provide any standard for
these two works so we will have to come up with our own. I propose the
following:

Sabhc for Saddatthabhedacintaa
Sabhc-d for Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii

I have reproduced, below, the portion of the text (originally posted
by Ven. Dhammanando on Mar. 30) that I will resume working on and
hopefully will have something to post soon.

Best wishes, Jim

> I. GANTHAARAMBHAKATHAA

> 1.
> saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
> abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate.

[...]

> *varavaadinan* ti buddha.m. buddhoti vara.m nibbaana.m
> vadati siilenaati varavaadii. vuttanti asa`nkheyyaani
> naamaani. sagu.nena mahesinoti.
>
> *varan* ti ca nibbaana.m adhippeta.m. vutta~nhi varo
> vara~n~nuuti ettha ca vara~n~nuuti nibbaana~n~nuu.
> nibbaana~nhi sabbadhammaana.m uttamatthena varanti.
>
> athavaa *sadda ... pavara.m varavaadinan* ti dvaya.mpi
> visesana.m. visesitabba.m pana buddhanti ajjhaaharitabba.m.
> buddhasseva pavaraana.m atisayapavarattaa vaadiina~nca
> atisayavadittaa.
 
1160
From: "rahula_80" <rahula_80@yahoo.com> 
Date: Mon May 16, 2005 0:15am 
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?
 
    Hi,

Yes. And I wish to thanks Prof. Lance Cousins too (I believed he is 
also in this group). He too have emailed me the answer.

Best wishes,
Rahula
 
1161
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Mon May 16, 2005 1:15am 
Subject: Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero? 
 
    Yes, he is lurking still. But the information was posted before I was 
able to reply.

Lance Cousins

>Hi,
>
>Yes. And I wish to thanks Prof. Lance Cousins too (I believed he is
>also in this group). He too have emailed me the answer.
>
>Best wishes,
>Rahula
>
 
1162
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed May 25, 2005 11:53am 
Subject: Re: Sabhc-d 1 (varavaadina.m) pt. 1
 
    Dear members,

This is just a bit more of my translation and notes.

Saddatthabhedacintaa:

> 1.
> saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
> abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaa'bhidhiiyate.

Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii:

> *varavaadinan* ti buddha.m. buddhoti vara.m nibbaana.m
> vadati siilenaati varavaadii. vuttanti asa`nkheyyaani
> naamaani. sagu.nena mahesinoti.

Text and translation:
_varavaadinan_ ti buddha.m.

"varavaadina.m" (the Speaker of the Excellent) refers to the Buddha.

Note:
"varavaadina.m" is in the accusative case and is the object (as with
"pavara.m") of the absolutive "abhivaadiya" (having saluted).

Text and translation:
buddhoti vara.m nibbaana.m vadati siilenaati varavaadii.

The Buddha thus is the Speaker of the Excellent because by habit he
speaks of the excellent nibbaana.

Notes:
1) I think "siilena" (by habit) relates to the primary suffix -ii
(.nii) in '-vaadii. See Kc 532 (tassiilaadiisu .niitvaavii ca).
'Tassiila' is 'tacchiila' (having such a habit) in Sanskrit which S.C.
Vasu explains in his translation of Paa.nini as meaning: 'the natural
inclination towards an action prompted by a contemplation of its fruit
or result'. --Vol. I, p.463
2) "vara.m nibbaana.m" could also be taken as two nouns instead of
adj+noun: "the Excellent, Nibbaana" ('vara.m' being a synonym for
'nibbaana.m').
3) In "silenaati varavadii", I have taken the 'ti' in the sense of
cause (hetu). Both the Saddaniiti, p.317 (with examples) and
Abh 1188 give 7 uses of the particle 'iti'. I'm not sure if 'hetu' is
the right one here.

Text and translation:
vuttanti asa`nkheyyaani naamaani sagu.nena mahesinoti.

It is said thus: "incalculable are the names of the Great Sage with
his qualities".

Notes:
1) This quote can be found in the commentaries such as at: Sv III 963;
Sv-p.t I 85, 522; Ud-a 337; As 391. p.t III 195 It is usually seen as
the first line of the following gaathaa:

asa"nkheyyaani naamaani sagu.nena mahesino,
gu.nena naama.m uddheyya.m api naamasahassato ti.

PTS Translations:
Incalculable are the names for the Great Rishi by way of his own
individual qualities, by way of those qualities, a name may well be
assigned by the thousand.
--P. Masefield, The Udaana Commentary, Vol. II, p.871.

' The names won by the virtues of the Sage
Cannot be numbered: thou shalt teach his names
By thousands, for his virtues manifold.'
--P.M. Tin, The Expositor, p.499

2) The first line is given at Sv III 963 to which Sv-p.t III 195
ascribes Dhammasenaapati (likely Saariputta) as the author.
3) Even though singular, the PTS translators take "sagu.nena" in the
plural which I have followed but can't really justify it other than it
makes more sense that the Buddha would have more than one quality.

Best wishes, Jim

1163
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat May 28, 2005 11:16am 
Subject: Sabhc-d 1 (varavaadina.m) pt. 2
 
    Just continuing on from where I left off in my previous post.

[Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii:]

> *varan* ti ca nibbaana.m adhippeta.m. vutta~nhi varo
> vara~n~nuuti ettha ca vara~n~nuuti nibbaana~n~nuu.
> nibbaana~nhi sabbadhammaana.m uttamatthena varanti.

Text and translation:
_varan_ ti ca nibbaana.m adhippeta.m.

And for "vara.m" (the Excellent), nibbaana is intended.

Note:
The "vara.m" commented on here is from an earlier sentence (buddhoti
vara.m nibbaana.m vadati siilenaati varavaadii.) where I translated
"vara.m nibbaana.m" as "the excellent nibbaana". This added comment
now makes it clear that "vara.m" is to be taken as a synonym of
"nibbaana.m" and not as a modifying adjective.

Text and translation:
vutta~nhi varo vara~n~nuuti ettha ca vara~n~nuuti nibbaana~n~nuu.
nibbaana~nhi sabbadhammaana.m uttamatthena varanti.

For "varo vara~n~nuu" (The Excellent One, the Knower of the Excellent)
is said, and here "vara~n~nuu" is <equiivalent to> "nibbaana~n~nuu"
(the Knower of Nibbaana), for Nibbaana is the Excellent in the sense
of the highest of all dhammas.

Notes:
1) "varo vara~n~nuu" is from a line of verse in the Ratanasutta:

varo vara~n~nuu varado varaaharo, --Khp 5, Sn 234a

PTS translation:
The excellent one, knowing what is excellent, giving what is
excellent, bringing what is
excellent,...
-- K.R. Norman, The Group of Discourses II, p.26, v. 234a

2) "vara~n~nuuti nibbaana~n~nuu. nibbaana~nhi sabbadhammaana.m
uttamatthena vara.m" is found in the commentaries to the
Khuddhakapaa.tha and the Suttanipaata on the same Ratanasutta verse as
follows:

vara~n~nuuti nibbaana~n~nuu, nibbaana~nhi sabbadhammaana.m
uttama.t.thena vara.m, ta~ncesa bodhimuule saya.m pa.tivijjhitvaa
a~n~naasi;.. --Khp-a 193, Sn-a I 278

Note the spelling "uttama.t.thena" instead of "uttamatthena".

PTS translation:
Knower (vara~n~nuu--lit. 'knower of the glorious'): knower of
extinction; for extinction is glorious as the supreme goal (meaning)
of all ideals (ideas), and he knew it by penetrating it for himself at
the root of the Tree of Englightenment.
-- ~Naa.namoli, Minor Readings and Illustrator, p.213

3) I think the earlier sentence "vuttanti asa"nkheyyaani naamaani
sagu.nena mahesinoti" is out of place within the group of sentences
starting with "_varavaadinan_ ti buddha.m." and ending with
"...uttamatthena varanti."

Best wishes, Jim

1164
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Jun 1, 2005 8:38pm 
Subject: Sabhc-d 1 (varavaadina.m) pt. 3
 
    [Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii 1:]

> athavaa *sadda ... pavara.m varavaadinan* ti dvaya.mpi
> visesana.m. visesitabba.m pana buddhanti ajjhaaharitabba.m.
> buddhasseva pavaraana.m atisayapavarattaa vaadiina~nca
> atisayavadittaa.

Text and translation:
athavaa _sadda . . . pavara.m varavaadinan_ ti dvaya.mpi visesana.m.

Alternatively, the pair also in "sadda . . . pavara.m varavaadina.m"
are qualifiers.

Note:
The pair (dvaya.m) refers to "pavara.m" and "varavaadina.m".

Text and translation:
visesitabba.m pana buddhanti ajjhaaharitabba.m.

Moreover, the qualified <word> "buddha.m" should be supplied (or
inferred).

Note:
"visesana.m" (qualifier, modifier) and "visesitabba.m" (qualified,
modified) are technical terms used in some Pali grammars. In the
Samaasa Chapter (see p.751) of the Saddaniiti, the term "visesana" can
be seen in the first three of nine types of kammadhaaraya compounds:

i) visesanapubbapado: a compound in which the first member is the
qualifier egs. mahaapuriso (the great man), niiluppala.m (blue lotus).
"puriso" and "uppala.m" are the qualified words.
ii) visesanuttarapado: the second member is the qualifier eg.
Saariputtatthero ('thero' qualifies 'Saariputta-'). This one shows
that the qualifier can be a noun.
iii) visesanobhayapado: both members are qualifiers eg. andhabadhiro
(a deaf-blind <one>).

Text and translation:
buddhasseva pavaraana.m atisayapavarattaa vaadiina~nca
atisayavadittaa.

Because of only the Buddha's superiority of an excellent one among
excellent ones and superiority of a speaker among speakers.

Note:
This one is hard to understand and translate satisfactorily. I think
it is giving two reasons for supplying or inferring "buddha.m" in the
previous sentence.

Best wishes, Jim

1165
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Jun 4, 2005 6:59pm 
Subject: Sabhc-d 1 (saddatthabhedacintaa)
 
    Dear members,

I will often include a copy of the verse currently being studied so
that you can see the context of the word(s) being commented on without
having to search through previous posts.

Saddatthabhedacintaa 1:

saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaabhidhiiyate.

Ven. Dhammanando's translation (Apr. 11):
Having saluted the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda
and attha,
the Speaker of the Excellent, I shall speak the
Saddatthabhedacintaa.

Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii 1 (on the title "saddatthabhedacintaa):

Text and translation:
> saddabhede atthabhede saddatthabhede cinteti
> vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati
> saddatthabhedacintaa. niyatitthili`ngo hi cintaasaddo.

<It is called> "saddatthabhedacintaa" because by means of or in this
treatise it considers, investigates categories of the (spoken) sound,
categories of meaning, and categories of meaning with the sounds. The
word "cintaa" has the regular feminine gender.

Notes:
1) In message 1104, Apr. 11, Ven. Dhammanando includes Abhaya Thera's
Mahaa.tiikaa gloss on the title which I have reproduced below for
comparison with the Diipanii gloss. One notable difference is that the
Mahaa.tiikaa takes -bheda- (analysis, classification) as a singular
whereas the Diipanii seem to take it as a plural. I'm taking the
forms "-bhede" as the accusative plural based on the Atthasaalini
passage "cittanti aaramma.na.m (accusative singular) cintetiiti
citta.m. vijaanaatiiti attho." --p. 63. I'm not sure if the usage of
"cinteti" can also take a locative instead of an accusative. I think
"study" or "investigation" could be possible translations of "cintaa".

2) In "niyatitthili`ngo hi cintaasaddo.", I have left "hi"
untranslated. In "niyatitthili`ngo" (niyata-itthi-li"ngo), I don't
understand the purpose of "niyata-" (determined) here and have
tentatively translated it as "regular". You will find terms like
aniyatali"nga and niyatitthili"nga in the 4th pariccheda of the
Saddaniiti.

Jim

[from Ven. Dhammanando's message 1104]:

Title of the treatise.

Abhaya Thera:
saddo ca attho ca saddatthaa. saddehi gamyamaano attho saddattho.
saddatthaa ca saddattho ca saddatthaa. saddatthaana.m bhedo
saddatthabhedo. cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati
cintaa. saddatthabhedassa cintaa saddatthabhedacintaa.
 from the Mahaa.tiikaa

Dhammaanando:
I will attempt an explanatory translation of the above.

saddatthabhedassa cintaa = saddatthabhedacintaa

The saddattha- part can be analysed in three ways.
1) saddo ca attho ca saddatthaa
A linguistic element and a meaning is saddatthaa.

2) saddehi gamyamaano attho saddattho
A meaning being gone to [= being known] by linguistic elements is
saddattho.

3) A combination of 1 and 2: saddatthaa ca saddattho ca
saddatthaa
Saddatthaa(a) and saddattho is saddatthaa(b)

Then:
saddatthaana.m bhedo saddatthabhedo
An analysis/classification of saddatthaa(b) is saddatthabhedo.

cinteti vijaanaati etena pakara.nena ettha vaati cintaa
Through that treatise one reasons or discerns herein [i.e. in
regard to this subject of saddatthbhedo], thus it is a cintaa.

saddatthabhedassa cintaa saddatthabhedacintaa.
The cintaa of saddatthabhedo is the Saddatthabhedacintaa.

1166
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 4:47am 
Subject: Re: Sabhc-d 1 (saddatthabhedacintaa) 
 
    Dear Jim,
Thank you, that is very helpful.
Nina. 
op 05-06-2005 00:59 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

> Dear members,
> 
> I will often include a copy of the verse currently being studied so
> that you can see the context of the word(s) being commented on without
> having to search through previous posts.
 
1167
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Jun 9, 2005 4:25am 
Subject: Thai Pali pronunciation / phonology? 
 
    Does anyone know of an article or reference work dealing with Pali phonology 
in Thailand? In other words, Thai pronunciation and mis-pronunciation of 
Pali? 

I would be interested both in any articles examining this from a purely 
linguistic perspective, and in any materials looking at historical changes 
over time. It seems to me (as a purely unscientific observer) that quite a 
bit of the modern pronunciation is attributable to confusion over the script 
(i.e., the very different values that the same glyphs have in modern 
vernacular usage) --but I would be interested to know more. 

In case Thai subscribers to the list feel unfairly singled out: I read the 
other day that the Burmese tend to recite Pali "ss" as "th" for similar 
reasons --so this is hardly the only example of such confusion. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
The perfume of flowers blows not against the wind, not does the fragrance of 
sandalwood, tagara and jasmine, but the fragrance of the virtuous blows 
against the wind; the virtuous man pervades every direction.
Random Dhammapada Verse 54
 
1168
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Fri Jun 10, 2005 7:53am 
Subject: RE: Thai Pali pronunciation / phonology?
 
    > I would be interested both in any articles examining this 
> from a purely linguistic perspective, and in any materials 
> looking at historical changes over time. It seems to me (as 
> a purely unscientific observer) that quite a bit of the 
> modern pronunciation is attributable to confusion over the 
> script (i.e., the very different values that the same glyphs 
> have in modern vernacular usage) --but I would be interested 
> to know more. 

Dear Friends,

This is my first post to the Pali Study group, so may I express my greetings
to everyone on this group.

Sorry, I don't have an answer to your question, I just thought it
interesting that in Northern Thailand there are hints of a more proper
pronounciation:

toh tahaan is often pronounced like doh dek, as it should be when used in
paali for "d" 

poh paan is often pronounced like boh bai mai, as it should be when used in
the paali for "b"

I wonder if this shows an evolutionary decline?

> In case Thai subscribers to the list feel unfairly singled 
> out: I read the other day that the Burmese tend to recite 
> Pali "ss" as "th" for similar reasons --so this is hardly the 
> only example of such confusion. 

And in Cambodian "ee-aah" instead of "aa" in some places, for instance:

"adinnee-ahh dee-aah nee-aah" to say "adinnaadaanaa"

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo
 
1169
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Jun 11, 2005 9:03am 
Subject: davati / duyati / du.neti / dunaati

    I've come upon a troublesome word that is used as an example in Kaccaayana: 

davati / duyati / du.neti / dunaati 

I have been unable to find a definition for it. One source indicated that 
it means "he goes", another suggested "is pained" --two very different, and 
conflicting translations. 

Does anyone have an authoritative translation for this particular word? 
Sorry, but I've exhausted my own reference materials. 

Any comments would be helpful, 

Sorry to pester the list --I wouldn't normally ask for a word-definition, 
but it does appear in the grammatical literature, and I am without other 
resources, 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
To many a refuge fear-stricken men betake themselves - to hills, woods, 
groves, trees, and shrines.
Random Dhammapada Verse 188
 
1170
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:09am 
Subject: Re: davati / duyati / du.neti / dunaati
 
    Hi,

>I've come upon a troublesome word that is used as an example in Kaccaayana:
>
>davati / duyati / du.neti / dunaati

According to Saddaniiti's dhaatumaalaa the root of davati is: 432 du gatiya.m
= gacchati, paapu.naati

The root of dunaati is given as: 1243 duu hi.msaaya.m = hi.msati

Where is this used in Kacc?

best regards,

/Rett
 
1171
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sat Jun 11, 2005 11:19am 
Subject: Re: davati / duyati / du.neti / dunaati 
 
    1. Davati occurs in explanations of the syllable da in paduma and 
upaddava. This corresponds to Sanskrit root DU(U) = Skt davati 'go'

2. Duyati is given in Sadd (Be) 226: du paritaape. duyate. duno, duuto.
This mostly corresponds to Sanskrit root DU(U) = Skt dunoti, duuyate 
'be afflicted'. (duuta 'messenger' is usually taken as from root 1)

These are usually considered to be old words with distinct 
Indo-European roots and cognates in Greek.

3. The sense of 'hi.msaa' is from Sanskrit root DRU = Skt dru.naati 'harm'.

4. There is also Sanskrit DRU = Skt dravati 'run'.

I do not find du.neti or dunaati as such in anything non-grammatical 
I can search, but they may occur in some other form.

Lance Cousins

>I've come upon a troublesome word that is used as an example in Kaccaayana:
>
>davati / duyati / du.neti / dunaati
>
>I have been unable to find a definition for it. One source indicated that
>it means "he goes", another suggested "is pained" --two very different, and
>conflicting translations.
>
>Does anyone have an authoritative translation for this particular word? 
>Sorry, but I've exhausted my own reference materials.
>
>Any comments would be helpful,
>
>Sorry to pester the list --I wouldn't normally ask for a word-definition,
>but it does appear in the grammatical literature, and I am without other
>resources,
>
>E.M.
 
1172
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Jun 12, 2005 10:59pm 
Subject: davati; Thai-Pali phonology; Shan Buddhism 
 
    Many thanks to L.S. Cousins for the note on duyati, etc.; the passage seemed 
to indicate that these were all variant spellings of the same word, but that 
may well have been misinterpretation --albeit, not only on my part. 

That being said, the relationship between Pali and Sanskrit roots is not 
always parallell --but this is much more useful than anything I was able to 
find on my own. 

In reply to the comment from Bhante Yuttadhammo: I agree, the regional 
variations within Thailand seem very interesting, but I have only my own 
anecdotal observations to rely upon, as I've never seen this "written up". 
It is an interesting suggestion that better pronunciation in the North 
indicates some kind of historical "devolution" --but I would tend to assume 
this is again related to confusion over the relationship between script and 
sound. In the North, Lanna was supplanted by modern Thai characters (for 
expressing Pali) at a later stage than Khom was supplanted in the south; 
generally, where Pali has a distinct script, the awareness of the distinct 
sounds pertaining to each character seems to be more evident. 

Within Laos, each monastery I've visited seems to have a very different 
aesthetic and phonology for Pali chanting --doubtless a reflection of the 
very fragmented state of monastic education here (until quite recently). 
The division between Dhammayut and Mahanikaya was also quite deep (with much 
mutual hostility expressed --according to the only historical source I've 
read on this matter) until the forced reconciliation post-1975. This former 
sectarian division may account for differences in pronunciation as well. 
Naturally, one cannot expect many published sources on such matters in 
Laotian buddhism! 

I have been meaning to ask, also, if anyone on the list knows of any 
publications on Buddhism in the Shan country (variously written as "The Shan 
states", Shanland, etc.) or about the Pali tradition there especially. The 
region gains some reciprocal mention in major histories of Burma and the Mon 
country, but I have never seen a single source about the history of Shan 
Buddhism. Of course, there is a pretty limited selection of books in the 
libraries and bookstores that I frequent here in Laos... 

In any case, it seems the Shan have a Pali tradition from about the 14th 
century --and I would be very interested to know more about it. 

I will mention further that I have some excellent scans "in digital form" of 
Pyu inscriptions from Burma; if anyone has a special interest in Pyu 
(properly Romanized as "Pyuu", I suppose) epigraphy, or reading Pali in Pyu, 
please write to me off-list, and I can send you a copy by e-mail attachment. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
There is acquisition of demerit as well as evil destiny. Brief is the joy of 
the frightened man and woman. The King imposes a heavy punishment. Hence no 
man should frequent another's wife.
Random Dhammapada Verse 310
 
1173
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Jun 20, 2005 6:02am 
Subject: Who was Kaccyana, or, who wrote the Vykarana? 
 
    An excert from the introduction to the book. All subscribers to the list 
are welcome to change my mind before it goes to press! 

E.M.
---------
Who was Kaccyana, or, who wrote the Vykarana? 

According to Buddhist tradition, the ultimate source of this textbook is a 
set of verses on grammar composed by Mah-Kaccyana that were preserved by 
memorization and recitation from the time of the Buddha for several 
centuries before being committed to writing. For all of the religion's 
recorded history (i.e., commencing much later), oral tradition of the 
Kaccyana-Vykarana has been the primary mode of learning the Pali language; 
subsequent grammars have tended to supplement (rather than supplant) the 
Vykarana's prominent place in monastic pedagogy, and many believe that this 
text we have today (the earliest extant Pali grammar) is approximately the 
same mode of instruction used by Buddhists for some 2,000 years --although 
an earlier origin of 2,500 years remains debatable. I have heard the doubts 
of both monks and secular scholars as to whether the author of the grammar 
is in fact the same Kaccyana as the character depicted in the canon, and 
who lived in the era of the Buddha; I will return to the question below, but 
for the moment will speak of the figure of Mah-Kaccyana in the 
suttapitaka. 

The character of Kaccyana is very well recorded in the Buddhist canon, and 
the anecdotes pertaining to him (both from the suttas and the commentaries) 
have been brought together in one article by Bhante Bodhi: 

Bhikkhu Bodhi, Maha Kaccana: Master of Doctrinal Exposition, 1995, The Wheel 
Publication No. 405/406, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka. 
(Also available as a free electronic resource) 

In overview, Kaccyana strikes the reader as an independent spirit, living 
most of his life far removed from the Buddha, wandering, teaching, and 
finding solitude in the mountainous forests of the kingdom of Avant, not 
far from his birthplace in the capital, Ujjen. Although Ujjen seems to 
have been connected to the "Middle country" (Majjhimadesa) of India by trade 
routes, it is perhaps a sign of how very distant it was in practical term 
(i.e., how difficult the journey might have been) that the Buddha never 
visited it, refusing invitations to do so from both the king of Avanti, and 
Kaccyana's himself. For a sense of the geographic distance, we may refer 
to Bimala Churn Law, Geography of Early Buddhism, 1932 (reprinted 1979), pg. 
22, and the map provided at the end of that volume. 

Kaccyana's relative isolation, with only a few students, on a distant 
frontier of the religion, seems to be well illustrated by the events 
concerning the ordination of Sona recorded in the Vinaya; in brief, 3 years 
passed before Kaccyana could arrange the presence of 9 other monks to 
perform the ceremony, and this resulted in the passing of a special rule 
that as few as 5 monks could ordain a new monk in very remote areas. This 
is related in more detail by Bodhi in the article cited above (the PTS 
citation for the original is Vin.i.195f). Kaccyana's independence from the 
Buddha in his travel (and in his opinions) is also shown in his association 
with the city of Madhur (where it seems he repeatedly visited, stayed, and 
preached to the locals) --this seems to be the one and only place that we 
know the Buddha specially avoided, as he expressed his vexation with the 
city in a sutta of the same name in the Anguttara Nikya. 

Kaccyana's situation as an independent voice for the Buddha's teaching in a 
land both lingually and culturally separate from Maghada seems to be 
consistent with his rle as an early grammarian and interpreter. We may 
speculate that his pupils in Avant would have had a greater difficulty in 
unravelling the Buddha's dense, poetical statements in Prakrit (e.g., the 
Bhaddekaratta sutta) than a native speaker of Maghadan with some prior 
exposure to the literary languages used in the area. Some scholars would 
here object that I am anachronistically describing Pali as a single, defined 
language at too early a stage, and might further argue that it emerged out 
of various Prakitic influences in the centuries following the Buddha's life; 
but in this connection, it is immaterial whether one speaks of a single 
Magadha Prakrit spoken by the Buddha, or of a category of many Prakritic 
dialects used by his followers (subsequently merging), for all such dialects 
would have been equally strange to Avant, and all equally subject to new 
influences from other languages (Prakrit or otherwise) in the centuries 
before the canonization of Pali in Sri Lanka. To illustrate my point with a 
more historically definite example, given what we know of the close 
approximation between the earliest extant Jain Prakrit and language of the 
Pali canon as it is now preserved, it should be clear (as a matter of 
historical inference, not of fact) that the followers and monks that the 
Buddha attracted from the pre-existing Jain tradition in Magadha would have 
been familiar with a tradition of reciting religious poetry in a Prakritic 
language not very different from the Buddha's own --whereas distant Avant 
(even if it had its own caste of Brahmins reciting the old Sanskrit of the 
Vedas) would not have shared in so closely comparable a Prakrit tradition. 

The question remains as to what extent the legendary origin of the text 
might be true, and, if it is only partly true, to what extent we can 
identify the author of the grammar with the Kaccyana who was a contemporary 
of the Buddha, or any other historical figure with a similar name. 

Vidyabhusana, in his introduction, dismisses the traditional account on two 
inter-dependent assertions: (1) that the text as we have it today was of 
single, simultaneous authorship, and (2) as such, there would be 
anachronisms were its origins so early as tradition states (Vidyabhusana, 
op. cit. supra, pg. xxviii). The second point collapses with the first, and 
one of the very few pieces of historical information we have about the 
origin of the text states that it was the work of several different authors, 
possibly living in successive (but unspecified) periods of time; and this 
sequence successive authors would be perfectly consistent with the 
organization of the text as we have it today, being comprised of three 
"Layers", namely, sutta, vutti, and payoga. Vidyabhusana presents and 
summarily rejects this (one and only) piece of historical evidence with very 
little explanation: 

In the Kaccyana bheda tk we find: "The Yoga (Stra) was written by 
Kaccyana, the commentary by Sanghanandi, the examples were added by 
Brahmadatta and the gloss by Vimalabuddhi." From the manner in which the 
sutta, vutti, payoga, and nysa are intimately connected with one another, I 
am inclined to believe that the entire work was written by Ktyyana 
himself. At any rate the sutta etc. were written simultaneously.
(Ibid., pg. xxvi) 

Thus, on the bare assertion that "the manner" in which the different layers 
"are intimately connected" seems to suggest simultaneous authorship, 
Vidyabhusana proceeds to treat anachronisms found among the examples 
(payoga) as if they were definite indications as to the date of all layers 
of the text. He proceeds to speculate that the author was a Kaccyana 
(i.e., not the same as found in the canon) who lived in Mathur during or 
after the 3rd century B.C. (Ibid., xxviii). His identification of Mathur 
(more commonly spelled Madhura) as the putative author's home is quizzical, 
and actually undermines his thesis that this particular Kaccyana and the 
character known to us from the canon (i.e., contemporaneous with the Buddha) 
are two separate people: Vidyabhusana argues that an example mentioning 
Madhura, and another naming a king of Madhura, suggest that the author had a 
special association with the place; but the Kaccyana of the Buddha's time 
was indeed especially associated with Madhura, and this is plainly shown in 
several suttas stating that he lived in a forest there (such as the 
eponymous Madhura sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya). More fundamentally, one 
can hardly say that there is any more geographic significance in these two 
passing mentions of Madhura than in the two examples mentioning the 
Himalayas (following verses 94 and 274 respectively); the simplest and the 
truest thing to say is that we would expect to find toponymns such as 
Madhura and the Himalayas even in a grammar composed a thousand years later 
in distant Burma or Cambodia, as they are canonical toponyms that any 
Palicist (of any era or country) might drawn upon to compose examples. The 
basis for Vidyabhusana's assigned date is the same "anachronism" mentioned 
in Mason's introduction (i.e., two contemporaries of Ashoka appearing among 
the Vykarana's examples), the significance of which stands or falls with 
the assumption that the examples must have been written at the same time as 
the sutta (which is especially doubtful, as the commentary tells us that 
they weren't written by the same author!). My main objection to this line 
of reasoning is that it replaces evidence with mere speculation, and so does 
nothing to improve on what little we know from legend. 

I have an open mind on this question, but most of the arguments that I have 
seen on the matter are very deeply flawed. As one example, E.J. Thomas 
writes that the Sutta-Niddesa is such an early text that it was written 
while Pali "was then a current language", and that "grammatical analysis" 
was only just "becoming necessary for the interpretation of the texts" (E. 
J. Thomas, "Buddhist Education in Pali and Sanskrit Schools", The Indian 
Historical Quarterly, vol. 2:3, 1926, September, pg. 495-508; see pg. 502). 
Thomas thus has the fixed notion that grammars only arise at a "late" 
period, i.e., when the knowledge of a language is in decline, and its 
writings are becoming incomprehensible. It is therefore no surprise that he 
assigns Kaccyana to a very late date: "The Pali grammar of Kaccayana is 
later than Buddhaghosa, and belongs to the literature of Ceylon" (Ibid., 
504). He then quotes Geiger to suggest that influence from (or imitation 
of) Sanskrit grammatical concepts is another sure sign of a text's late 
origin (Ibid.). 

In reply to all this, firstly, there seem to be no grounds to assign an 
early date to the Niddesa, and it may be as late as the 1st century B.C., or 
even the 2nd century A.D. (Hinber, Op. Cit., 116-118); what is of more 
direct significance to our argument is that Thomas believes the Niddesa is 
early precisely because it offers only crude lists of synonyms, and not 
fully developed "grammatical analysis". This is a recurrent problem in Pali 
studies, whereby scholars first call something "crude", and then, in the 
next breath, call it "early", with no attempt to substantiate the connection 
between such perceived simplicity and the timeline of the religion. After 
all, the Sutta-Niddesa is a commentary on a poem, i.e., neither a work on 
grammar, nor pedagogy --it is not clear as to why it should offer anything 
more than "crude" grammatical notes in passing, if it serves the author's 
purpose is discussing the poem. What is more absurd is the notion that 
there was ever any period so early that there would be no need for 
"grammatical analysis" in teaching or understanding the Pali language; both 
the cosmopolitan spread of Buddhism across lingual regions, and its spread 
across caste divisions in early Indian society would have assured that from 
the first days of the Buddha's preaching his dense, philosophical poetry 
would have been very difficult for the majority of his audience to 
understand. The truth of this is everywhere written in the dialogues of the 
suttas (we may again refer to the Bhaddekaratta as a ready example of such 
an opaque poem, and the suttas offering competing interpretations thereof 
follow upon it: Majjhima Nikaya, No. 131-134). Above all else, we must keep 
in mind the simple fact that literary Prakrits (such as Pali was, or out of 
several of which Pali was composed) are not and have never been anyone's 
"Mother tongue" ("Pli has never been a spoken language neither in Magadha 
nor elsewhere", Hinber, Op. Cit., 7; see also: Deshpande, Madhave M., 
1993, Sanskrit & Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues). Resultantly, the notion 
that Pali would have been grammatically self-evident to native speakers of 
any one region (e.g., Magadha) is flawed, and the fact that Buddhism rapidly 
spread over such a vast area would renders the point trivial even if it 
could be maintained; but to show the absurdity of this line of thinking it 
is enough if we simply ask, "When has it ever been the case that grammar and 
pedagogy were unnecessary to teaching any written language, be it living or 
dead?" The general point (that Thomas quotes from Geiger) that Sanskrit 
influence in grammar and poetics has increased over time (in the history of 
Sinhalese literature) is quite true; but it would be absurd to infer from 
this that Kaccyana's text must either show a complete ignorance of Sanskrit 
terms, or else be considered a fraud of a later period (especially as the 
antiquity of the terms themselves is not in doubt, i.e., Sanskrit grammar is 
an older science than its Pali equivalent; Vidyabhusana provides a fine 
recapitulation of the early timeline of the grammars of both languages in 
his introduction, op. cit. supra). This approach belies a kind of religious 
bias that many secular Palicists secretly harbour, namely, the belief that 
the "pure", "early" tradition of Buddhism was completely free of Sanskrit 
influence; but we have it plainly stated in the Suttas that many of the 
Buddha's converts (including Kaccyana himself) were formerly Brahmins who 
chanted the Vedas, etc., so it would be jejune to suppose that monks of that 
"sacred generation" in India were entirely ignorant of Sanskrit. Certainly, 
there is no anachronism in their recourse to it for technical terms, except 
where those terms can be shown to have arisen from later developments in 
drama, poetics, and so on. 

The skepticism that various scholars have expressed as to the origin of 
Kaccyana's grammar is understandable, but their grounds for doubt are 
deserving of skepticism in turn. Three assumptions that I have generally 
found tacit in the literature are (1) that it would have been highly 
desirable for the true authors of the text to fraudulently assert Kaccyana 
as its author, (2) that the historical record (such as we have it from 
Buddhist sources) would be incapable of properly distinguishing multiple 
personalities with the relatively common name Kaccyana, and (3) that Pali 
itself is assumed to have been undefined for a long period of organic 
development before its canonization in Sri Lanka; resultantly, the existence 
of an authoritative grammar at such an early stage of the religion's history 
would require re-thinking of what little we know about the early history of 
the language. On only one point can I agree: new thinking is needed about 
the origins of the Pali language. 

Firstly, if Kaccyana were not the author of a major grammar, it is not at 
all clear to me that he would have any degree of celebrity that a fraudulent 
author would want to lend to his own work. Aside from the fame that this 
very grammar won for his name, Kaccyana appears as a fairly minor figure in 
the canon, and it is difficult to argue that he would have served as a 
better pseudonym than one of the chief disciples (as, e.g., in the 
attribution of the Niddesa to Sriputta) if some false name were to be used 
to lend authority to a grammatical treatise. While there are historical 
examples of celebrated names being falsely attributed to other monks' works, 
the common scenario tends to be that the work of many hands (such as a 
voluminous commentary) is misrepresented as the work of just one, well-known 
author (e.g., many of the commentaries attributed to Buddhaghosa by the 
Mahvangsa, etc., see: Hinber, op. cit. supra, 207, & ch. 5 generally); 
but, as we have seen, in the case of the Kaccyana Vykarana this scenario 
is reversed, for what we have is a concise text that has been duly credited 
as the composite work of several different authors, none of whom could 
really be considered famous except for the very work in question. I will 
not digress to deal with the second point at any length, except to observe 
that the Pali literature has preserved the distinctions between a huge 
number of persons known by overlapping names (examples of this are very 
numerous: Abhaya, Cunda, Gosla, Kl, etc.), as well as distinctions 
between post-canonical authors of the same name as characters in the canon 
(such as the various Moggallnas). The possibility that there could have 
been confusion does not indicate that there actually was any; there is no 
evidence to suggest the confusion of names, and there is no confusion within 
the little evidence that we have. In response to the third assumption, I 
can say little, as I neither believe that the existence of a grammar is an 
obstacle to the historical development of a language (has this ever been the 
case?), nor do I think that the current theories about Pali's origins (that 
tend to rely on inferences from the comparative reading of the Ashokan 
edicts) are so precious as to preclude the possible early origin of the 
Kaccyana Vykarana (there is further discussion of these matters in the 4th 
end-note I've added to chapter 1 of the present volume). Further, the sutta 
of the Vykarana neither provide so complete a description of the language, 
nor represent so definite a resemblance to the written language of the 
extant canon, as to imply that the rules must have written after Pali was 
canonized; on the contrary, there are many interesting differences between 
the language Kaccyana describes, and what we empirically find in the canon 
today. Mason draws attention to the disparity throughout his grammar (e.g., 
140, "no such forms are given by Kaccayano, and they have probably been 
introduced into the language since his grammar was written."). 

It does not seem to me any less plausible that a few hundred grammatical 
rules should have been transmitted by oral tradition for several centuries 
(i.e., from the time of the Buddha to being committed to writing) than that 
any other text should have made the same transition. We could as easily 
propose that the grammar is a genuine historical artifact, but that the 
dialogues of Kaccyana in the canon are false (i.e., were later inventions 
to glorify the grammarian), as to propose that the grammar is falsely 
attributed to the author known to us through the canon; the evidence to 
support either proposition is the same (i.e., nil), and the assumption that 
canonical texts are more difficult to tamper with than non-canonical ones 
has no basis but religious sentiment. I do not find it implausible that 
this grammar should trace its origins to one and the same Kaccyana depicted 
in the canon as the Buddha's contemporary --at the very least we must 
acknowledge that there is no evidence that would make it more plausible to 
assume that the basic verses (the sutta) might have been written by any 
other monk. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Not by silence (alone) does he who is dull and ignorant become a sage; but 
that wise man who, as if holding a pair of scales, embraces the best and 
shuns evil, is indeed a sage.
Random Dhammapada Verse 268
 
1174
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:07am 
Subject: Urasmaa vs. Uurusmaa

    Following Kacc. verse 274 I find the example:
"Urasmaa jaato putto."
This strikes me as a bit odd. 

(1) Could "Ura" (chest) here be confused with "Uuru" (thigh)? All the 
editions I've seen render it "Ura" consistently.
(2) Is this a reference to a specific Hindu myth I am unaware of, e.g., how 
the various castes were born from the various parts of a divine body? Or, 
perhaps, the supernatural birth of some god/hero?
(3) Is this simply a "normal usage" in Pali, i.e., to speak of being "born 
from the heart" of one's mother, in an abstract sense? 

I couldn't find any comparable phrase in the Suttapi.taka using the usual 
computer search. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Behold this beautiful body, a mass of sores, a heaped-up (lump), diseased, 
much thought of, in which nothing lasts, nothing persists.
Random Dhammapada Verse 147
 
1175
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:59am 
Subject: Re: Urasmaa vs. Uurusmaa 
 
    Eisel:

I think this is probably connected to exegesis of orasa, although CPD 
II thinks 'ura' is sometimes confused with 'udara' and Senart thought 
there was a Buddhist Sanskrit ura in the sense of 'womb'.

Lance

>Following Kacc. verse 274 I find the example:
> "Urasmaa jaato putto."
>This strikes me as a bit odd.
>
>(1) Could "Ura" (chest) here be confused with "Uuru" (thigh)? All the
>editions I've seen render it "Ura" consistently.
>(2) Is this a reference to a specific Hindu myth I am unaware of, e.g., how
>the various castes were born from the various parts of a divine body? Or,
>perhaps, the supernatural birth of some god/hero?
>(3) Is this simply a "normal usage" in Pali, i.e., to speak of being "born
>from the heart" of one's mother, in an abstract sense?
>
>I couldn't find any comparable phrase in the Suttapi.taka using the usual
>computer search.
>
>E.M.
 
1176
From: dhammanando@csloxinfo.com 
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:01am 
Subject: Re: Urasmaa vs. Uurusmaa
 
    Hi Eisel,

> Following Kacc. verse 274 I find the example:
> "Urasmaa jaato putto."
> This strikes me as a bit odd.

> (1) Could "Ura" (chest) here be confused with "Uuru" (thigh)? All the
> editions I've seen render it "Ura" consistently.

I don't think uuru has anything to do with it.

Mahaparinibbaanasutta:
tato na.m anukampanti, maataa putta.mva orasa.m,
devataanukampito poso, sadaa bhadraani passatii ti.
(DN. ii. 88-9)

DA. on "orasa.m":
_orasan_ ti ure .thapetvaa sa.mva.d.dhita.m, yathaa maataa
orasa.m putta.m anukampati, uppannaparissayahara.natthameva
tassa vaayamati, eva.m anukampantii ti attho.
(DA. ii. 542)

So, it would appear that the term 'ura' can sometimes
include the womb; or perhaps it encompasses the entire
torso?

'Ura' also has a figurative use in contexts where Ariyan
disciples are referred to as "sons of the Bhagavaa" (or
Sugata).

Agga~n~nasutta:
yassa kho panassa, vaase.t.tha, tathaagate saddhaa
nivi.t.thaa muulajaataa pati.t.thitaa da.lhaa asa.mhaariyaa
sama.nena vaa braahma.nena vaa devena vaa maarena vaa
brahmunaa vaa kenaci vaa lokasmi.m, tasseta.m kalla.m
vacanaaya -- 'bhagavatomhi putto oraso mukhato jaato
dhammajo dhammanimmito dhammadaayaado'ti.
(DN. iii. 84)

DA. on the above:
_muulajaataa pati.t.thitaa_ ti maggamuulassa sa~njaatattaa
tena maggamuulena pati.t.thitaa. _da.lhaa_ ti thiraa.
_asa.mhaariyaa_ ti sunikhaataindakhiilo viya kenaci
caaletu.m asakku.neyyaa. _tasseta.m kalla.m vacanaayaa_ ti
tassa ariyasaavakassa yuttameta.m vattu.m. kinti?
"bhagavatomhi putto oraso" ti evamaadi. so hi bhagavanta.m
nissaaya ariyabhuumiya.m jaatoti _bhagavato putto._ ure
vasitvaa mukhato nikkhantadhammaghosavasena maggaphalesu
pati.t.thitattaa _oraso mukhato jaato._ ariyadhammato
jaatattaa ariyadhammena ca nimmitattaa _dhammajo
dhammanimmito._
(DN. iii. 864-5)

> (2) Is this a reference to a specific Hindu myth I am unaware of, e.g., how
> the various castes were born from the various parts of a divine body? Or,
> perhaps, the supernatural birth of some god/hero?

It seems so. Earlier in the Aga~n~nasutta brahmins are
reported as saying:

braahma.naava sujjhanti, no abraahma.naa. braahma.naava
brahmuno puttaa orasaa mukhato jaataa brahmajaa
brahmanimmitaa brahmadaayaadaa.
(DN. iii. 81)

The Atthakathaa then glosses "orasaa mukhato jaataa":

_orasaa mukhato jaataa_ ti ure vasitvaa mukhato nikkhantaa,
ure katvaa sa.mva.d.dhitaati vaa orasaa.
(DA. iii. 861)

> (3) Is this simply a "normal usage" in Pali, i.e., to speak of being "born
> from the heart" of one's mother, in an abstract sense?

> I couldn't find any comparable phrase in the Suttapi.taka using the usual
> computer search.

If you search for the commentarial glosses on _orasa_ and
_orasaputta_ (especially in the Suma`ngalavilaasinii and the
two Diigha .tiikaas (this is a very Diigha Nikaaya-ish
theme), you should find more details than I have given here.
However, I have not been able to find any Tipi.taka passages
that explicitly make the ura/orasa connection.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando
 
1177
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:51pm 
Subject: Re: Who was Kaccyana, or, who wrote the Vykarana?
 
    Dear Eisel,

Thank-you for posting the excerpt from your introduction to Kaccaayana's
grammar. Could you clarify what the Sutta-Niddesa refers to in the
following:

> between such perceived simplicity and the timeline of the religion. After
> all, the Sutta-Niddesa is a commentary on a poem, i.e., neither a work on
> grammar, nor pedagogy --it is not clear as to why it should offer anything
> more than "crude" grammatical notes in passing, if it serves the author's
> purpose is discussing the poem. What is more absurd is the notion that

It sounds like E.J. Thomas is referring to the canonical Niddesa (two
volumes) included in the Khuddakanikaaya. This is an old commentary on
portions of the Suttanipaata but I have never heard it called the
Sutta-Niddesa before. Now there is a grammatical text called the
Suttaniddesa by Chapa.ta which is a medieval exposition on the grammatical
suttas of Kaccaayana. From what I've seen of my Thai copy of this text, it
resembles a simplified version of the Nyaasa (Mmd)--definitely not a
commentary on a poem.

During my stay in Toronto this past week, I examined the following two Pali
grammatical texts in the Devanagari script at the Robarts library,
University of Toronto:

1) Kaccaayana-nyaaso, Vol. I (on the Sandhikappo), ed. Bhikshu Satyapala,
1991
2) Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa, Vol I (on the Sandhikappo & Naamakappo), ed. L.
Tivari, 1992

Only 1000 copies each in the first printing. I've got the addresses of where
I can get copies if any are still left. I was able to photocopy a portion of
each volume for our study in this group. Satyapala includes a detailed
introduction in English of 89 pages in length. I only had enough time to
skim through it and did not photocopy any of it. Pages 1-69 deal mostly
with Kaccaayana and his grammar while from page 69 on he introduces the
Nyaasa. I caught a glimpse that the Pali language is basically the language
of the Buddhas and the arahants.

Best wishes,
Jim

1178
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jun 24, 2005 2:17am 
Subject: Which niddesa?, etc.

    Hi Jim, 

Re: the Niddesa: 

> Thank-you for posting the excerpt from your introduction to Kaccaayana's
> grammar. Could you clarify what the Sutta-Niddesa refers to in the
> following...

It's the commentary on the Sutta-Nipata (included in the K.N.) that he's 
referring to; and I checked the title against Hinuber, as I recall, but 
perhaps I'm "going one hyphen too far". I'll double check against the 
possibility of an error --as you mention. I realise that the 
context/content here might seem to lend itself to a "Nidd." on Kacc. --but 
E.J. Thomas was actually talking about the lists of synonymns (etc.) in the 
commentary to the Sutta-Nipata, and other "crude" grammatical analysis in 
that text. Anyway, if you read the next paragraph after the one in 
question, you'll see that Thomas states that Kacc. is a late text written in 
Sri Lanka --and that the Nidd. in question is very early. Thus, it would be 
impossible for him to maintain that the Nidd. (_qua_ commentary on Kacc, by 
Chapata) is earlier than Kaccayan; he's talking about the Nidd. (_qua_ 
commentary on S.-N.). 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Ah, happily do we live in good health amongst the ailing; amidst ailing men 
we dwell in good health (free from the disease of passions).
Random Dhammapada Verse 198
 
1179
From: dhammanando@csloxinfo.com 
Date: Fri Jun 24, 2005 3:52am 
Subject: Re: Who was Kacc?yana, or, who wrote the Vy?karana? 
 
    Dear Jim,

> It sounds like E.J. Thomas is referring to the canonical
> Niddesa (two volumes) included in the Khuddakanikaaya. This
> is an old commentary on portions of the Suttanipaata but I
> have never heard it called the Sutta-Niddesa before.

_Suttaniddesa_ is the name by which the two Niddesas are
referred to at the end of the Mahaaniddesa.

Von Hinueber states that the name Suttaniddesa is used at
the end of both Niddesas (_Handbook of Pali Literature_,
p.58), but the CSCD version doesn't have it at the end of
the Cullaniddesa.

I also noticed an error in von Hinueber's account. He
states, "An interesting remark on the history of Nidd. is
found in the Vinaya commentary, where it is reported that it
was nearly lost, for at a certain time only a single monk
named Mahaarakkhita knew it by heart still."

In fact the VinA. does not name the sole-surviving
Niddesa-reciter. It states that the elder Mahaatipi.taka
ordered his pupil Mahaarakkhita to go to the monk and learn
it, but the latter was unwilling because the Niddesa-reciter
had an evil reputation. Mahaarakkhita finally agreed to go,
on condition that Mahaatipi.taka sat with him:

tatrida.m vatthu -- mahaabhaye kira ekasseva bhikkhuno
mahaaniddeso pagu.no ahosi. atha catunikaayikatissattherassa
upajjhaayo mahaatipi.takatthero naama mahaarakkhitatthera.m
aaha -- "aavuso mahaarakkhita, etassa santike mahaaniddesa.m
ga.nhaahii" ti. "paapo kiraaya.m, bhante, na ga.nhaamii" ti.
"ga.nhaavuso, aha.m te santike nisiidissaamii" ti. "saadhu,
bhante, tumhesu nisinnesu ga.nhissaamii" ti pa.t.thapetvaa
rattindiva.m nirantara.m pariyaapu.nanto osaanadivase
he.t.thaama~nce itthi.m disvaa "bhante, suta.myeva me pubbe,
sacaaha.m eva.m jaaneyya.m, na iidisassa santike dhamma.m
pariyaapu.neyyan" ti aaha. tassa pana santike bahuu
mahaatheraa ugga.nhitvaa mahaaniddesa.m pati.t.thaapesu.m.
(VinA. iii. 695-6)

Mahasi Sayadaw discusses this episode in his lecture on the
Tuva.taka Sutta. On the question of whether the last line of
the sutta was spoken by the Buddha himself or by his
mind-created nimitta the sayadaw notes that the Niddesa
claims that it was the Buddha, but he himself prefers to
think it was the nimitta:

"Instead of 'tenaaha bhagavaa' if it is 'tenaaha nimmito', it
can be explained as 'recommended by the created self-image'.
It will be more appropriate. It is possible to be so in the
original Paali text. The reason is at the time of crisis in
Sri Lanka, this Mahaaniddesa text was learnt verbatim by one
impious monk only. The Vinaya AtthakathaaDutiyasikkhaa
Commentary states that at the orders of Mahaatipi.taka
Thera, Mahaarakkhita Thera had learned it from the impious
monk. Considering this statement it is plausible that there
might be some errors in the young monk's learning such as
'bhagavaa' instead of 'nimmito'."

Besides this the sayadaw does offer some rather good
arguments in defence of his reading, but the above one seems
a bit dodgy to me. If there's anything you don't like in the
Niddesa, just claim that the "impious monk" must have got it
wrong!

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

P.S. btw., this weekend I am being given a new pair of
glasses, so I will then be able to continue with the
transcribing of the Diipanii. Sorry about the delay with
this.
 
1180
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:28pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Who was Kacc?yana, or, who wrote the Vy?karana?
 
    Dear Ven. Dhammanando & Eisel,

Thanks to you both for your clarifications.

Dhammanando wrote:
> P.S. btw., this weekend I am being given a new pair of
> glasses, so I will then be able to continue with the
> transcribing of the Diipanii. Sorry about the delay with
> this.

I don't think there's been any delay on your part as you're still well ahead
in your transcription of the Diipanii (well past verse 10, I think). I still
have more work to do on the Diipanii for verse 1. I haven't been able to do
anything on this for the past few weeks because of being away from my books
but I should be getting back to it soon.

Best wishes,
Jim

1181
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Jul 1, 2005 4:34am 
Subject: Prof. McDaniel to join the list?

    A professor of things Buddhist and Lao, with overlapping specialization in 
Pali and literary Laotian languages, and a growing interest in grammar as it 
relates to incantation, would like to join the list. He's apparently in a 
tenure-track position at the U. of Chicago. 

Here's his note:
------------------------------------
As for the internet discussion group, I would be honored to
join in. I am not an expert on Pali grammatica, but am
interested in how grammar and ritual work together and how
grammar is taught in Laos/Thailand. I used to be a student at
Mahachulalongkorn University in Bangkok and actually taught a
little Sanskrit there in my spare time. I also taught an
impromptu Pali class at Wat Ong Teu in Vientiane once a few
years ago. I used to sit in on classes there often. I don't
know if I will have anything enlightening to contribute to the
group, but I would like to listen in.
------------------------------------- 

Jim, if there's consensus that he could join, his e-mail is: justinm@ucr.edu 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
As a flower beautiful and brilliant of hue, but without fragrance, even so 
fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who does not practise it.
Random Dhammapada Verse 51
 
1182
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Jul 1, 2005 11:07am 
Subject: Re: Prof. McDaniel to join the list?
 
    Hi Eisel,

Prof. McDaniel is very welcome to join. I will be writing him soon. A
quick google search turned up the following:

<<Dr. Justin McDaniel received his Ph.D. from Harvard University's
Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies in 2003. Presently he
teaches Buddhism and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of
California, Riverside. His research foci include Lao, Thai, Pali and
Sanskrit literature, Southeast Asian Buddhism, ritual studies,
manuscript studies, and Southeast Asian history.

Professor McDaniel lived and researched in South and Southeast Asia
for many years as a Social Science Research Council and Fulbright
Fellow, translator, volunteer teacher, and Buddhist monk. He is the
chair of the Thai, Lao, and Cambodian sections of the Association of
Asian Studies, and has worked and taught at monasteries through out
Thailand and Laos. His recent publications appear in the Journal of
the International Association of Buddhist Studies, the Journal of the
Siam Society, as well as contributions to collected articles on
Buddhism and Modernity, Fragile Palm-leaf Manuscript research, and
Pali literature in Laos and Thailand. At present he is finishing
writing the first major book on the history of Buddhist education in
Southeast Asia.>>

Copied from: http://summer.ucr.edu/thailand/instructor.html

Members of this list are welcome to invite others to join. Just submit
to me their name and email address or have them contact me and I will
take care of the rest.

Best wishes,
Jim

> A professor of things Buddhist and Lao, with overlapping
specialization in
> Pali and literary Laotian languages, and a growing interest in
grammar as it
> relates to incantation, would like to join the list. He's
apparently in a
> tenure-track position at the U. of Chicago.
>
> Here's his note:
> ------------------------------------

1183 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:48am 
Subject: Sabhc-d 1 (abhidhiiyate, part 1)

Dear members,

Sorry for the long delay. The last instalment was June 4! I have
resumed my study of Kaccaayana's grammar and have been finding the
Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa especially helpful at explaining the grammatical
suttas. It is more detailed than Mmd (Nyaasa) and somewhat easier to
follow. I would like to re-introduce Kaccaayana at some point later on
and somehow still be able to carry on with the Sabhc and its Diipanii.

Saddatthabhedacintaa 1:

saddatthabhedavaadiina.m pavara.m varavaadina.m
abhivaadiya saddatthabhedacintaabhidhiiyate.

Ven. Dhammanando's translation (Apr. 11):
> Having saluted the Foremost of speakers of the analysis of sadda
> and attha,
> the Speaker of the Excellent, I shall speak the
> Saddatthabhedacintaa.

Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii 1 (on abhidhiiyate, part 1):

From message 1086 (Mar. 30):
> *abhidhiiyate* ti bhaasiyissate mayaa. abhipubbassa
> dhaadhaatussa bhaasayanatthattaa paccupannasamiipepi
> vattamaanavibhattippavattattaa ca.

"abhidhiiyate" -- shall be spoken by me -- because of the fact of
the meaning of 'speaking' for the verbal root 'dhaa' preceded by
'abhi' and because of the occurrence of the present tense affix in the
proximity of present time too.

Remarks:
1) "abhidhiiyate" (I shall speak): abhi + dhaa-->dhii (Kc 502) + ya
(440) + te (423)), dhaa dhaara.ne Sadd 492, passive verb, middle voice
(attanopada), 3rd pers. sing.

2) "bhaasayanatthattaa" (bhaasayana-attha-ttaa): The form 'bhaasayana'
is unfamiliar and problematic. Should it not be 'bhaasana' as seen in
the following gaathaa?:
vipubbo dhaa karotyatthe *abhipubbo tu bhaasane*,
nyaasa.mpubbo yathaayoga.m nyaasaaropanasandhisu. --Sadd II, p.392

3) "paccupannasamiipe" (in the proximity of present time): I have not
found this use of the present tense explicitly formulated in a Pali
grammatical sutta but there is reference to it in Ruup 428, 442.
Paa.nini states a rule for it in 3.3.131: vartamaanasaamiipye
vartamaanavadvaa.
"The affixes [3.2.123-3.3.1] which are employed when the sense is
that of present time, may, optionally in like manner, be employed when
the sense is that of past or future time not remote from the
present." --tr. S.C.Vasu, Vol. I, p.531

Later, I will post the next instalment (abhidhiiyate, part 2) for the
following:

> kaccaayanamatena kattari tvaadipaccayassa katattaa abhivaadiyaati
> kattuvaacii. tathaapi abhidhiiyateti padhaanakriyaaya avuttattaa
> padhaanassa ca balavattaa.

Best wishes,

Jim

1184 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Aug 1, 2005 2:58am 
Subject: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Re: Avyaya & Upasagga ... 

I began compiling a list of all the avyaya & upasagga (Eng. "particles") 
while riding my bicycle to Surin; the list now stands at 354 particles. 

Of these 354 definitions, a handful were problematic (NB: 354 is a flexible 
number, due to multiple entries for variant spellings, or composites of more 
than one particle). 

My only sources for this task were my Sinhalese copy of Moggallana's 
Abhidhanapadipika, and the expanded e-text of Buddhadatta's _Concise 
Pali-English Dictionary_. 

Where these two sources were contradictory, I have provided both definitions 
(below) separated by the English particle "Or:". 

Some of these _avyaya_ are more worthy of debate than others; however, any 
feedback or observations on usage would very much be appreciated. Several 
of these seem to lack an adequate definition in any (current) lexical 
source; however, one may hope for the best with M. Cone's forthcoming 
dictionary. 

I would appreciate it if all members would glance over the romanized list 
below; if you would prefer to read the text in Burmese & Sinhalese script, 
send me a message off-list, and I will e-mail the PDF file to you as an 
attachment. 

NOTE: due to technological limitations, the anuswara ("nigganhita") is 
rendered with the symbol "&" below. 

Amutra In future (or: "in such and such a place"?) 

Ettha Until (or: here?) 

ka& (Particle:) What thing? (or: Noun:) Water, top (?) 

kaama& If, again; (or:) certainly, as long as, how far, so far 

kici Litttle (or: something, anything) 

kittaavataa Until (or: how far? in what respect?) 

kimu (or: kimuta) Exceedingly 

jaatu Surely; undoubtedly. (or: Perhaps, Sometimes) (or: Certainly, as long 
as, how far, so far.) 

tiriya& Crookedly (or: across; transversely) 

tiro across; beyond; outside (or: covering; crookedly) 

di.t.thaa Joyfully (or: past participle of passati: seen; found; 
understood) 

nihi Surely not (or: if?) 

naanaa different; differently (or: except, Variety, forsaking) 

niica& Little (or: low; humble; inferior) 

pacchato from behind; behind. (or: West of) 

paatu Apparent; manifestly; in front; visible; manifest; (or:) Publicity 
(?), coming to existence 

puraa Formerly; in the past; (or:) connected narrative, long, past, near, 
future 

pure Before; formerly; earlier (or:) in the presence of 

pecca In future (or: "after death"?) 

muhu& (or: muhu ?) Repeatedly 

ya& Therefore (or:) which; whatever thing. (or:) because of. 

yaava Until (or: up to; as far as; so far that) 

yaavataa Until (or: up to; as far as; so far that) 

lahu Yes; (or:) light; quick; a short vowel 

sana& (or: sanaa) Always 

sama& With (or: evenly; equally) 

sammukhaa Manifestly; (or:) in front; face to face 


E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Weeds are the bane of fields, hatred is the bane of mankind. Hence what is 
given to those rid of hatred yields abundant fruit.
Random Dhammapada Verse 357

1185 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Aug 1, 2005 6:41pm 
Subject: Re: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Hi Eisel,

> Re: Avyaya & Upasagga ...

Avyaya (invariable) is a term that encompasses two word-classes: the
upasagga (prefix) and the nipaata (indeclinable). These are two of the
four main classes of Pali words, the other two being the naama
(nominal word) and the aakhyaata (verb).

> I began compiling a list of all the avyaya & upasagga (Eng.
"particles")
> while riding my bicycle to Surin; the list now stands at 354
particles.

The nipaata class would be an open one with an indefinite number of
words including indeclinable compounds, words ending
in -tvaa, -tu.m, -to, and so on. The upasagga class on the other hand
is a closed one consisting of just 20 prefixes.

> Some of these _avyaya_ are more worthy of debate than others;
however, any
> feedback or observations on usage would very much be appreciated.
Several
> of these seem to lack an adequate definition in any (current)
lexical
> source; however, one may hope for the best with M. Cone's
forthcoming
> dictionary.

Vol. I (a-kh) of Cone's dictionary was published by PTS in 2001.

> NOTE: due to technological limitations, the anuswara ("nigganhita")
is > rendered with the symbol "&" below.

The niggahita can be written as ".m".

> Amutra In future (or: "in such and such a place"?)

Cone just gives: "there; in such and such a place; in that;..."

'Amutra' is derived from the pronoun 'amu' (yonder) plus the suffix
'tra' as in 'tatra', According to Kc 249 (tra tha sattamiyaa
sabbanaamehi) 'tra' is used like a 7th case ending. This means that
'amutra' and 'amuttha' are both equivalent to 'amusmi.m' in all the
uses of the locative including time and can also be used like a
locative plural, I think. So, a meaning like "in the distant future
(or past)" might be possible depending on the context. To substantiate
such a use of 'amutra' in this sense one would need to quote some
examples from the texts.

> Ettha Until (or: here?)

Ettha is 'here' but there is much more given by Cone including plural
uses. Before I go any further, I'd like to know your source for the
meaning 'until' as well as the 'in future' for the previous 'amutra'.
None of these are from Buddhadatta or Cone. It's important to have
reliable material to work with. The older PTS dictionary is accessible
online if you don't have a copy with you.

Jim

1186 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Aug 2, 2005 3:48am 
Subject: Digression on terminology & sources

Hi Jim, 

Re: terminology: 

> Avyaya (invariable) is a term that encompasses two word-classes: the
> upasagga (prefix) and the nipaata (indeclinable).

The "hierarchy" of these terms is by no means universal; this issue is taken 
up in the footnotes to Vol. 1 of my book (and briefly in the list of 
grammatical terms that I added near the opening of chapter three). My 
experience (or: conclusion) on the subject is that the array (and 
imprecision) of the usage of these terms in modern sources reflects the 
imprecision of their usage in classical sources. However, it is certainly 
true that the modern Sinhalese equivalents to these terms (e.g., "upasarga", 
etc.) seem to have been used in a consistent way since A.P. Buddhadatta 
(i.e., not long!). In the research for my book I contrast the reported usage 
from Burmese sources, etc. --but I don't really think the issue merits 
further discussion. 

> The nipaata class would be an open one with an indefinite number of
> words including indeclinable compounds, words ending
> in -tvaa, -tu.m, -to, and so on.

Where do you draw this definition from? Why would (e.g.) participles and 
other verbal-derivatives be treated as a subset of "avyaya"? 

> The upasagga class on the other hand

> Before I go any further, I'd like to know your source for the
> meaning 'until' as well as the 'in future' for the previous 'amutra'.

I already stated my sources in my initial posting on the subject: aside from 
Buddhadatta, the only other text I used (i.e., could carry on my bicycle) is 
a century-old Sinhalese edition of the Abidhanappadipika. 

If you want a copy, there's a Taiwanese reprint --*however* you will have to 
get a friend who speaks fluent Chinese to write to (or telephone) the folks 
at the following website:
http://www.budaedu.org/en/book/
The cover of the reprint is Sinhala-only --and nobody at that organization 
can read Sinhala --so your friend will have to be *very* fluent in Chinese 
to describe the book you're looking for. I showed up in person and walked 
through their warehouse in Taipei. 

The full citation for that text is provided in the introduction to my book 
--because the publication info is in Sinhalese only, it might be a bit 
useless to reproduce it here. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
One, who has craving, cannot be satisfied even when he has plenty of gold. 
The wise man does not crave as he understands the consequences of craving.
Random Dhammapada Verse 186

1187 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Tue Aug 2, 2005 4:41am 
Subject: Re: Avyaya: Problem Particles

I am puzzled by:

At 12:58 pm +0600 1/8/05, navako wrote:
>nihi Surely not (or: if?)

I don't find nihi in a computer search at all.

-- 
Best Wishes,

Lance

-------------
From:
L.S. Cousins, Esq.,
12 Dynham Place,
Headington,
Oxford,
OX3 7NL

CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS:
selwyn@ntlworld.com

1188 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Aug 2, 2005 10:58am 
Subject: Re: Digression on terminology & sources

Hi Eisel,

> > The nipaata class would be an open one with an indefinite number
of
> > words including indeclinable compounds, words ending
> > in -tvaa, -tu.m, -to, and so on.
>
> Where do you draw this definition from? Why would (e.g.)
participles and
> other verbal-derivatives be treated as a subset of "avyaya"?

Words ending in -tvaa, -tu.m, -to, etc. are treated as nipaatas in the
Saddaniiti, Ch. 27 (see pp. 894 and 903 for examples). This chapter
does not seem to include the avyayiibhaava (indeclinable compound) in
the nipaata class nor does Paa.nini. But Pa.nini does inlcude this
type of compound in his definition of avyaya (1.1.41). I concluded,
that in the scheme of the 4 word-classes, it could only belong to the
nipaata class. It should be noted that the Saddaniiti gives a
definition of avyaya at sutta 695 just before defining the
avyayiibhaava-samaasa. Participles that are declined like nouns and
adjectives belong to the naama class. I think the fourfold
classification of words was well-known in ancient India. You'll notice
that the a.t.thakathaas makes use of it and it is even found in
Pata~njali's Mahaabhaa.sya (ca. 3rd cent. B.C.) where he relates it to
the "four horns" of the bullock at .Rgveda 4.58.3.

> > Before I go any further, I'd like to know your source for the
> > meaning 'until' as well as the 'in future' for the previous
'amutra'.
>
> I already stated my sources in my initial posting on the subject:
aside from
> Buddhadatta, the only other text I used (i.e., could carry on my
bicycle) is
> a century-old Sinhalese edition of the Abidhanappadipika.

I just wanted to know how you came up with 'in future' and 'until'. I
considered the puzzle that Lance pointed out and found two mistakes:
"nihi" should read "nahi" and the "if" does not belong. It comes from
the "ce" that follows "nahi" at Abh 1147 but here the "ce" belongs to
a different group (... ce tu sace yadi //).

Thanks for the information on how to procure the Sinhalese reprint.

Jim

1189 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 3:17am 
Subject: Nihi & Nahi

> I
> considered the puzzle that Lance pointed out and found two mistakes:
> "nihi" should read "nahi" and the "if" does not belong.

I, too, raised an eyebrow at "nihi", but did not know how to proceed. 
Thanks to the whole list for clearing this up. 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
There is no concentration in one who lacks wisdom, nor is there wisdom in 
him who lacks concentration. In whom are both concentration and wisdom, he, 
indeed, is in the presence of Nibbana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 372

1190 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Aug 4, 2005 10:38am 
Subject: Re: Avyaya: Problem Particles

> ka& (Particle:) What thing? (or: Noun:) Water, top (?)

The indeclinable 'ka.m' has the meanings: water, head, and happiness
according to the .tiikaa on Abh 1198 (vaarimhi udake, muddhani siise
ca, ka.m sukhepi). It is also included as no. 44 in the svaraadi group
of indeclinables in Panini's Ga.napaa.tha.

> kaama& If, again; (or:) certainly, as long as, how far, so far

Cone has:"according to one's wish or desire; as one pleases,
willingly; as you please; please; Abh 469; ..." also: "even if"
(yadyapisaddatthe, Abh 1196) "certainly, indeed" (eka.msatthe, Abh
1140, 1196). Another meaning given, but not correlated to Abh, is:
"granted that, although (often answered by pana or ca);".

I thought the first meaning of kaama.m (according to one's wish, etc.)
should be included in the Avyayavagga (Abh 1136-1203). It now seems to
me that most adverbs ending in the case terminations do not belong to
the nipaata class but remain as naamas (nouns or adjectives with an
adverbial function). Warder (p.116) has a short section on the
adverbial accusative (bhaavanapu.msaka) but it doesn't account for the
adverbial instrumental or ablative. Bhaavanapu.msaka is discussed in
the Saddaniiti and the term is also found in the a.t.thakathaas and
.tiikaas but apparently not in other Pali grammars or in Panini from
what I've seen so far. This raises the question of how the grammatical
rules of the various native grammars account for this rather common
type of adverb in Pali and Sanskrit. I think the adverbial
instrumental is covered by Kc 292 (visesane ca) and one could extend
it to the adverbial accusative with Kc 307 (tatiyaasattamiina~nca).
However, I cannot come up with an explanation using Panini's grammar
as I don't see any rule in 2.3.1-73 that corresponds to Kc 292 but it
could be that it's included in a more generalized rule.

So we have some adverbs classified as nouns and nouns classified as
indeclinables.

Best wishes,
Jim

1191 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Aug 4, 2005 0:30pm 
Subject: SV: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Jim,

I think I collected all relevant passages when I wrote the kaama.m entry for
the CPD. You might wish to have a look at that.
Bhaavanapu.msaka has always puzzled me. There is no doubt in my mind that it
denotes a neuter nominal (noun or adjective) qualifying a verbal action
(bhaava). I suppose that indigenous grammarians interpreted adverbs of this
kind as entailing neither masculinity nor femininity and therefore looked
upon them as belonging to the category of neuter nominals, although strictly
speaking at least some of them are m. acc. like kaama.m.
Kacc visesane ca (294 in my forthcoming edition) presupposes Kaatantra II
4:32 vis.es.a.ne ca that replaces Paa.n II 3:21: itthambhuutalak.sa.ne, the
grammatical implications are the same, though.

With best wishes,

Ole

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 4. august 2005 16:39
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] Avyaya: Problem Particles

> ka& (Particle:) What thing? (or: Noun:) Water, top (?)

The indeclinable 'ka.m' has the meanings: water, head, and happiness
according to the .tiikaa on Abh 1198 (vaarimhi udake, muddhani siise
ca, ka.m sukhepi). It is also included as no. 44 in the svaraadi group
of indeclinables in Panini's Ga.napaa.tha.

> kaama& If, again; (or:) certainly, as long as, how far, so far

Cone has:"according to one's wish or desire; as one pleases,
willingly; as you please; please; Abh 469; ..." also: "even if"
(yadyapisaddatthe, Abh 1196) "certainly, indeed" (eka.msatthe, Abh
1140, 1196). Another meaning given, but not correlated to Abh, is:
"granted that, although (often answered by pana or ca);".

I thought the first meaning of kaama.m (according to one's wish, etc.)
should be included in the Avyayavagga (Abh 1136-1203). It now seems to
me that most adverbs ending in the case terminations do not belong to
the nipaata class but remain as naamas (nouns or adjectives with an
adverbial function). Warder (p.116) has a short section on the
adverbial accusative (bhaavanapu.msaka) but it doesn't account for the
adverbial instrumental or ablative. Bhaavanapu.msaka is discussed in
the Saddaniiti and the term is also found in the a.t.thakathaas and
.tiikaas but apparently not in other Pali grammars or in Panini from
what I've seen so far. This raises the question of how the grammatical
rules of the various native grammars account for this rather common
type of adverb in Pali and Sanskrit. I think the adverbial
instrumental is covered by Kc 292 (visesane ca) and one could extend
it to the adverbial accusative with Kc 307 (tatiyaasattamiina~nca).
However, I cannot come up with an explanation using Panini's grammar
as I don't see any rule in 2.3.1-73 that corresponds to Kc 292 but it
could be that it's included in a more generalized rule.

So we have some adverbs classified as nouns and nouns classified as
indeclinables.

Best wishes,
Jim

1192 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Aug 4, 2005 8:50pm 
Subject: Re: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Ole,

Welcome, and thanks for your response.

<< I think I collected all relevant passages when I wrote the kaama.m
entry for the CPD. You might wish to have a look at that. >>

I would if I had access to that fascicle. I only have Vols. I & II
(the vowels). I'll take this as an incentive to get the fascicles of
Vol. III. What's the latest fascicle to be published? Is Munksgaard in
Copenhagen still the agent for me to order from?

<< Bhaavanapu.msaka has always puzzled me. There is no doubt in my
mind that it denotes a neuter nominal (noun or adjective) qualifying a
verbal action (bhaava). I suppose that indigenous grammarians
interpreted adverbs of this kind as entailing neither masculinity nor
femininity and therefore looked upon them as belonging to the category
of neuter nominals, although strictly speaking at least some of them
are m. acc. like kaama.m. Kacc visesane ca (294 in my forthcoming
edition) presupposes Kaatantra II 4:32 vis.es.a.ne ca that replaces
Paa.n II 3:21: itthambhuutalak.sa.ne, the grammatical implications are
the same, though. >>

This is helpful and thanks for the Paa.n II 3:21 reference. A problem
comes up in Sadd as it has both the bhaavanapu.msaka and
itthambhuutalakkha.na rule. This suggests redundancy of one of them or
that there is some subtle distinction between the two. I also noticed
that the Vaartika on II 3:18 includes the same group of words
beginning with prak.rti found in Sd 604 (visesane pakatiaadisu ca).

In your _Studies in the Pali Grammarians_ Parts I & II, will II.2 ever
get published in JPTS? A long time has elapsed since II.1 appeared in
1990. Another question: do you know if the Jinendrabuddhi of the
Nyaasa on the Kaa"sikaav.rtti the same author who wrote a .tiikaa on
Dignaaga?

Best wishes,
Jim

1193 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Aug 4, 2005 9:26pm 
Subject: Re: correction

Dear Ole,

In my previous message I wrote:

> A problem comes up in Sadd as it has both the bhaavanapu.msaka and
> itthambhuutalakkha.na rule. This suggests redundancy of one of them

should be:

A problem comes up in Sadd as it has both the *visesana* and
itthambhuutalakkha.na rule.

Sorry for the mix up.

Jim

1194 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Aug 5, 2005 2:52am 
Subject: SV: Avyaya: Problem Particles

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 5. august 2005 02:50
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Ole,

Welcome, and thanks for your response.

<< I think I collected all relevant passages when I wrote the kaama.m
entry for the CPD. You might wish to have a look at that. >>

I would if I had access to that fascicle. I only have Vols. I & II
(the vowels). I'll take this as an incentive to get the fascicles of
Vol. III. What's the latest fascicle to be published? Is Munksgaard in
Copenhagen still the agent for me to order from?

The entry kaama.m is found in CPD Vol. III fascicle 7. This is the latest
and last fascicle to be published. The CPD has been discontinued. To order
what has been published so far I can only suggest that you contact G E C
Gad, Fiolstraede 31-33, DK-1171 Koebenhavn K. 

<< Bhaavanapu.msaka has always puzzled me. There is no doubt in my
mind that it denotes a neuter nominal (noun or adjective) qualifying a
verbal action (bhaava). I suppose that indigenous grammarians
interpreted adverbs of this kind as entailing neither masculinity nor
femininity and therefore looked upon them as belonging to the category
of neuter nominals, although strictly speaking at least some of them
are m. acc. like kaama.m. Kacc visesane ca (294 in my forthcoming
edition) presupposes Kaatantra II 4:32 vis.es.a.ne ca that replaces
Paa.n II 3:21: itthambhuutalak.sa.ne, the grammatical implications are
the same, though. >>

This is helpful and thanks for the Paa.n II 3:21 reference. A problem
comes up in Sadd as it has both the bhaavanapu.msaka and
itthambhuutalakkha.na rule. This suggests redundancy of one of them or
that there is some subtle distinction between the two.

Yes, no doubt. Bhavanapu.msaka is the true adverb qualifying any given
verbal action, whereas the itthambhuutalakkha.na rule covers a particular
modal use of the instrumental, it may qualify a noun like gottena Gotamo
naatho or an adjective like tapasaa uttamo.

I also noticed
that the Vaartika on II 3:18 includes the same group of words
beginning with prak.rti found in Sd 604 (visesane pakatiaadisu ca).

In your _Studies in the Pali Grammarians_ Parts I & II, will II.2 ever
get published in JPTS? A long time has elapsed since II.1 appeared in
1990. Another question: do you know if the Jinendrabuddhi of the
Nyaasa on the Kaa"sikaav.rtti the same author who wrote a .tiikaa on
Dignaaga?

I don't think so. My latest article of grammatical interest: On the Evidence
of Unrecognized Absolutives in the Paali Canon, has just been published in
ZDMG. Another on the implications of the complementary distribution of the
vocatives bhikkhave and bhikkhavo in the Paali canon will probably appear in
WZKS. 
I have not been able to verify beyond doubt if the Jinendrabuddhi of the
Nyaasa on the Kaa"sikaav.rtti the same author who wrote a .tiikaa on
Dignaaga. 

Best wishes

Ole 


Best wishes,
Jim

1195 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Aug 5, 2005 3:02am 
Subject: SV: correction

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 5. august 2005 03:27
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] correction

Dear Ole,

In my previous message I wrote:

> A problem comes up in Sadd as it has both the bhaavanapu.msaka and
> itthambhuutalakkha.na rule. This suggests redundancy of one of them

should be:

A problem comes up in Sadd as it has both the *visesana* and
itthambhuutalakkha.na rule.

This shows, I belive, Aggava.msa's respect for the tradition. The
itthambhuutalakkha.na rule was first formulated by he commentators with the
background Paa.ninian grammar, whereas Kacc in some cases reflects the
terminology of Kaatantra. His attitude is one of inclusiveness. This,
however, creates problems now and then.

Best,

Ole 




Sorry for the mix up.

Jim

1196 
From: "Ven. Pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Aug 5, 2005 4:35am 
Subject: about BhaavaNapu`nsaka

Hi! Ole

I have noticed that you have joined this group, and taken part in lively 
discussion. I hope all members would benefit from your learning and 
dedication to the field of classic Pali grammars.

In your discussion, I have noticed that you have remarked on the term 
Bhaavanapu.msaka. Sometime ago, I answered the question of one of my 
students as regards the same term. What I did was to quote the relevant 
sutta in Saddaniiti, made a tentative translation, and emailed to him. I 
have uploaded the file (pdf format) to the file area, and I hope it would be 
somewhat helpful.

By the way, how about your search for Mahaanirutti manuscript in Japan?

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1197 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Aug 5, 2005 4:53am 
Subject: SV: about BhaavaNapu`nsaka

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Ven. Pandita
Sendt: 5. august 2005 10:35
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] about BhaavaNapu`nsaka

Hi! Ole

I have noticed that you have joined this group, and taken part in lively 
discussion. I hope all members would benefit from your learning and 
dedication to the field of classic Pali grammars.

In your discussion, I have noticed that you have remarked on the term 
Bhaavanapu.msaka. Sometime ago, I answered the question of one of my 
students as regards the same term. What I did was to quote the relevant 
sutta in Saddaniiti, made a tentative translation, and emailed to him. I 
have uploaded the file (pdf format) to the file area, and I hope it would be

somewhat helpful.

Many thanks!

By the way, how about your search for Mahaanirutti manuscript in Japan?

I sent a mail to a well-known Japanese scholar long time ago requesting
information about the Mahaanirutti ms, but until now I have not had a reply
to my request. He asked me to be patient, though. I have now been patient
for several months.

Best wishes,

Ole 



with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1198 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Aug 6, 2005 2:06am 
Subject: SV: correction

Dear Jim,

Here is a brief note concerning the treatment of the adverb by the Paali
grammarians. There is an interesting discussion in Saddatthabhedacintaa
verse 302ff about the grammatical category of adverb (kriyaavisesana.m): the
term used in satthe (usually denoting Sanskrit Grammar) as opposed to
dhaatuvisesana.m or bhaavanapu.msaka.m that is mentioned in saasane (i.e.
paali lit. such as the commentaries, etc).

Best,

Ole



-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 5. august 2005 03:27
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] correction

Dear Ole,

In my previous message I wrote:

> A problem comes up in Sadd as it has both the bhaavanapu.msaka and
> itthambhuutalakkha.na rule. This suggests redundancy of one of them

should be:

A problem comes up in Sadd as it has both the *visesana* and
itthambhuutalakkha.na rule.

Sorry for the mix up.

Jim

1199 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Aug 6, 2005 4:35am 
Subject: Japanese MS

Re: 

> By the way, how about your search for Mahaanirutti manuscript in Japan? 
> 
> I sent a mail to a well-known Japanese scholar long time ago requesting
> information about the Mahaanirutti ms, but until now I have not had a reply
> to my request. He asked me to be patient, though. I have now been patient
> for several months.

Although I don't know if this will be useful to mention: I once received a 
lecture on the difficulty of seeing MS in Japan from a specialist on 
Japanese Buddhism (it was Dr. N. McMullin, if the truth be told; he's now 
"retired" in disgrace). 

What he explained to me is that the MS are often (either legally or 
informally) the property of a family, and it can be difficult to negotiate 
one's way through the family hierarchy to gain permission from whoever was 
deemed to be in charge (sometimes, more than one patriarch/matriarch). 

This was easier for him, as he was fluent in Japanese, and learnt many of 
the formalities of the culture as a zen monk; however, it may be that your 
contact in Japan is going through the procedure on your behalf. 

Dr. McMullin also reflected that the answer was sometimes "simply no", on 
the grounds that the family would somehow lose prestige (rather than gain 
it?) if a Western scholar were to see "their" MS. 

Again, I do not know if any of this applies to your situation. 

Another brief observation: a large collection of Pali MS turned up in 
Taipei, provided by an "anonymous donor". I believe they are largely 
Burmese, and were quite likely pillaged by the Japanese in Burma, and 
resided in Taiwan while the pillager waited out the possibility of court 
martial and human rights trials (even Laos has been host to a few aged 
Japanese veterans in this situation). At the National Palace Museum, I was 
told various interesting things about semi-legal donors and anitquities of 
Japanese origin that were in Taiwan for "unspecified reasons". I note all 
this in case anyone wants to take up a search for Pali MS in Taiwan or Japan 
--as I neither speak Chinese nor Japanese, I wouldn't attempt it myself. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Good health is the highest gain. Contentment is the greatest wealth. 
Trustworthy ones are the best kinsmen. Nibbana is the highest Bliss.
Random Dhammapada Verse 204

1200 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Aug 6, 2005 4:40am 
Subject: Avyaya: the contracting list of problem particles 

Jim advised me that it might be useful to re-post the list of "problem 
particles" --indeed, it might have been wiser to post only a few at a time. 
The list below is shorter --I've removed the particles already discussed. 

I believe I will remove "Muhu/muhu&" --the only question here was whether or 
not "Muhu" (i.e., without the anuswara) was a valid form --likely an error 
in the source due to permutation, etc. 

"sammukhaa" also seems to be an easy one to solve --but I'd still be 
interested in any comments on usage. Of course, neither the CPD nor M. Cone 
cover the letter "s"! 

E.M. 

kici Litttle (or: something, anything) 

kittaavataa Until (or: how far? in what respect?) 

kimu (or: kimuta) Exceedingly 

jaatu Surely; undoubtedly. (or: Perhaps, Sometimes) (or: Certainly, as long
as, how far, so far.) 

tiriya& Crookedly (or: across; transversely) 

tiro across; beyond; outside (or: covering; crookedly) 

di.t.thaa Joyfully (or: past participle of passati: seen; found;
understood) 

naanaa different; differently (or: except, Variety, forsaking) 

niica& Little (or: low; humble; inferior) 

pacchato from behind; behind. (or: West of) 

paatu Apparent; manifestly; in front; visible; manifest; (or:) Publicity
(?), coming to existence 

puraa Formerly; in the past; (or:) connected narrative, long, past, near,
future 

pure Before; formerly; earlier (or:) in the presence of 

pecca In future (or: "after death"?) 

ya& Therefore (or:) which; whatever thing. (or:) because of. 

yaava Until (or: up to; as far as; so far that) 

yaavataa Until (or: up to; as far as; so far that) 

lahu Yes; (or:) light; quick; a short vowel 

sana& (or: sanaa) Always 

sama& With (or: evenly; equally) 

sammukhaa Manifestly; (or:) in front; face to face 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who sees others' faults, and is ever irritable - the corruptions of such 
a one grow. He is far from the destruction of corruptions.
Random Dhammapada Verse 253

1201 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Aug 6, 2005 5:37am 
Subject: SV: Japanese MS

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 6. august 2005 10:35
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Japanese MS

Re: 

> By the way, how about your search for Mahaanirutti manuscript in Japan? 
> 
> I sent a mail to a well-known Japanese scholar long time ago requesting
> information about the Mahaanirutti ms, but until now I have not had a reply
> to my request. He asked me to be patient, though. I have now been patient
> for several months.

Although I don't know if this will be useful to mention: I once received a 
lecture on the difficulty of seeing MS in Japan from a specialist on 
Japanese Buddhism (it was Dr. N. McMullin, if the truth be told; he's now 
"retired" in disgrace). 

What he explained to me is that the MS are often (either legally or 
informally) the property of a family, and it can be difficult to negotiate 
one's way through the family hierarchy to gain permission from whoever was 
deemed to be in charge (sometimes, more than one patriarch/matriarch). 

This was easier for him, as he was fluent in Japanese, and learnt many of 
the formalities of the culture as a zen monk; however, it may be that your 
contact in Japan is going through the procedure on your behalf. 

Dr. McMullin also reflected that the answer was sometimes "simply no", on 
the grounds that the family would somehow lose prestige (rather than gain 
it?) if a Western scholar were to see "their" MS. 

Again, I do not know if any of this applies to your situation. 

Another brief observation: a large collection of Pali MS turned up in 
Taipei, provided by an "anonymous donor". I believe they are largely 
Burmese, and were quite likely pillaged by the Japanese in Burma, and 
resided in Taiwan while the pillager waited out the possibility of court 
martial and human rights trials (even Laos has been host to a few aged 
Japanese veterans in this situation). At the National Palace Museum, I was 
told various interesting things about semi-legal donors and anitquities of 
Japanese origin that were in Taiwan for "unspecified reasons". I note all 
this in case anyone wants to take up a search for Pali MS in Taiwan or Japan

--as I neither speak Chinese nor Japanese, I wouldn't attempt it myself. 

E.M. 

Thank you very much for the information. Japan and the Japanese are
difficult to deal with on certain levels. While I was in Japan a few years
ago, I stayed with a Japanese scholar who incidentally showed me a valuable
Paali ms. I was allowed to use it, if I came to Japan and stayed in his
house while studying it. 
I have spent considerable time finding out whether there are still extant
copies of the Ma.njuusaa. Copies of this important Paali grammar were still
extant in Burma in the 18th century, and I am covinced that somewhere there
is a copy of it. I have a list of all the grammars that the PTS's ms
conservation project have has purchased. Unfortunately, it is not among
those.
If you have any information about whether someone has seen or heard about
it, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Ole 
-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Good health is the highest gain. Contentment is the greatest wealth. 
Trustworthy ones are the best kinsmen. Nibbana is the highest Bliss.
Random Dhammapada Verse 204 

1202 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Aug 7, 2005 9:42am 
Subject: Re: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Ole,

You wrote:
<< The entry kaama.m is found in CPD Vol. III fascicle 7. This is the
latest and last fascicle to be published. The CPD has been
discontinued. To order what has been published so far I can only
suggest that you contact G E C Gad, Fiolstraede 31-33, DK-1171
Koebenhavn K. >>

Thanks for the information. This is the first time I've heard that the
CPD has been discontinued. I knew that the Pali Tipitaka Concordance
was discontinued quite some time ago. I can well imagine how
time-consuming writing a dictionary must be. If there is ever to be
another dictionary project, I would suggest a Pali-Pali dictionary
with a fuller treatment of the derivation of each word -- eg. a suffix
would be linked to a particular sutta in Kacc.

<< I don't think so. My latest article of grammatical interest: On
the Evidence of Unrecognized Absolutives in the Paali Canon, has just
been published in ZDMG. Another on the implications of the
complementary distribution of the vocatives bhikkhave and bhikkhavo in
the Paali canon will probably appear in WZKS. >>

I don't subscribe to these journals but might be able to find them at
the Robarts Library, University of Toronto on my next visit which will
likely not be until next year.

<< I have not been able to verify beyond doubt if the Jinendrabuddhi
of the Nyaasa on the Kaa"sikaav.rtti the same author who wrote a
.tiikaa on Dignaaga. >>

I managed to download 5 of 32 parts of his Nyaasa before aansknet.net
went offline. The fuller author's name given in it suggests that he
was a Buddhist. I have also noticed in Winternitz's History of Indian
Literature, Vol. III that many of the Indians who wrote those
classical linguistic works in Sanskrit were Buddhists.

<< Here is a brief note concerning the treatment of the adverb by the
Paali grammarians. There is an interesting discussion in
Saddatthabhedacintaa verse 302ff about the grammatical category of
adverb (kriyaavisesana.m): the term used in satthe (usually denoting
Sanskrit Grammar) as opposed to dhaatuvisesana.m or
bhaavanapu.msaka.m that is mentioned in saasane (i.e. paali lit. such
as the commentaries, etc). >>

I found the verse for this which is also quoted in the
Vinayaala.mkaara-.tiikaa:

312.
kriyaavisesana.m satthe vutta.m dhaatuvisesana.m
bhaavanapu.msakantyeva saasane samudiiriita.m.

I'm puzzled about the "dhaatuvisesana.m" (qualifier of the verb
root(s)?). Ven. Dhammanando has uploaded the Saddatthabhedacintaa
(which I abbreviate as Sabhc) to the files section and has posted the
Diipanii commentary (Sabhc-d) to the list only as far as verse 15. I'm
still working on verse 1. Ven. Dhammanando has been absent for a while
now and since it is now the rains-retreat it could be some time yet
before we hear from him again. He also has been translating Phra Maha
Nimitr's Thai commentary on this work and has posted some introductory
parts of it to the list (from early last April).

Best wishes,
Jim

1203 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Aug 7, 2005 10:34am 
Subject: SV: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Jim,

Thanks for your remarks. Below find a few notes.

Best wishes,

Ole 


PS I broke my left arm three weeks ago while on holiday with my family, so
it is a bit problematic to write mails. I shall do my best, though


-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 7. august 2005 15:42
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Ole,

You wrote:
<< The entry kaama.m is found in CPD Vol. III fascicle 7. This is the
latest and last fascicle to be published. The CPD has been
discontinued. To order what has been published so far I can only
suggest that you contact G E C Gad, Fiolstraede 31-33, DK-1171
Koebenhavn K. >>

Thanks for the information. This is the first time I've heard that the
CPD has been discontinued. I knew that the Pali Tipitaka Concordance
was discontinued quite some time ago. I can well imagine how
time-consuming writing a dictionary must be. If there is ever to be
another dictionary project, I would suggest a Pali-Pali dictionary
with a fuller treatment of the derivation of each word -- eg. a suffix
would be linked to a particular sutta in Kacc.

I think that one should reconsider the linguistic implications of writing a
dictionary: I would suggest that a net-dictionary beginning with a complete
morphological, derivational, lexicographical, and syntactic treatment of a
central canonical text, and gradually expand from there via hyperlinks,
would be preferable. But who would finance such a project?

<< I don't think so. My latest article of grammatical interest: On
the Evidence of Unrecognized Absolutives in the Paali Canon, has just
been published in ZDMG. Another on the implications of the
complementary distribution of the vocatives bhikkhave and bhikkhavo in
the Paali canon will probably appear in WZKS. >>

I don't subscribe to these journals but might be able to find them at
the Robarts Library, University of Toronto on my next visit which will
likely not be until next year.

I shall send you a copy as soon as I get my off prints.

<< I have not been able to verify beyond doubt if the Jinendrabuddhi
of the Nyaasa on the Kaa"sikaav.rtti the same author who wrote a
.tiikaa on Dignaaga. >>

I managed to download 5 of 32 parts of his Nyaasa before aansknet.net
went offline. The fuller author's name given in it suggests that he
was a Buddhist. I have also noticed in Winternitz's History of Indian
Literature, Vol. III that many of the Indians who wrote those
classical linguistic works in Sanskrit were Buddhists.

Jinendra was definitely a Buddhist as some of his explanations reflect
Buddhist thought and terminology.

<< Here is a brief note concerning the treatment of the adverb by the
Paali grammarians. There is an interesting discussion in
Saddatthabhedacintaa verse 302ff about the grammatical category of
adverb (kriyaavisesana.m): the term used in satthe (usually denoting
Sanskrit Grammar) as opposed to dhaatuvisesana.m or
bhaavanapu.msaka.m that is mentioned in saasane (i.e. paali lit. such
as the commentaries, etc). >>

I found the verse for this which is also quoted in the
Vinayaala.mkaara-.tiikaa:

312.
kriyaavisesana.m satthe vutta.m dhaatuvisesana.m
bhaavanapu.msakantyeva saasane samudiiriita.m.

I'm puzzled about the "dhaatuvisesana.m" (qualifier of the verb
root(s)?). 

So am I. I shall see if I can find something in Sanskrit gram. lit. that
would shed some light on it. Kriyaavisesana, of course, reflects Sanskrit
terminology, but dhaatuvisesana appears to be non-standard.

Ven. Dhammanando has uploaded the Saddatthabhedacintaa
(which I abbreviate as Sabhc) to the files section and has posted the
Diipanii commentary (Sabhc-d) to the list only as far as verse 15. I'm
still working on verse 1. Ven. Dhammanando has been absent for a while
now and since it is now the rains-retreat it could be some time yet
before we hear from him again. He also has been translating Phra Maha
Nimitr's Thai commentary on this work and has posted some introductory
parts of it to the list (from early last April).

Best wishes,
Jim

1204 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Aug 7, 2005 3:23pm 
Subject: Re: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Ole,

<< PS I broke my left arm three weeks ago while on holiday with my
family, so it is a bit problematic to write mails. I shall do my best,
though >>

Sorry to hear about your injury. Just take it easy in writing to this
list. There's no hurry.

<< I think that one should reconsider the linguistic implications of
writing a dictionary: I would suggest that a net-dictionary beginning
with a complete morphological, derivational, lexicographical, and
syntactic treatment of a central canonical text, and gradually expand
from there via hyperlinks, would be preferable. But who would finance
such a project? >>

The net-dictionary sounds like a good suggestion. Before the Internet
came along I started a mega-project with the Vera~njaka.n.da (only
because it stood at the beginning of the Tipi.taka) and later I added
the Brahmajaalasutta and the maatikaas at the beginning of the
Abhidhammapi.taka. It was only a start and it was to be a very
detailed study covering all the aspects you mention above. I was not
to proceed any further until I had completed these studies. However,
all that has been put on hold for now as my main focus has shifted to
grammatical works but the approach still remains the same in making
the Kaccaayanavyaakara.na the central or root text.

I can work on a project like this at no cost simply as a full-time
volunteer. I often think of how others could engage themselves more
fully in this kind of rewarding work. I estimate that the salary of a
well-paid professor would be enough to support a community of 10 to 20
dedicated Pali scholars and helpers willing to lower their living
standards and to live away from expensive areas. How do I know this? I
can live in a small cottage in the forest for less than $5000 cdn a
year and have done so since 1988.

<< I shall send you a copy as soon as I get my off prints.>>

Thank-you very much. I'm just about to order a copy of Vimalabuddhi's
_Kaccaayana-nyaaso_ Vol. 1 (in Devanagari script) ed. Bhikshu
Satyapala. This volume has a long introduction in English but the text
only covers the Sandhikappa and seems to be the only volume published
so far. If you don't have it, I'd gladly have a copy sent to you if
you're interested (no cost to you). Just send me your mailing address
offline.

<<< I'm puzzled about the "dhaatuvisesana.m" (qualifier of the verb
root(s)?). >>>

<< So am I. I shall see if I can find something in Sanskrit gram. lit.
that would shed some light on it. Kriyaavisesana, of course, reflects
Sanskrit terminology, but dhaatuvisesana appears to be non-standard.
>>

I'm sure the Diipanii on the verse will explain. There are details
given in the Vinayaala"nkaara-.tiikaa that might give some clues as I
remember seeing the terms: akammakampi sakammakampi right after it.

Jim

1205 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Sun Aug 7, 2005 8:24pm 
Subject: RE: Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Jim and friends,

I'd be happy to help with such a project as you mention... I have some
computer skills, but I'd take some explaining to understand what exactly the
project requires... 

Thought you might like to know that Ven. Dhammanando is in a cave for the
rains retreat (probably one of the few Pali scholars who can beat your $5000
CAD a year!), so yes it will probably be a while before he gets cave-side
internet access to respond. On the other hand, who knows :)

Anyway, let me know if I can ever be of help - my formal Pali studies here
have not come to much after all... I've started self-study again, reading
the Anguttara in Pali and English, and am also reading Thai texts on
Vipassana.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

-----Original Message-----
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Jim Anderson
Sent: August 8, 2005 2:23 AM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Avyaya: Problem Particles

Dear Ole,

<< PS I broke my left arm three weeks ago while on holiday with my family,
so it is a bit problematic to write mails. I shall do my best, though >>

Sorry to hear about your injury. Just take it easy in writing to this list.
There's no hurry.

<< I think that one should reconsider the linguistic implications of writing
a dictionary: I would suggest that a net-dictionary beginning with a
complete morphological, derivational, lexicographical, and syntactic
treatment of a central canonical text, and gradually expand from there via
hyperlinks, would be preferable. But who would finance such a project? >>

The net-dictionary sounds like a good suggestion. Before the Internet came
along I started a mega-project with the Vera~njaka.n.da (only because it
stood at the beginning of the Tipi.taka) and later I added the
Brahmajaalasutta and the maatikaas at the beginning of the
Abhidhammapi.taka. It was only a start and it was to be a very detailed
study covering all the aspects you mention above. I was not to proceed any
further until I had completed these studies. However, all that has been put
on hold for now as my main focus has shifted to grammatical works but the
approach still remains the same in making the Kaccaayanavyaakara.na the
central or root text.

I can work on a project like this at no cost simply as a full-time
volunteer. I often think of how others could engage themselves more fully in
this kind of rewarding work. I estimate that the salary of a well-paid
professor would be enough to support a community of 10 to 20 dedicated Pali
scholars and helpers willing to lower their living standards and to live
away from expensive areas. How do I know this? I can live in a small cottage
in the forest for less than $5000 cdn a year and have done so since 1988.

<< I shall send you a copy as soon as I get my off prints.>>

Thank-you very much. I'm just about to order a copy of Vimalabuddhi's
_Kaccaayana-nyaaso_ Vol. 1 (in Devanagari script) ed. Bhikshu Satyapala.
This volume has a long introduction in English but the text only covers the
Sandhikappa and seems to be the only volume published so far. If you don't
have it, I'd gladly have a copy sent to you if you're interested (no cost to
you). Just send me your mailing address offline.

<<< I'm puzzled about the "dhaatuvisesana.m" (qualifier of the verb
root(s)?). >>>

<< So am I. I shall see if I can find something in Sanskrit gram. lit.
that would shed some light on it. Kriyaavisesana, of course, reflects
Sanskrit terminology, but dhaatuvisesana appears to be non-standard.
>>

I'm sure the Diipanii on the verse will explain. There are details given in
the Vinayaala"nkaara-.tiikaa that might give some clues as I remember seeing
the terms: akammakampi sakammakampi right after it.

Jim

1206 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Aug 8, 2005 2:22am 
Subject: Cost-effective Pali scholarship

> I estimate that the salary of a
> well-paid professor would be enough to support a community of 10 to 20
> dedicated Pali scholars and helpers willing to lower their living
> standards and to live away from expensive areas. How do I know this? I
> can live in a small cottage in the forest for less than $5000 cdn a
> year and have done so since 1988.

The salary of a (full-time) public school teacher in Lao is equivalent 
$15/month. A Lao policeman earns $20/moth --plus "gasoline credits". 
University Professors at the National U. of Lao ("N.U.O.L."/"Dong Dok") earn 
about $150/month (with some variation due to rank and title). 

Given that a Western professor earns $100,000++ he/she could employ a 
"support staff" of more than one hundred researchers (in Lao) --without 
anyone having to lower their standard of living. 

I should note that my own electricity bill is more than $15/month; thus, it 
would be impossible for me to live in my current circumstances as a public 
school teacher. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Though one should live a hundred years without seeing the Deathless State, 
yet better, indeed, is a single day's life of one who sees the Deathless 
State.
Random Dhammapada Verse 114

1207 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Aug 8, 2005 8:48pm 
Subject: two study projects

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> I'd be happy to help with such a project as you mention... I have
> some computer skills, but I'd take some explaining to
> understand what exactly the project requires...

Thanks for your offer of help. I hope I've understood you correctly in
that you would like some explanation of what exactly the project
requires.

This is hard for me to answer as I'm not exactly sure myself. I think
the Kaccaayana study project should probably be re-introduced. I
believe the last posting for it was Dec. 1 of last year when a
difficult paragraph from the Mukhamattadiipanii (Mmd) was posted for
translation. Later the same month, Rett began a translation series on
the Kaccaayana suttas from the first ka.n.da of the Sandhikappa on the
other Pali list which carried on for a little while but then stopped.
Sometimes I take a long break from list participation and did so over
the past winter and resumed posting in late March and then the
Saddatthabhedacintaa was introduced by Ven. Dhammanando at my
suggestion and became a secondary study project but neither project
seems to be making much headway lately.

What I'm interested in doing with Kaccaayana's grammar is to study it
in conjunction with the following grammatical commentaries:
Mukhamattadiipanii (also known as Nyaasa), Suttaniddesa,
Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa, and Ruupasiddhi with its .tiikaa. All the texts
are in Pali and there are no available translations in English (at
least for me) except for the introductory verses and the first few
suttas of Kacc. The work involves preparing pages from these texts for
study and translation for the list and some of this has already been
done. I can post small portions of the text with a translation along
with my remarks. However, if you or anyone else is interested in
translating some grammatical passages you could discuss this with me
offlist (I'll look for easy passages). You can also help with
problem-solving of difficult words or phrases that I report. I don't
think there's too much you can do just now and I may only need your
help in small ways later on.

Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on paper) that I
mentioned above?

<< Thought you might like to know that Ven. Dhammanando is in a cave
for the > rains retreat (probably one of the few Pali scholars who can
beat your $5000 > CAD a year!), so yes it will probably be a while
before he gets cave-side > internet access to respond. On the other
hand, who knows :) >>

Thanks for updating me. How I envy Ven. Dhammanando! It makes me feel
like I'm living a life of excess.

> Anyway, let me know if I can ever be of help - my formal Pali
studies here > have not come to much after all... I've started
self-study again, reading > the Anguttara in Pali and English, and am
also reading Thai texts on > Vipassana.

Thanks again! I wish you well in your self-study. That's the way I
studied Pali for the most part. You just have to keep at it.

Best wishes,
Jim

1208 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Aug 9, 2005 2:56am 
Subject: Re: two study projects

> All the texts
> are in Pali and there are no available translations in English (at
> least for me) except for the introductory verses and the first few
> suttas of Kacc.

The Kacc.-vyakarana itself has been translated --and more than once. The 
most readily available translation is probably Senart's rather ancient 
French rendering; it may here be pointed out that Senart often offers a kind 
of summary (or "epitome") rather than a word-for-word translation. As I 
have mentioned repeatedly on this list, Kacc. was fully translated into 
English by Vidybhusana in Maha Bodhi Society edition that could barely be 
described as "extant" (i.e., good luck finding a copy). 

The value of a word-for-word translation of Kacc. is limited; the 
commentarial and explanatory literature on Kacc. is more suited to "direct" 
translation. Jim's suggestion that several of these (related) text be 
translated "in tandem" is very ambitious, and if it produced a working 
translation of any or all of this grammatical literature, it would be a very 
useful contribution to struggling students such as myself. 

I also mentioned on this list that I discovered a rather obscure edition of 
the Balavataro with full English translation and tables; it may be that some 
of the other texts mentioned have similarly obscure editions from pre-Junta 
Burma. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Mind is the forerunner of (all evil) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are 
they. If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, because of that, suffering 
follows one, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draught-ox.
Random Dhammapada Verse 1

1209 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Aug 9, 2005 4:15am 
Subject: SV: Re: two study projects

There is also an excellent Hindi translation of Baalaavataara by Swami
Dwarikadas Shastri, Baudha Bharati, Varanasi 1975.

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 9. august 2005 08:57
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Re: two study projects


> All the texts
> are in Pali and there are no available translations in English (at
> least for me) except for the introductory verses and the first few
> suttas of Kacc.

The Kacc.-vyakarana itself has been translated --and more than once. The 
most readily available translation is probably Senart's rather ancient 
French rendering; it may here be pointed out that Senart often offers a kind
of summary (or "epitome") rather than a word-for-word translation. As I 
have mentioned repeatedly on this list, Kacc. was fully translated into 
English by Vidybhusana in Maha Bodhi Society edition that could barely be 
described as "extant" (i.e., good luck finding a copy). 

The value of a word-for-word translation of Kacc. is limited; the 
commentarial and explanatory literature on Kacc. is more suited to "direct" 
translation. Jim's suggestion that several of these (related) text be 
translated "in tandem" is very ambitious, and if it produced a working 
translation of any or all of this grammatical literature, it would be a very

useful contribution to struggling students such as myself. 

I also mentioned on this list that I discovered a rather obscure edition of 
the Balavataro with full English translation and tables; it may be that some
of the other texts mentioned have similarly obscure editions from pre-Junta 
Burma. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Mind is the forerunner of (all evil) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are 
they. If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, because of that, suffering 
follows one, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draught-ox.
Random Dhammapada Verse 1 

1210 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Tue Aug 9, 2005 2:29pm 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Jim,
Yes, I would like that, before winter sets in. The text is very beautiful,
the way it starts. The greetings and respect and the way it was analysed.
I go to India in October.
Nina. 
op 09-08-2005 02:48 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

> I think
> the Kaccaayana study project should probably be re-introduced. I
> believe the last posting for it was Dec. 1 of last year

1211 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Aug 9, 2005 6:16pm 
Subject: Re: Re: two study projects

Hi Eisel,

> The value of a word-for-word translation of Kacc. is limited; the
> commentarial and explanatory literature on Kacc. is more suited to "direct"
> translation. Jim's suggestion that several of these (related) text be
> translated "in tandem" is very ambitious, and if it produced a working
> translation of any or all of this grammatical literature, it would be a very
> useful contribution to struggling students such as myself.
>
> I also mentioned on this list that I discovered a rather obscure edition of
> the Balavataro with full English translation and tables; it may be that some
> of the other texts mentioned have similarly obscure editions from pre-Junta
> Burma.

I have two imperfect etext versions of the Baalaavataaro in Pali. The
title might be translated as "An Introduction for the Young" but
'baala' can also mean 'fool' or 'child'. I have glanced over this text
a few times and find that it is definitely not for dummies unless of
course they have a skilful teacher to guide them through it. This is
quite a condensed text. The Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa (ca 1600 A.D.) was
also written for young students since the last line of the four
introductory verses reads: "yatipotaanam atthaaya kassa.m
kaccaanava.n.nana.m" (For the benefit of young aspirants I will
compose the Commentary on Kaccaayana) but this work is very different
from the Baalaavataaro in being an unusually detailed commentary on
Kaccaayana's grammar. I have noticed that the style of writing seems
easier to follow than that of the more difficult Nyaasa and I think it
will be a good text for us to study and translate. The part that
comments on the two introductory verses of Kaccaayana is 7 pages long
and for Kc 1, 4 pages.

On showing the important place of the Baalaavataaro among grammars,
the modern Nidaanakathaa to my Thai edition of the Suttaniddesa
contains the following:

bahuusu cassa sa.mva.n.nanaanusa.mva.n.nanaabhuutesu parivaaraganthesu
"nyaasappakara.na.m padaruupasiddhi baalaavataaro suttaniddeso caa" ti
cattaaro ganthaa suppasatthataraa honti sambhaavitataraa
saddasatthaviduuhi veyyaakara.nikehi. (pg. v)

And among the many ancillary books being commentaries and
subcommentaries of it (i.e. Kaccaayanavyaakara.na), the four books
"Nyaasappakara.na, Padaruupasiddhi, Baalaavataara, and the
Suttaniddesa" are the most well-praised, the most esteemed by
grammarians, experts in the science of words. (my translation)

Best wishes,
Jim

1212 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Aug 9, 2005 9:09pm 
Subject: RE: two study projects

Dear Jim,

>>>What I'm interested in doing with Kaccaayana's grammar is to study it in
conjunction with the following grammatical commentaries:
Mukhamattadiipanii (also known as Nyaasa), Suttaniddesa,
Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa, and Ruupasiddhi with its .tiikaa. All the texts are
in Pali and there are no available translations in English (at least for me)
except for the introductory verses and the first few suttas of Kacc. The
work involves preparing pages from these texts for study and translation for
the list and some of this has already been done. I can post small portions
of the text with a translation along with my remarks. However, if you or
anyone else is interested in translating some grammatical passages you could
discuss this with me offlist (I'll look for easy passages). You can also
help with problem-solving of difficult words or phrases that I report. I
don't think there's too much you can do just now and I may only need your
help in small ways later on.

>>>Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on paper) that I
mentioned above?

The state of ancient manuscripts in Thailand is beyond me. Our monastery
here used to be a great center for learning, but it has declined in that
regard recently. I imagine finding preserved grammatical texts to be
difficult - I'll try to find out for you though and let you know.

Sincerely,

Yuttadhammo

1213 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:23am 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> >>>Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on paper) that I  mentioned above?
>
> The state of ancient manuscripts in Thailand is beyond me. Our monastery
> here used to be a great center for learning, but it has declined in that
> regard recently. I imagine finding preserved grammatical texts to be
> difficult - I'll try to find out for you though and let you know.

I think Ven. Dhammanando knows a lot about the state of Pali learning
and the Pali grammar situation in Thailand. In recent years a number
of new publications of rare Pali grammatical texts (mostly with a Thai
gloss) have appeared. Buddhaghosa College has a wide selection for
sale and Dhammanando made a list for me from their webpage. Wat Tha
Ma O, Lampang also has a good reputation for the study of traditional
Pali grammar.

Best wishes,
Jim

1214 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Aug 10, 2005 7:54am 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Nina,

Thank-you for your interest. I would like to continue the study of the
two introductory verses of Kaccaayana with the help of two
commentaries as there is still quite a bit more to cover. I hope you
have a nice trip to India in October.

Jim

> Dear Jim,
> Yes, I would like that, before winter sets in. The text is very beautiful,
> the way it starts. The greetings and respect and the way it was analysed.
> I go to India in October.
> Nina.
> op 09-08-2005 02:48 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:
>
> > I think
> > the Kaccaayana study project should probably be re-introduced. I
> > believe the last posting for it was Dec. 1 of last year

1215 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:06pm 
Subject: RE: two study projects

Dear Jim,

Thank you, I was thinking the same thing. Anyhow, I went digging through
the decaying "library" here and found a Thai translation of a grammatical
text called the "Padaruupasiddhi", I assume to be the text you called the
"Ruupasiddhi" Big book, lots of grammatical info. It is translated into
Thai by a monk from Wat Ta Ma O, and the original author is said to be
"Buddhappiya Thera" or "Coliyamedha'nkara Thera", an Indian monk.

I imagine the rest of the texts you are looking for could be found in Wat Ta
Ma O. Were you looking for them, or just asking if I had access to them for
my own benefit?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

-----Original Message-----
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Jim Anderson
Sent: August 10, 2005 7:24 PM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [palistudy] two study projects

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> >>>Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on paper) that
I > mentioned above?
>
> The state of ancient manuscripts in Thailand is beyond me. Our monastery
> here used to be a great center for learning, but it has declined in that
> regard recently. I imagine finding preserved grammatical texts to be
> difficult - I'll try to find out for you though and let you know.

I think Ven. Dhammanando knows a lot about the state of Pali learning and
the Pali grammar situation in Thailand. In recent years a number of new
publications of rare Pali grammatical texts (mostly with a Thai
gloss) have appeared. Buddhaghosa College has a wide selection for sale and
Dhammanando made a list for me from their webpage. Wat Tha Ma O, Lampang
also has a good reputation for the study of traditional Pali grammar.

Best wishes,
Jim

1216 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:00am 
Subject: SV: two study projects

Dear Jim and Phra Noah Yuttadhammo,

Is there a way of finding out about important grammatical texts that are
available in Thai editions. Unfortunately, I do not read Thai, so
translations are of no use to me. I have an excellent modern Thai edition of
Kaccaayanam, but that is all. Any other text is of interest, especially
those that are not available in Sinhalese or Burmese editions. How do I
proceed?

Best wishes,

Ole

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Phra Noah Yuttadhammo
Sendt: 11. august 2005 03:07
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: RE: [palistudy] two study projects

Dear Jim,

Thank you, I was thinking the same thing. Anyhow, I went digging through
the decaying "library" here and found a Thai translation of a grammatical
text called the "Padaruupasiddhi", I assume to be the text you called the
"Ruupasiddhi" Big book, lots of grammatical info. It is translated into
Thai by a monk from Wat Ta Ma O, and the original author is said to be
"Buddhappiya Thera" or "Coliyamedha'nkara Thera", an Indian monk.

I imagine the rest of the texts you are looking for could be found in Wat Ta
Ma O. Were you looking for them, or just asking if I had access to them for
my own benefit?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

-----Original Message-----
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Jim Anderson
Sent: August 10, 2005 7:24 PM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [palistudy] two study projects

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> >>>Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on paper) that
I > mentioned above?
>
> The state of ancient manuscripts in Thailand is beyond me. Our monastery
> here used to be a great center for learning, but it has declined in that
> regard recently. I imagine finding preserved grammatical texts to be
> difficult - I'll try to find out for you though and let you know.

I think Ven. Dhammanando knows a lot about the state of Pali learning and
the Pali grammar situation in Thailand. In recent years a number of new
publications of rare Pali grammatical texts (mostly with a Thai
gloss) have appeared. Buddhaghosa College has a wide selection for sale and
Dhammanando made a list for me from their webpage. Wat Tha Ma O, Lampang
also has a good reputation for the study of traditional Pali grammar.

Best wishes,
Jim

1217 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:34am 
Subject: More Mystery Particles (New!)

All this talk about the Balavataro inspired me to make a comparative reading 
of its listing of particles (at end of the Nama-kando) and my own attempt to 
list all the upasagga & Avyaya. 

I discovered the following (new!) oddities, that may reflect errors in the 
source document, or the limits of my own lexical resources: 

- sacci (*not* sacchi)
- sakki (*not* sakkaa)
- vatha (*not* vata)
- aaha (*not* aha)
- sotthi (isn't this just a noun?)
- suvo (listed separately from suve!) 

Any comments would be very welcome,
E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
What is laughter, what is joy, when the world is ever burning? Shrouded by 
darkness, would you not seek the light?
Random Dhammapada Verse 146

1218 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 5:33am 
Subject: SV: More Mystery Particles (New!)

Dear E.M.,

This, indeed, is a strange list of oddities. In my ed. sacci occurs right
before sacchi and is probably no more than an error for sacchi, and sacchi
is not a nipaata but an adjective. It is found in the compounded form
sacchikaroti from which it occasionally is separated in canonical language,
cf. sakkhi.mkaroti < Sanskrit saak.siikaroti. In my ed. suve is followed by
suvo, both being separated from the cognate sve, but none of them qualify as
nipaatas. They are evidently adverbs like in Sanskrit < sva.h. sotthi is a
noun < svasti via suvatthi, /v/ lowering /u/ to /o/ and raising /a/ to /o/
to become sotthi. Sometimes used in such a way that one might be tempted to
take is a nipaata. The same goes for atthi, cf. the few instances where
atthi in sentence initial position expresses reproach like atthi naama "is
it realy true that..."

Best regards,

Ole Pind



-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 11. august 2005 09:34
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] More Mystery Particles (New!)


All this talk about the Balavataro inspired me to make a comparative reading
of its listing of particles (at end of the Nama-kando) and my own attempt to
list all the upasagga & Avyaya. 

I discovered the following (new!) oddities, that may reflect errors in the 
source document, or the limits of my own lexical resources: 

- sacci (*not* sacchi)
- sakki (*not* sakkaa)
- vatha (*not* vata)
- aaha (*not* aha)
- sotthi (isn't this just a noun?)
- suvo (listed separately from suve!) 

Any comments would be very welcome,
E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
What is laughter, what is joy, when the world is ever burning? Shrouded by 
darkness, would you not seek the light?
Random Dhammapada Verse 146 

1219 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:22am 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Ole,

<< Is there a way of finding out about important grammatical texts
that are available in Thai editions. Unfortunately, I do not read
Thai, so translations are of no use to me. I have an excellent modern
Thai edition of Kaccaayanam, but that is all. Any other text is of
interest, especially those that are not available in Sinhalese or
Burmese editions. How do I proceed? >>

It can be hard to get information about the availability of Pali
grammatical texts in Thai editions and how to acquire them. I have the
following three (all in Thai script):

1. The 3-vol. set of the Saddaniiti from the Bhumibalo Bhikkhu
Foundation (I can give you an address and a booklist).
2. Suttaniddesa -- a straight Pali text
3. Ganthaabhara.nama~njarii: contains the Pali text of Ganthaabhara.na
(97 verses) with a .tiikaa (33 pages) but most of the book appears to
be a Thai translation with a commentary. The text is a treatise on the
nipaatas. Some day I hope to transcribe the Pali portions of the book
into a romanized etext version.

Last April, Ven. Dhammanando sent me the following list of available
texts on the Buddhaghosa College website:

========

Method of analysing the Dhammapada Atthakathaa (Dhammamoli
Thera): 590 Baht (explns. mainly in Thai, as I recall)

Saddaniiti Padamaala: 590 Baht

Saddaniiti Suttamaala: 690 Baht

Saddatthabhedacintaa bya~njanato trans. with Diipanii: 250
Baht

Saddatthabhedacintaa atthato trans. with .tiika by PM
Nimitr: 490 Baht

Vaakyasa.msayavisodhanii (Sobhita Thera): 350 Baht
(on syntax, but I have never looked at it)

Ganthaabhara.nava.n.nanaa (Ariyava.msa Thera): 240 Baht
(no idea what this is)

Vuttodayama~njarii (Sa`ngharakkhita Thera): 300 Baht
(prosody)

Padavicaara (~Naa.navara Thera): 95 Baht
(no idea)

Kaccaayanasaarama~njarii (Yasa Thera): 65 Baht

Sa.mva.n.nanaama~njarii & Sa.mva.n.nanaaniyaama (~Naa.navara
Thera): 150 Baht (no idea)

Suttaniddesa (Saddhammajotipaala Thera): 150 Baht

Questions & answers on the Padaruupasiddhi
(Gandhasaarabhiva.msa Thera): 75 Baht
(mostly Thai)

==========
He said he'd also seen Saddaniiti Dhaatumaala and the
Subodhala"nkaara.tiikaa at the college bookstore. He recommends the
BBF edition of the Saddaniiti over the one offered by the college.
It's possible the Suttaniddesa mentioned in the college list could be
the same as my copy. I'm trying to get the Saddatthabhedacintaa with
its diipanii as mentioned above. It seems that the college isn't set
up to handle mail orders but I'm not sure if this is really the case.
Wat Tha Ma O in Lampang might be another good place to contact for
further information and availability of grammatical texts. There is
also a monumetal 12 volume Kaccaayana-related series floating around
but I don't have much on it except that the last 2 on my list of three
is part of it.

I think it's very important that Pali grammatical texts (many of them
rare) should become more easily available especially in romanized
editions.

Best wishes,
Jim

1220 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:41am 
Subject: Re: SV: two study projects

Dear All,
Justin McDaniel here, new member. I have a large collection of
Thai editions (vernacular and Pali in Thai script) of various
Pali grammatica. Phra Sompong at Mahachulalongkorn University
(student of Phra Dhammanando of Wat Tha Ma O) has produce many
of the best ones recently. When I return to my office, from
Boston and London, I can send a list in a couple weeks. I
recently wrote a draft of an article about the Thai editions
and Thai tradition of Pali grammatica. After I fix a couple
of problems that E.M. pointed out, I can send the draft to
anyone interested. 
Best,
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:00:20 +0200
>From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
>Subject: SV: [palistudy] two study projects 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Dear Jim and Phra Noah Yuttadhammo,
>
>Is there a way of finding out about important grammatical texts that are
>available in Thai editions. Unfortunately, I do not read Thai, so
>translations are of no use to me. I have an excellent modern Thai edition of
>Kaccaayanam, but that is all. Any other text is of interest, especially
>those that are not available in Sinhalese or Burmese editions. How do I
>proceed?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Ole
>
>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
>Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
>af Phra Noah Yuttadhammo
>Sendt: 11. august 2005 03:07
>Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>Emne: RE: [palistudy] two study projects
>
>Dear Jim,
>
>Thank you, I was thinking the same thing. Anyhow, I went digging through
>the decaying "library" here and found a Thai translation of a grammatical
>text called the "Padaruupasiddhi", I assume to be the text you called the
>"Ruupasiddhi" Big book, lots of grammatical info. It is translated into
>Thai by a monk from Wat Ta Ma O, and the original author is said to be
>"Buddhappiya Thera" or "Coliyamedha'nkara Thera", an Indian monk.
>
>I imagine the rest of the texts you are looking for could be found in Wat Ta
>Ma O. Were you looking for them, or just asking if I had access to them for
>my own benefit?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Yuttadhammo
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
>Of Jim Anderson
>Sent: August 10, 2005 7:24 PM
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] two study projects
>
>Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
>
>> >>>Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on
paper) that I > mentioned above?
>>
>> The state of ancient manuscripts in Thailand is beyond me. Our
>monastery
>> here used to be a great center for learning, but it has declined in
>that >> regard recently. I imagine finding preserved grammatical texts to
>be >> difficult - I'll try to find out for you though and let you know.
>
>I think Ven. Dhammanando knows a lot about the state of Pali learning and
>the Pali grammar situation in Thailand. In recent years a number of new
>publications of rare Pali grammatical texts (mostly with a Thai
>gloss) have appeared. Buddhaghosa College has a wide selection for sale and
>Dhammanando made a list for me from their webpage. Wat Tha Ma O, Lampang
>also has a good reputation for the study of traditional Pali grammar.
>
>Best wishes,
>Jim
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1221 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:05am 
Subject: SV: two study projects

Dear Jim,

Thank you very much for the information. Presently, I am very much
interested in the Thai edition of Suttaniddesa. This text contains loads of
information on, and quotations from no longer extant grammatical literature.
My old sinhalese edition is coming apart, and I do not know how to get a
burmese one. How do I proceed to purchase a copy of Suttaniddesa?

With best wishes,

Ole 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 11. august 2005 15:22
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] two study projects

Dear Ole,

<< Is there a way of finding out about important grammatical texts
that are available in Thai editions. Unfortunately, I do not read
Thai, so translations are of no use to me. I have an excellent modern
Thai edition of Kaccaayanam, but that is all. Any other text is of
interest, especially those that are not available in Sinhalese or
Burmese editions. How do I proceed? >>

It can be hard to get information about the availability of Pali
grammatical texts in Thai editions and how to acquire them. I have the
following three (all in Thai script):

1. The 3-vol. set of the Saddaniiti from the Bhumibalo Bhikkhu
Foundation (I can give you an address and a booklist).
2. Suttaniddesa -- a straight Pali text
3. Ganthaabhara.nama~njarii: contains the Pali text of Ganthaabhara.na
(97 verses) with a .tiikaa (33 pages) but most of the book appears to
be a Thai translation with a commentary. The text is a treatise on the
nipaatas. Some day I hope to transcribe the Pali portions of the book
into a romanized etext version.

Last April, Ven. Dhammanando sent me the following list of available
texts on the Buddhaghosa College website:

========

Method of analysing the Dhammapada Atthakathaa (Dhammamoli
Thera): 590 Baht (explns. mainly in Thai, as I recall)

Saddaniiti Padamaala: 590 Baht

Saddaniiti Suttamaala: 690 Baht

Saddatthabhedacintaa bya~njanato trans. with Diipanii: 250
Baht

Saddatthabhedacintaa atthato trans. with .tiika by PM
Nimitr: 490 Baht

Vaakyasa.msayavisodhanii (Sobhita Thera): 350 Baht
(on syntax, but I have never looked at it)

Ganthaabhara.nava.n.nanaa (Ariyava.msa Thera): 240 Baht
(no idea what this is)

Vuttodayama~njarii (Sa`ngharakkhita Thera): 300 Baht
(prosody)

Padavicaara (~Naa.navara Thera): 95 Baht
(no idea)

Kaccaayanasaarama~njarii (Yasa Thera): 65 Baht

Sa.mva.n.nanaama~njarii & Sa.mva.n.nanaaniyaama (~Naa.navara
Thera): 150 Baht (no idea)

Suttaniddesa (Saddhammajotipaala Thera): 150 Baht

Questions & answers on the Padaruupasiddhi
(Gandhasaarabhiva.msa Thera): 75 Baht
(mostly Thai)

==========
He said he'd also seen Saddaniiti Dhaatumaala and the
Subodhala"nkaara.tiikaa at the college bookstore. He recommends the
BBF edition of the Saddaniiti over the one offered by the college.
It's possible the Suttaniddesa mentioned in the college list could be
the same as my copy. I'm trying to get the Saddatthabhedacintaa with
its diipanii as mentioned above. It seems that the college isn't set
up to handle mail orders but I'm not sure if this is really the case.
Wat Tha Ma O in Lampang might be another good place to contact for
further information and availability of grammatical texts. There is
also a monumetal 12 volume Kaccaayana-related series floating around
but I don't have much on it except that the last 2 on my list of three
is part of it.

I think it's very important that Pali grammatical texts (many of them
rare) should become more easily available especially in romanized
editions.

Best wishes,
Jim

1222 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:09am 
Subject: SV: SV: two study projects

Dear Justin McDaniel,

I should like very much to receive your list.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af justinm@ucr.edu
Sendt: 11. august 2005 16:41
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: SV: [palistudy] two study projects

Dear All,
Justin McDaniel here, new member. I have a large collection of
Thai editions (vernacular and Pali in Thai script) of various
Pali grammatica. Phra Sompong at Mahachulalongkorn University
(student of Phra Dhammanando of Wat Tha Ma O) has produce many
of the best ones recently. When I return to my office, from
Boston and London, I can send a list in a couple weeks. I
recently wrote a draft of an article about the Thai editions
and Thai tradition of Pali grammatica. After I fix a couple
of problems that E.M. pointed out, I can send the draft to
anyone interested. 
Best,
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:00:20 +0200
>From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
>Subject: SV: [palistudy] two study projects 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Dear Jim and Phra Noah Yuttadhammo,
>
>Is there a way of finding out about important grammatical texts that are
>available in Thai editions. Unfortunately, I do not read Thai, so
>translations are of no use to me. I have an excellent modern Thai edition of
>Kaccaayanam, but that is all. Any other text is of interest, especially
>those that are not available in Sinhalese or Burmese editions. How do I
>proceed?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Ole
>
>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
>Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
>af Phra Noah Yuttadhammo
>Sendt: 11. august 2005 03:07
>Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>Emne: RE: [palistudy] two study projects
>
>Dear Jim,
>
>Thank you, I was thinking the same thing. Anyhow, I went digging through
>the decaying "library" here and found a Thai translation of a grammatical
>text called the "Padaruupasiddhi", I assume to be the text you called the
>"Ruupasiddhi" Big book, lots of grammatical info. It is translated into
>Thai by a monk from Wat Ta Ma O, and the original author is said to be
>"Buddhappiya Thera" or "Coliyamedha'nkara Thera", an Indian monk.
>
>I imagine the rest of the texts you are looking for could be found in Wat Ta
>Ma O. Were you looking for them, or just asking if I had access to them for
>my own benefit?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Yuttadhammo
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
>Of Jim Anderson
>Sent: August 10, 2005 7:24 PM
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] two study projects
>
>Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
>
>> >>>Do you or your Wat library have any of the texts (on
paper) that >I > mentioned above?
>>
>> The state of ancient manuscripts in Thailand is beyond me. Our
>monastery >> here used to be a great center for learning, but it has
declined in>that >> regard recently. I imagine finding preserved grammatical
texts to >be>> difficult - I'll try to find out for you though and let you know.
>
>I think Ven. Dhammanando knows a lot about the state of Pali learning and
>the Pali grammar situation in Thailand. In recent years a number of new
>publications of rare Pali grammatical texts (mostly with a Thai
>gloss) have appeared. Buddhaghosa College has a wide selection for sale and
>Dhammanando made a list for me from their webpage. Wat Tha Ma O, Lampang
>also has a good reputation for the study of traditional Pali grammar.
>
>Best wishes,
>Jim
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1223 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 0:06pm 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Ole,

<< Thank you very much for the information. Presently, I am very much
interested in the Thai edition of Suttaniddesa. This text contains
loads of information on, and quotations from no longer extant
grammatical literature. My old sinhalese edition is coming apart, and
I do not know how to get a burmese one. How do I proceed to purchase a
copy of Suttaniddesa? >>

I'm not exactly sure as I received my copy as a gift. I'm almost
certain that it is published by Buddhaghosa College as the writing at
the top of the book matches exactly that at the top left side of their
homepage http://buddhaghosa.mcu.ac.th/ . My book has an address at the
back of the title page. It appears that only 1000 copies were printed.
Although I can read Pali in the Thai script, I cannot read the Thai
language which has many more characters. I will try to transcribe the
information on the title page so we will have full bibliographic
information and I can check this with Ven. Yuttadhammo to make sure
I've got it right. The Suttaniddesa text is 292 pages long and a brand
new book with superior binding. Have you seen the
Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa? Justin's message is fantastic news and I too
would like a list of the grammatical texts.

Best wishes,
Jim

1224 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:55pm 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> Thank you, I was thinking the same thing. Anyhow, I went digging through> the decaying "library" here and found a Thai translation of a grammatical
> text called the "Padaruupasiddhi", I assume to be the text you called the
> "Ruupasiddhi" Big book, lots of grammatical info. It is translated into
> Thai by a monk from Wat Ta Ma O, and the original author is said to be
> "Buddhappiya Thera" or "Coliyamedha'nkara Thera", an Indian monk.

Yes, the Padaruupasiddhi (a fuller title) is the same as Ruupasiddhi.

> I imagine the rest of the texts you are looking for could be found in Wat Ta
> Ma O. Were you looking for them, or just asking if I had access to them for
> my own benefit?

I just wondered if you had access to any of the grammatical texts in
case a reading needed to be checked and also for your benefit too. I
have a Burmese printed hardcopy and of course there are two versions
available online, the Sinhalese one comes with a .tiikaa. Since you
have access to a Thai translation, that might be useful when the
Padaruupasiddhi comes up for study. Does the translation have any of
the Pali original as in a text and translation combination?

As you may have read in an earlier message, Ole is interested in
getting the Suttaniddesa (a commentary on Kaccaayana). I have
transcribed the title page of my copy which I reproduce below. I can
transliterate Pali from Thai but not the Thai language so could you
check it for errors? Also, Ven. Dhammanando wrote down a list of
grammatical texts for sale on the Buddhaghosa College website:
http://buddhaghosa.mcu.ac.th/ which is all in Thai. Could you find
the url for the page(s) with these texts and prices? And how should
one who doesn't speak Thai contact the college? Is the Thai
translation of Padaruupasiddhi by chance also from the college
(affiliated with Mahachulalongkorn University)?

Title: Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa
Gambhiira-?adhipaayasuutara?-kaccaayanavyaakara.na
Author: Phra Saddhammajotipaalathera
Editor: Phra Dhamamolii
(samasakagi upasamo P. Dh. ?? M.A. Ph.D) taravacajaara?
[What it that symbol after P. Dh.?]
General Editor?: Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro P. Dh. ?? parivararata?

Publisher?:
mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn Pathom?)

Best wishes,
Jim

1225 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Aug 12, 2005 3:02am 
Subject: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

Another noble attempt at Romanizing the un-Romanizable: 

> Publisher?:
> mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
> vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn Pathom?)

Yes this publisher is evidently one of the 15+ (?) branches of the M.C.L. 
university campus network. I assume the town is "Nakhon Phanom" --I have 
been there. It is adjacent to That Phanom --the latter being a major site 
of Buddhism pilgrimage on that stretch of the Mekong, and a focus of 
ritual/monastic activity. 

According to Thai official history, the temple was mysteriously destroyed 
"by the rain" in 1975 --a more likely explanation would be that the U.S. 
carpet-bombing of Laos (less than 100 meters away) managed to erroneously 
destroy this temple on the Thai side of the dotted line. 

In any case, the destruction of the temple was absolute, and what now stands 
there is a very phony "reconstruction"; however, a few interesting 
pre-Buddhist artefacts were uncovered and put into the museum in the process 
of "reconstructing" the site. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
The fickle, unsteady mind, so hard to guard, so hard to control, the wise 
man straightens, as the fletcher straightens the arrow.
Random Dhammapada Verse 33

1226 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Aug 12, 2005 8:54am 
Subject: Re: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

Hi Eisel,

> Another noble attempt at Romanizing the un-Romanizable:

> > Publisher?:
> > mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
> > vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn Pathom?)
>
> Yes this publisher is evidently one of the 15+ (?) branches of the M.C.L.
> university campus network. I assume the town is "Nakhon Phanom" --I have
> been there. It is adjacent to That Phanom --the latter being a major site
> of Buddhism pilgrimage on that stretch of the Mekong, and a focus of
> ritual/monastic activity.

"Nakorn Pathom" has the spelling "Nakhon Pathom" in my atlas. It is
close to and just west of Bangkok.

Jim

1227 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:00am 
Subject: Re: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

Although E.M. is absolutely correct about the importance of
That Phanom, that is not what this is referring to in the
transliteration. He is also correct that "nagarapa.thuum" is
Nakorn Pathom. However, Nakorn Phanom (the province of That
(Dhaatu) Phanom) is the far Northeast of Thailand and Nakorn
Pathom are two very different places. Nakorn Pathom is 30
kilometers northwest of Bangkok. The Buddhaghosa college is a
small part of Mahachulalongkorn Monastic University under
Royal Patronage
(mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya). The
common romanized Thai transliteration is: "Mahachulalongkorn
Ratchawithalai." This publishing office is run out of a small
room in Nakorn Pathom and the books are held, mostly, in large
stacks in brown paper in the basement of a building in the
northwest corner of Wat Mahathat (the monastery grounds on
which Mahachulalongkorn Monastic University is located). These
books are available for free distribution often, but, one
should make a donation. New editions come out very frequently.
The recent trend is to produce anthologies of important, but
short, Pali grammatica with there attendant Thai translations.
Phra Dhammananda, whose photo hangs in this basement, has been
the force behind this Pali grammatica publication push, but,
he is not as active now. Phra Sompong has taken over a lot of
his work. I will be in Bangkok in the winter and can pick up a
few new editions, etc. for people on the list. I used to tutor
Sanskrit to Thai monks in this basement and attended many Pali
grammar classes there with Phra Sompong. Bhumipalo Press (run
out of a first floor room on the Western side of Wat Sraket in
Bangkok) has been less active in publishing Pali grammatica of
late. There was a big changs in editors there and it seems to
have disrupted some activity. Their editions are usually very
good though. Rong Phim Kaan Sasana (lit.: Printing Factory for
Religion) near Wat Sraket in an unmarked store front prints
nice editions of some Pali grammatica. The Abhidhamma Jotika
College also produces handbooks to reading Abhidhamma works
with grammatical commentary. I need to return to my office and
check all the editions I have. I do not have all of them, but
I think I have all the ones produced at these publishing
houses before 2002.
As a side note, the American bombing which largely ended in
1972 probably did not destroy That Phanom. Most American
bombing, which was horrific and devastating, was in the outer
provinces along the Ho Chi Minh trail is Sam Neua, Hua Phan,
Attapeu, Xieng Kwang, and Eastern Savannakhet, not along the
river. The history of the war is not my expertise though and
perhaps E.M. has heard differently. I defer to his expertise.
Best,
justin 
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 13:02:29 +0600
>From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>Another noble attempt at Romanizing the un-Romanizable: 
>
>> Publisher?:
>> mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
>> vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn Pathom?)
>
>Yes this publisher is evidently one of the 15+ (?) branches of the M.C.L. 
>university campus network. I assume the town is "Nakhon Phanom" --I have 
>been there. It is adjacent to That Phanom --the latter being a major site 
>of Buddhism pilgrimage on that stretch of the Mekong, and a focus of 
>ritual/monastic activity. 
>
>According to Thai official history, the temple was mysteriously destroyed 
>"by the rain" in 1975 --a more likely explanation would be that the U.S. 
>carpet-bombing of Laos (less than 100 meters away) managed to erroneously 
>destroy this temple on the Thai side of the dotted line. 
>
>In any case, the destruction of the temple was absolute, and what now stands 
>there is a very phony "reconstruction"; however, a few interesting 
>pre-Buddhist artefacts were uncovered and put into the museum in the process 
>of "reconstructing" the site. 
>
>E.M. 
>
>-- 
>A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
>View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
>The fickle, unsteady mind, so hard to guard, so hard to control, the wise 
>man straightens, as the fletcher straightens the arrow.
>Random Dhammapada Verse 33 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1228 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:01am 
Subject: Re: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

Jim is correct. Sorry, I did not see this e-mail before
sending my last message.
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 08:54:55 -0400
>From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Hi Eisel,
>
>> Another noble attempt at Romanizing the un-Romanizable:
>
>> > Publisher?:
>> > mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
>> > vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn Pathom?)
>>
>> Yes this publisher is evidently one of the 15+ (?) branches of the >M.C.L.
>> university campus network. I assume the town is "Nakhon Phanom" --I >have
>> been there. It is adjacent to That Phanom --the latter being a >major site
>> of Buddhism pilgrimage on that stretch of the Mekong, and a focus of
>> ritual/monastic activity.
>
>"Nakorn Pathom" has the spelling "Nakhon Pathom" in my atlas. It is
>close to and just west of Bangkok.
>
>Jim
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1229 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:38pm 
Subject: RE: two study projects

Dear Jim,

<<<I just wondered if you had access to any of the grammatical texts in case
a reading needed to be checked and also for your benefit too. I have a
Burmese printed hardcopy and of course there are two versions available
online, the Sinhalese one comes with a .tiikaa. Since you have access to a
Thai translation, that might be useful when the Padaruupasiddhi comes up for
study. Does the translation have any of the Pali original as in a text and
translation combination?>>>

Yes, it has some Pali and Thai in combination. I am not sure whether it has
all of the Pali... it seems mostly Thai, so probably not.

<<<As you may have read in an earlier message, Ole is interested in getting
the Suttaniddesa (a commentary on Kaccaayana). I have transcribed the title
page of my copy which I reproduce below. I can transliterate Pali from Thai
but not the Thai language so could you check it for errors? Also, Ven.
Dhammanando wrote down a list of grammatical texts for sale on the
Buddhaghosa College website:
http://buddhaghosa.mcu.ac.th/ which is all in Thai. Could you find
the url for the page(s) with these texts and prices? And how should one who
doesn't speak Thai contact the college? Is the Thai translation of
Padaruupasiddhi by chance also from the college (affiliated with
Mahachulalongkorn University)?>>>

No, I don't think so, it is published by Krom Kaan Sasanaa in Bangkok, and
they intend it to be used around the country. The author seems to be from a
Monastery in Bangkok, his name is "Mahaa Somjai Pa~n~naadiipo"

I looked at the website, but don't see any link to buying books. The
e-library is out of service, but there is a list of e-books on the right
hand side of the page which seem interesting, but are very short (10-20
pages). Sorry, I can't find what you are looking for... let me look some
more on other sites.

<<<<<Title: Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa
Gambhiira-?adhipaayasuutara?-kaccaayanavyaakara.na
Author: Phra Saddhammajotipaalathera
Editor: Phra Dhamamolii>>>>

The second line is Thai. Suutara is actually Suutra (Thai almost always
uses sanskrit spelling) And your "Adhipaaya" is a Thai word "atibai"
meaning explain. It means this is the book explaining the sutta called
"kaccaayanavyaakara.na". One of the e-books has the same title, but it is
very short (11 pages) and seems just to be the introduction.
http://buddhaghosa.mcu.ac.th/pdf/suttanites.pdf



<<<<< (samasakagi upasamo P. Dh. ?? M.A. Ph.D) taravacajaara?
[What it that symbol after P. Dh.?]
General Editor?: Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro P. Dh. ?? parivararata?>>>

P.Dh. (Parian Dhamm) refers to the level of Pali that the monk in question
has attained. The symbol is a number (4-9)

<<<<Publisher?:
mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn Pathom?)>>>>

Yes, Nagara = Nakorn and Pa.thama = Pathom - it means the first city.

I think it is "VidyaKHETA" not "jeta" - khet=area/field and vidya=study,
thus: "The Buddhaghosa Faculty of Pali Study"

Sincerely,

Yuttadhammo

1230 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Aug 12, 2005 8:49pm 
Subject: Re: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

Dear Justin,

Welcome to the discussion list! Your description about Pali grammatica
books in the Bangkok area is very interesting and informative. I look
forward to seeing a list of these books in your collection and I would
like to receive a draft of the article you mentioned. I don't know if
this is available in Thailand but one book I'm particularly interested
in acquiring is the Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa. I know that Vol. I (the
first 11 ka.n.das) by L. Tiwari was published in 1992 in Varanasi,
India. I sent a letter there several weeks ago to find out if I can
get a copy. I recently photocopied the first 5 ka.n.das of this
edition which is what I'm working with for now. I'm also interested in
getting the Kaccaayanabheda with the .tiikaa.

Best wishes,
Jim

1231 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Aug 13, 2005 3:37am 
Subject: Re: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

I'm glad we cleared this up: 

> However, Nakorn Phanom (the province of That
> (Dhaatu) Phanom) is the far Northeast of Thailand and Nakorn
> Pathom are two very different places. Nakorn Pathom is 30
> kilometers northwest of Bangkok.

Another near disaster caused by Romanization! Imagine the confusion that 
might have ensued. 

> As a side note, the American bombing which largely ended in
> 1972 ...

That is not true at all; the Nixon & Kissinger announcement in 1972 was 
actually followed by an escalation in saturation bombing, and of 
helicopter-based depopulation raids --the latter killed many of the people 
who had already become accustomed to finding shelter in caves. Nixon's 
policy from 1972-1975 was to massively escalate operations aimed at 
eliminating food production in Laos & central Vietnam --this included 
"chemtrailing" and simple mass murder of rural/agricultural populations. 
However, his press announcements from 1972 onwards gave the impression that 
bombing was in decline --when in fact the opposite was the case. This is 
especially true of "the other theatre" (i.e., where the war was unofficial) 
--both Lao & Cambodia. 

> ...probably did not destroy That Phanom.

Having seen the photos of the temple on the day of its collapse, I would 
indeed say that it was *not* directly bombed --however, an explosion nearby 
(perhaps even on the other bank of the river?) could have shaken the earth 
enough to cause the old stupa to collapse. If it is "tenable" that the rain 
alone cause the collapse, is it not tenable that active warfare (not only 
air-raids, but armed conflict on the ground) could have been a decisive 
factor? 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Whoso is perfect in virtue and insight, is established in the Dhamma, has 
realized the Truths, and fulfils his own duties, - him do folk hold dear.
Random Dhammapada Verse 217

1232 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Sat Aug 13, 2005 8:45pm 
Subject: Re: Romanized citation: Thai Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa

As I am away from my office for a few weeks, the list will
take a while, but I will send it as soon as I can. I will also
check on Thai editions of the Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa.
Best,
justin 

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:49:39 -0400
>From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Romanized citation: Thai
Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Dear Justin,
>
>Welcome to the discussion list! Your description about Pali grammatica
>books in the Bangkok area is very interesting and informative. I look
>forward to seeing a list of these books in your collection and I would
>like to receive a draft of the article you mentioned. I don't know if
>this is available in Thailand but one book I'm particularly interested
>in acquiring is the Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa. I know that Vol. I (the
>first 11 ka.n.das) by L. Tiwari was published in 1992 in Varanasi,
>India. I sent a letter there several weeks ago to find out if I can
>get a copy. I recently photocopied the first 5 ka.n.das of this
>edition which is what I'm working with for now. I'm also interested in
>getting the Kaccaayanabheda with the .tiikaa.
>
>Best wishes,
>Jim
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1233 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Aug 14, 2005 10:52am 
Subject: Re: two study projects

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> Yes, it has some Pali and Thai in combination. I am not sure
whether it has all of the Pali... it seems mostly Thai, so probably
not.

The Pali text of Padaruupasiddhi is fairly large. It takes up 422
pages in my Burmese edition.

> <<<<<Title: Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa
> Gambhiira-?adhipaayasuutara?-kaccaayanavyaakara.na
> Author: Phra Saddhammajotipaalathera
> Editor: Phra Dhamamolii>>>>
>
<< The second line is Thai. Suutara is actually Suutra (Thai almost
always > uses sanskrit spelling) And your "Adhipaaya" is a Thai word
"atibai" > meaning explain. It means this is the book explaining the
sutta called "kaccaayanavyaakara.na". One of the e-books has the
same title, but it is very short (11 pages) and seems just to be the
introduction.
> http://buddhaghosa.mcu.ac.th/pdf/suttanites.pdf >>

Thanks for the corrections. I only started learning to read Pali in
the Thai script last year and know very little about the Thai
language. I have a lot to learn just to able to romanize Thai. I have
a few conversion sheets on transliteration (ISO 11940) and
romanization (UN 2002) for the Thai characters but there are so many
of them (44 consonants and 57 vocalic nuclei and special characters).
It seems like a really difficult language.

> <<<<< (samasakagi upasamo P. Dh. ?? M.A. Ph.D) taravacajaara?
> [What it that symbol after P. Dh.?]
> General Editor?: Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro P. Dh. ??
parivararata?>>>
>
> P.Dh. (Parian Dhamm) refers to the level of Pali that the monk in
question has attained. The symbol is a number (4-9)

I now recognize that the symbol in both cases is a "9". I thought it
was a number but I got confused by the other way of writing it.

> <<<<Publisher?:
> mahaavidyaalayamahacu.laala"nkara.naraajaavidyaalaaya
> vidyaajetapaa.liisiksaabuddhaghosa nagarapa.thuum (Nakorn
Pathom?)>>>>
>
> Yes, Nagara = Nakorn and Pa.thama = Pathom - it means the first
city.

With "-pa.thuum", I now see that the "uu" looking symbol under the
".th" character is not a "uu".

> I think it is "VidyaKHETA" not "jeta" - khet=area/field and
vidya=study, thus: "The Buddhaghosa Faculty of Pali Study"

You're right about the "kheta", my mistake.

Thanks for your help.

Best wishes,
Jim

1234 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:20pm 
Subject: Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1

namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa

kaccaayanava.n.nanaa

avisuddhassa janassa suddhisampaapaka.m jina.m |
mohassa dha.msaka.m dhamma.m natvaa sa"ngha.m nira"nga.na.m ||

Having bowed to the Conqueror who causes unpurified people
to obtain purity;
To the Dhamma, destroyer of confusion; to the spotless Sangha;

1) "-sampaapaka.m" (who causes to obtain/attain/reach): I take this to
be a causal agent-noun (hetukattusaadhana) derived from sa.m + pa +
aap (dhaatu) + aka (suffix, Kc 641). I'm not sure if Pali grammar
allows it, but it seems to me that "avisuddhassa janassa" (unpurified
people) and "suddhi-" (purity) are objects of "-sampaapaka.m" as if
the latter functioned like the causative verb "sampaapeti" -- he
causes x to obtain/attain y. According to Kc 309 and Sadd I p. 6, the
genitive "avisuddhassa janassa" can function as an accusative object
of a causative verb but again I'm not sure if the same applies to a
causal agent-noun. An alternative interpretation could be "obtainer of
purity for unpurified people (dative)" but the problem I have with
this is that it implies that the Buddha hands over the purity instead
of showing them how to obtain it for themselves.

2) The full English title of L. Tiwari's book is:
Kaccaayanavyaakara.na.m of Kaccaayana Mahaathera with the commentary
Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa by Mahaavijitaavii Thera [Vol. I]. It was
published in 1992 by Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi. The
text is in the Devanagari script.

3) The first introductory verse has a resemblance to the first of two
verses of the Nyaasa (Mmd):

buddha.m visuddhamavisuddhajanassa suddhi[-] |
sampaapaka.m sakalalokavimohakassa ||
mohassa dha.msakamapissa suvuttadhamma.m |
natvaana sa"nghamanaghuttamadakkhi.neyya.m || 1 || (Mmd, p.1)

Best wishes,
Jim

1235 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Aug 17, 2005 11:49am 
Subject: SV: Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1

Dear Jim,

avisuddhassa janassa suddhisampaapaka.m jina.m |
mohassa dha.msaka.m dhamma.m natvaa sa"ngha.m nira"nga.na.m ||

Having bowed to the Conqueror who causes unpurified people
to obtain purity;
To the Dhamma, destroyer of confusion; to the spotless Sangha;

1) "-sampaapaka.m" (who causes to obtain/attain/reach): I take this to
be a causal agent-noun (hetukattusaadhana) derived from sa.m + pa +
aap (dhaatu) + aka (suffix, Kc 641). I'm not sure if Pali grammar
allows it, but it seems to me that "avisuddhassa janassa" (unpurified
people) and "suddhi-" (purity) are objects of "-sampaapaka.m" as if
the latter functioned like the causative verb "sampaapeti" -- he
causes x to obtain/attain y. According to Kc 309 and Sadd I p. 6, the
genitive "avisuddhassa janassa" can function as an accusative object
of a causative verb but again I'm not sure if the same applies to a
causal agent-noun. 

This is definitely the correct interpretation. Examples could be cited from
at.t.hakathaas and t.iikas. sampaapaka.m is as your explanation presupposes
di-valent and therefore constructed with two "accusatives" like other
nominals based upon the causative stem. Of course, Paa.ninian grammar as
well as Kaccaayana supports your analysis.

Best wishes,

Ole 

PS I am a bit slow because I have broken my left arm, and I have to peck
like a chicken at the keyboard.



An alternative interpretation could be "obtainer of
purity for unpurified people (dative)" but the problem I have with
this is that it implies that the Buddha hands over the purity instead
of showing them how to obtain it for themselves.

1236 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Aug 17, 2005 9:13pm 
Subject: Re: Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1

Dear Ole,

Thanks for your response in agreement with my interpretation. There
are still 3 more verses to post. I'll be focussing primarily on
Kaccaayana's 2 introductory verses with the commentaries from the
Nyaasa, Suttaniddesa, and the Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa. There are some
introductory material to work through in the commentaries first before
getting to the actual words of Kaccaayana (se.t.tha.m
tilokamahita.m...etc.).

With appreciation,
Jim

> avisuddhassa janassa suddhisampaapaka.m jina.m |
> mohassa dha.msaka.m dhamma.m natvaa sa"ngha.m nira"nga.na.m ||
>
> Having bowed to the Conqueror who causes unpurified people
> to obtain purity;
> To the Dhamma, destroyer of confusion; to the spotless Sangha;
>
> 1) "-sampaapaka.m" (who causes to obtain/attain/reach): I take this to
> be a causal agent-noun (hetukattusaadhana) derived from sa.m + pa +
> aap (dhaatu) + aka (suffix, Kc 641). I'm not sure if Pali grammar
> allows it, but it seems to me that "avisuddhassa janassa" (unpurified
> people) and "suddhi-" (purity) are objects of "-sampaapaka.m" as if
> the latter functioned like the causative verb "sampaapeti" -- he
> causes x to obtain/attain y. According to Kc 309 and Sadd I p. 6, the
> genitive "avisuddhassa janassa" can function as an accusative object
> of a causative verb but again I'm not sure if the same applies to a
> causal agent-noun.
>
> This is definitely the correct interpretation. Examples could be cited from
> at.t.hakathaas and t.iikas. sampaapaka.m is as your explanation presupposes
> di-valent and therefore constructed with two "accusatives" like other
> nominals based upon the causative stem. Of course, Paa.ninian grammar as
> well as Kaccaayana supports your analysis.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ole
>
> PS I am a bit slow because I have broken my left arm, and I have to peck
> like a chicken at the keyboard.

1237 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Tue Aug 23, 2005 1:32pm 
Subject: Re: Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1

Dear Jim,
I will be in London next week at the IABS conference. Will 
you be there?
Best,
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 21:13:20 -0400
>From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Dear Ole,
>
>Thanks for your response in agreement with my interpretation. There
>are still 3 more verses to post. I'll be focussing primarily on
>Kaccaayana's 2 introductory verses with the commentaries from the
>Nyaasa, Suttaniddesa, and the Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa. There are some
>introductory material to work through in the commentaries first before
>getting to the actual words of Kaccaayana (se.t.tha.m tilokamahita.m...etc.).
>
>With appreciation,
>Jim
>
>> avisuddhassa janassa suddhisampaapaka.m jina.m |
>> mohassa dha.msaka.m dhamma.m natvaa sa"ngha.m nira"nga.na.m ||
>>
>> Having bowed to the Conqueror who causes unpurified people
>> to obtain purity;
>> To the Dhamma, destroyer of confusion; to the spotless Sangha;
>>
>> 1) "-sampaapaka.m" (who causes to obtain/attain/reach): I take this >to
>> be a causal agent-noun (hetukattusaadhana) derived from sa.m + pa +
>> aap (dhaatu) + aka (suffix, Kc 641). I'm not sure if Pali grammar
>> allows it, but it seems to me that "avisuddhassa janassa" >(unpurified
>> people) and "suddhi-" (purity) are objects of "- sampaapaka.m" as if
>> the latter functioned like the causative verb "sampaapeti" -- he
>> causes x to obtain/attain y. According to Kc 309 and Sadd I p. 6, >the
>> genitive "avisuddhassa janassa" can function as an accusative object
>> of a causative verb but again I'm not sure if the same  applies to a
>> causal agent-noun.
>>
>> This is definitely the correct interpretation. Examples  could be>cited from
>> at.t.hakathaas and t.iikas. sampaapaka.m is as your explanation >presupposes
>> di-valent and therefore constructed with two "accusatives" like >other
>> nominals based upon the causative stem. Of course, Paa.ninian >grammar as
>> well as Kaccaayana supports your analysis.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Ole
>>
>> PS I am a bit slow because I have broken my left arm, and I have to
>peck > like a chicken at the keyboard.
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1238 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:11pm 
Subject: Re: Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1

Dear Justin,

No, I'm afraid I won't be there but perhaps other list members will.
The last time I was in London was in May, 1972 at the beginning of
what was to become a seventeen-month walking tour around the UK and
Iceland with long stops here and there. I'm not a professional
academic -- just an aspiring Palicist living in a small cottage in the
woods of Ontario who rarely goes anywhere. But lately I've been
getting interested in travelling to SE Asia, so perhaps we might meet
up there sometime.

Sorry for not having yet posted the remaining verses with a
translation and notes. This is because my attention has turned to
learning more about the authors that Mahaavijitaavii pays homage to in
his remaining verses and this has led me to dig into the Gandhava.msa,
Saasanava.msa, and Saasanava.msadiipa. I also just finished reading M.
Bode's article _Early Pali Grammarians in Burma_ JPTS 1908. What a
wonderful period for the writing of Pali grammatical works that was in
12th and 13th century Pagan, Burma.

I recently received a notice of an upcoming IB Horner Memorial Lecture
at SOAS, London on September 11 following the AGM of PTS. The subject
is "Stretching the Vinaya Rules and Getting Away With It" by Dr. Petra
Kieffer-Pulz. I imagine this will be published in the next volume of
JPTS.

Best wishes,
Jim

> Dear Jim,
> I will be in London next week at the IABS conference. Will
> you be there?
> Best,
> justin

1239 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:11am 
Subject: Pali conferences/events in London

Justin, 

If you will also be seeing the PTS presentation (the I.B. Horner Memorial 
lecture on the Vinaya, Sept. 16th), I would be very interested to see any 
materials that might be handed out relating to its subject-matter, or to 
hear your opinion of the content of the presentation. 

The PTS has a synopsis here:
http://www.palitext.com/subpages/lecture.htm 

Try not to run or talk to strangers on the subway while you're there; I hear 
that the cops aim for the head. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Honours those worthy of honour, who has overcome all passions, and 
Suffering.
Random Dhammapada Verse 195

1240 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:55am 
Subject: Re: Pali conferences/events in London

Justin, just wanted to point out that I gave a wrong date (Sept. 11)
in my earlier message for the PTS lecture. Eisel gives the correct one
below. -- Jim

> Justin,
>
> If you will also be seeing the PTS presentation (the I.B. Horner
Memorial lecture on the Vinaya, Sept. 16th), I would be very
interested to see any materials that might be handed out relating to
its subject-matter, or to hear your opinion of the content of the
presentation. >>

1241 
From: nina <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:00pm 
Subject: napumsaka

Dear Ole and Jim,
Ole, you explained some time ago about the napumsaka use of kama.m,
adverbial use.
In the Visuddhimagga Tiika (Ch XIV, 186) this case came up, and here it
seems to refer to all inclusive, it pervades all, sabba.m. Is there a rule
in the Kaccayaana?
To give the context, just a few texts:
Text Vis.:186. Herein, the word 'whatever' includes without exception.
'Materiality' prevents over-generalization. Thus materiality is
comprised without exception by the two expressions.
186. tattha ya.mki~nciiti anavasesapariyaadaana.m. ruupanti
atippasa"nganiyamana.m. eva.m padadvayenaapi ruupassa anavasesapariggaho
kato hoti. athassa atiitaadinaa vibhaaga.m aarabhati. ta~nhi ki~nci
atiita.m, ki~nci anaagataadibhedanti. esa nayo vedanaadiisu.

Tiika: Ya.m ki~nciiti ettha yanti saama~n~nena aniyamadassana.m. Ki~nciiti
pakaarabheda.m aamasitvaa aniyamadassana.m. Ubhayenaapi atiita.m vaa pe pe
santike vaa appa.m vaa bahu.m vaa yaadisa.m vaa taadisa.m vaa
napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m byaapetvaa ga.nhaatiiti aaha
anavasesapariyaadaananti. Eva.m pana a~n~nesupi napu.msakaniddesaarahesu
pasa"nga.m disvaa tattha adhippetattha.m aticca pavattanato atippasa"ngassa
niyamanattha.m ruupanti vuttanti dassento ruupanti atippasa"nganiyamananti
aaha.
----
I am especially interested at the napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m
byaapetvaa...
It seems it has to do with sabba.m.
Thank you, Nina.

1242 
From: <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:31pm 
Subject: Re: napumsaka

On 8/25/05, nina <vangorko@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> Dear Ole and Jim,
> Ole, you explained some time ago about the napumsaka use of kama.m,
> adverbial use.
> In the Visuddhimagga Tiika (Ch XIV, 186) this case came up, and here it
> seems to refer to all inclusive, it pervades all, sabba.m. Is there a rule
> in the Kaccayaana?
> To give the context, just a few texts:
> Text Vis.:186. Herein, the word 'whatever' includes without exception.
> 'Materiality' prevents over-generalization. Thus materiality is
> comprised without exception by the two expressions.
> 186. tattha ya.mki~nciiti anavasesapariyaadaana.m. ruupanti
> atippasa"nganiyamana.m. eva.m padadvayenaapi ruupassa anavasesapariggaho
> kato hoti. athassa atiitaadinaa vibhaaga.m aarabhati. ta~nhi ki~nci
> atiita.m, ki~nci anaagataadibhedanti. esa nayo vedanaadiisu.
> 
> Tiika: Ya.m ki~nciiti ettha yanti saama~n~nena aniyamadassana.m. Ki~nciiti
> pakaarabheda.m aamasitvaa aniyamadassana.m. Ubhayenaapi atiita.m vaa pe pe
> santike vaa appa.m vaa bahu.m vaa yaadisa.m vaa taadisa.m vaa
> napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m byaapetvaa ga.nhaatiiti aaha
> anavasesapariyaadaananti. Eva.m pana a~n~nesupi napu.msakaniddesaarahesu
> pasa"nga.m disvaa tattha adhippetattha.m aticca pavattanato 
> atippasa"ngassa
> niyamanattha.m ruupanti vuttanti dassento ruupanti 
> atippasa"nganiyamananti
> aaha.
> ----
> I am especially interested at the napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m
> byaapetvaa...
> It seems it has to do with sabba.m.
> Thank you, Nina.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1243 
From: "bhikkhu_pandita" <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:36pm 
Subject: Sorry!

Nina and friends

I beg your pardon for my previous message. I intended to save it in my
mail folder hoping to make a reply later but I mistakenly clicked on
the send button. I beg your pardon for the inconvenience it may have
caused.

with metta

Ven. Pandita

1244 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:32am 
Subject: Burmese Kacc.? Thai pub. Mon Grammar?

Hello, 

I have two questions about publications: 

(1) This may seem rather obvious, but I realized today that I do not have 
any publication data for any Burmese edition(s) of Kacc. As I'll soon have 
a Thai edition to balance my exposure to Sinhalese and Lao sources, I should 
probably start looking for a Burmese edition of some kind. There are a 
surprising number of catalogued Burmese MS of Kacc. in europe --however, I 
wonder how many of them are correctly catalogued (i.e., source-text vs. 
nissaya, etc.). 

(2) If anyone has ever seen a publication with a title along the lines of 
"Mon-English Grammar", I would very much like to hear about it. I read 
(very vaguely) that an award was given for a Thai university to publish a 
grammar of the Mon language (and a "Mon-English" grammar --yet more 
surprising for Thai academia) but I have never seen any sign of it --nor do 
I know any more than this. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Take delight in heedfulness. Guard your mind well. Draw yourselves out of 
the evil way just as the elephant sunk in the mud draws himself out.
Random Dhammapada Verse 327

1245 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:53am 
Subject: SV: Burmese Kacc.? Thai pub. Mon Grammar?

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 25. august 2005 15:32
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Burmese Kacc.? Thai pub. Mon Grammar?


Hello, 

I have two questions about publications: 

(1) This may seem rather obvious, but I realized today that I do not have 
any publication data for any Burmese edition(s) of Kacc. As I'll soon have 
a Thai edition to balance my exposure to Sinhalese and Lao sources, I should

probably start looking for a Burmese edition of some kind. There are a 
surprising number of catalogued Burmese MS of Kacc. in europe --however, I 
wonder how many of them are correctly catalogued (i.e., source-text vs. 
nissaya, etc.). 

Yes, so do I. Many Ms of Kacc that have been catalogued as only comprising
the Sandhi chapter actually contain all pakara.nas.
As for Burmese editions of Kacc you will probably not have any difficulty
finding a good modern edition. I have two editions, but unfortunately I do
not read Burmese so I cannot give any bibliographical details. 

Best,

Ole Pind

(2) If anyone has ever seen a publication with a title along the lines of 
"Mon-English Grammar", I would very much like to hear about it. I read 
(very vaguely) that an award was given for a Thai university to publish a 
grammar of the Mon language (and a "Mon-English" grammar --yet more 
surprising for Thai academia) but I have never seen any sign of it --nor do 
I know any more than this. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Take delight in heedfulness. Guard your mind well. Draw yourselves out of 
the evil way just as the elephant sunk in the mud draws himself out.
Random Dhammapada Verse 327 

1246 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:13am 
Subject: Reply to Dr. Pind, re: Burmese Kacc.?

Dr. Pind, 

Thank you very much for your reply --and thank you also for your earlier 
reply about the unusual _avyaya_ listed in the _baalaavataro_. I made 
changes accordingly --and the list of particles continues to grow. I found 
a few to add to my list (i.e., that my other sources had omitted) in going 
through a beautiful 1965 Mon/Burmese publication (from Ye). Another 
reminder that there are good (if obscure!) publications from Burma! 

Although it is probably impossible to Romanize Burmese publication data, I 
wonder if you could either:
(1) tell me any information that might be in Pali/English (such as the 
year or the name of the editor or his Wat?),
or (2) ask a librarian to "scan" the title page as an image that could be 
sent to me as an e-mail attachment? 

I'm sorry to pester you about this, but there are some Burmese-Pali 
resources even in the lowly Thai National Library (Bangkok) --but I think I 
would have to bring something very definite to get the assistance of the 
(sleeping) librarians. 

Again, please don't worry yourself about it if it's too much trouble. I 
don't mean to intrude, and sometimes I know these things are too much to 
ask. Even I get some requests for information that I have to say "no" to! 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Your life has come to end now. To the presence of death you are setting out. 
No halting place is there for you by the way. Provision too there is none 
for you.
Random Dhammapada Verse 237

1247 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:15pm 
Subject: Re: Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1

To bad we can't meet there. I had the impression you were 
writing from the U.K. I am not sure why. In any case, your 
work sounds very interesting. I am just a Pali translator 
and do not work directly on the history of grammatica, but 
it is a subject that I am interested in. I will send you an 
recent article and more info. on Thai grammatica soon after 
my trip. I look forward to the Keiffer-Pulz paper. Thanks 
for telling me about it.
Best,
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:11:51 -0400
>From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Kc-va.n.n: intro. verse 1 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Dear Justin,
>
>No, I'm afraid I won't be there but perhaps other list members will.
>The last time I was in London was in May, 1972 at the beginning of
>what was to become a seventeen-month walking tour around the UK and
>Iceland with long stops here and there. I'm not a professional
>academic -- just an aspiring Palicist living in a small cottage in the
>woods of Ontario who rarely goes anywhere. But lately I've been
>getting interested in travelling to SE Asia, so perhaps we might meet
>up there sometime.
>
>Sorry for not having yet posted the remaining verses with a
>translation and notes. This is because my attention has turned to
>learning more about the authors that Mahaavijitaavii pays homage to in
>his remaining verses and this has led me to dig into the Gandhava.msa,
>Saasanava.msa, and Saasanava.msadiipa. I also just finished reading M.
>Bode's article _Early Pali Grammarians in Burma_ JPTS 1908. What a
>wonderful period for the writing of Pali grammatical works that was in
>12th and 13th century Pagan, Burma.
>
>I recently received a notice of an upcoming IB Horner Memorial Lecture
>at SOAS, London on September 11 following the AGM of PTS. The subject
>is "Stretching the Vinaya Rules and Getting Away With It" by Dr. Petra
>Kieffer-Pulz. I imagine this will be published in the next volume of
>JPTS.
>
>Best wishes,
>Jim
>
>> Dear Jim,
>> I will be in London next week at the IABS conference. Will
>> you be there?
>> Best,
>> justin
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1248 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:18pm 
Subject: Re: Pali conferences/events in London

I will not be in London at that time. I have to get back to 
teach in California. I think the lectures will be published 
by the JPTS, I will ask more about them in London this week 
and get back to you.
I will keep my head down. Thanks.
jm

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:11:43 +0600
>From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Pali conferences/events in London 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>Justin, 
>
>If you will also be seeing the PTS presentation (the I.B.  Horner Memorial 
>lecture on the Vinaya, Sept. 16th), I would be very interested to see any 
>materials that might be handed out relating to its subject-matter, or to 
>hear your opinion of the content of the presentation. 
>
>The PTS has a synopsis here:
>http://www.palitext.com/subpages/lecture.htm 
>
>Try not to run or talk to strangers on the subway while you're there; I hear 
>that the cops aim for the head. 
>
>E.M. 
>
>
>-- 
>A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
>View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
>Honours those worthy of honour, who has overcome all 
passions, and 
>Suffering.
>Random Dhammapada Verse 195 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1249 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:22pm 
Subject: Re: Pali conferences/events in London

no problem.
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:55:04 -0400
>From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Pali conferences/events in London 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Justin, just wanted to point out that I gave a wrong date (Sept. 11)
>in my earlier message for the PTS lecture. Eisel gives the correct one
>below. -- Jim
>
>> Justin,
>>
>> If you will also be seeing the PTS presentation (the I.B. Horner
>Memorial lecture on the Vinaya, Sept. 16th), I would be very
>interested to see any materials that might be handed out relating to
>its subject-matter, or to hear your opinion of the content of the
>presentation. >>
>>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1250 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:21am 
Subject: Kacc. Burmese edition / translation

Well, checking myanmarbook.com did reveal the following garbled description 
of an edition (from microfiche) circa 1960. If anyone wants a paraphrase of 
Kacc. in Burmese, this is a lot cheaper than the PTS at only $11: 

----------------------------
Published/Created: [Rangoon] : Paa Ron` Khra`,
Description: 4, 250 p. ; 22 cm.
Annotation
Paraphrase of Kaccayanasara, gist of Vyakakarana,classical Pali grammar, 
by Kaccayana.Burmese and Pali (Pali in Burmese script) Cover title: 
'Angapu na` Kaccayanasara vallarI kyam`. Master microform held by: 
DLC. Microfiche. Washington, D.
Keyword 

Publisher Year of Publish
- 1960
---------------------------- 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Should a person commit evil, he should not do it again and again; he should 
not find pleasure therein: painful is the accumulation of evil.
Random Dhammapada Verse 117

1251 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Aug 27, 2005 7:51am 
Subject: Re: Kacc. Burmese edition / translation

Hi Eisel,

A Thai script edition of the Kaccaayanasaara is even cheaper in
Thailand. Buddhaghosa College, Nakhon Pathom sells the following:

Kaccaayanasaarama~njarii (Yasa Thera): 65 Baht (less than $2 US)

I think this will have the text and possibly a .tiikaa both in Pali
plus a Thai translation with a modern Thai commentary.

Jim

> Well, checking myanmarbook.com did reveal the following garbled description
> of an edition (from microfiche) circa 1960. If anyone wants a paraphrase of
> Kacc. in Burmese, this is a lot cheaper than the PTS at only $11:
>
> ----------------------------
> Published/Created: [Rangoon] : Paa Ron` Khra`,
> Description: 4, 250 p. ; 22 cm.
> Annotation
> Paraphrase of Kaccayanasara, gist of Vyakakarana,classical Pali grammar,
> by Kaccayana.Burmese and Pali (Pali in Burmese script) Cover title:
> 'Angapu na` Kaccayanasara vallarI kyam`. Master microform held by:
> DLC. Microfiche. Washington, D.
> Keyword
>
> Publisher Year of Publish
> - 1960
> ----------------------------
>
> E.M.

1252 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Aug 28, 2005 4:53am 
Subject: SV: napumsaka

Dear Nina,

In the present case napu.msaka denotes to the neuter gender of ki.mca that
designates everything, including items that are either masculine and
feminine.

Best,
Ole

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af ashinpan@gmail.com
Sendt: 24. august 2005 22:31
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] napumsaka

On 8/25/05, nina <vangorko@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> Dear Ole and Jim,
> Ole, you explained some time ago about the napumsaka use of kama.m,
> adverbial use.
> In the Visuddhimagga Tiika (Ch XIV, 186) this case came up, and here it
> seems to refer to all inclusive, it pervades all, sabba.m. Is there a rule
> in the Kaccayaana?
> To give the context, just a few texts:
> Text Vis.:186. Herein, the word 'whatever' includes without exception.
> 'Materiality' prevents over-generalization. Thus materiality is
> comprised without exception by the two expressions.
> 186. tattha ya.mki~nciiti anavasesapariyaadaana.m. ruupanti
> atippasa"nganiyamana.m. eva.m padadvayenaapi ruupassa anavasesapariggaho
> kato hoti. athassa atiitaadinaa vibhaaga.m aarabhati. ta~nhi ki~nci
> atiita.m, ki~nci anaagataadibhedanti. esa nayo vedanaadiisu.
> 
> Tiika: Ya.m ki~nciiti ettha yanti saama~n~nena aniyamadassana.m. Ki~nciiti
> pakaarabheda.m aamasitvaa aniyamadassana.m. Ubhayenaapi atiita.m vaa pe pe
> santike vaa appa.m vaa bahu.m vaa yaadisa.m vaa taadisa.m vaa
> napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m byaapetvaa ga.nhaatiiti aaha
> anavasesapariyaadaananti. Eva.m pana a~n~nesupi apu.msakaniddesaarahesu
> pasa"nga.m disvaa tattha adhippetattha.m aticca pavattanato 
> atippasa"ngassa
> niyamanattha.m ruupanti vuttanti dassento ruupanti 
> atippasa"nganiyamananti
> aaha.
> ----
> I am especially interested at the napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m
> byaapetvaa...
> It seems it has to do with sabba.m.
> Thank you, Nina.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1253 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:33pm 
Subject: Re: SV: napumsaka

Dear Ole,
thanks very much, that solves the puzzle. This explanation fits very well
with the whole context.
Nina. 
op 28-08-2005 10:53 schreef Ole Holten Pind op oleholtenpind@mail.dk:
> In the present case napu.msaka denotes to the neuter gender of ki.mca that
> designates everything, including items that are either masculine and
> feminine.

>> Text Vis.:186...
>> Tiika: Ya.m ki~nciiti ettha yanti saama~n~nena aniyamadassana.m. Ki~nciiti
>> pakaarabheda.m aamasitvaa aniyamadassana.m. Ubhayenaapi atiita.m vaa pe pe
>> santike vaa appa.m vaa bahu.m vaa yaadisa.m vaa taadisa.m vaa
>> napu.msakaniddesaaraha.m sabba.m byaapetvaa ga.nhaatiiti aaha
>> anavasesapariyaadaananti.

1254 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Aug 28, 2005 4:50pm 
Subject: the archiving of group messages

Dear members,

The first 1200 palistudy messages covering the period Feb. 2, 2001 to
Aug. 6, 2005 have just been uploaded to the following web address:

http://www.bconnex.net/~jima/index.htm

They are in 5 plain text files, one for each year, which are
compressed into 2 files (*.zip) and anyone (including non-members) is
free to download them for study purposes.

Best wishes,
Jim

1255 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Sep 4, 2005 4:38am 
Subject: H.L. Shorto; Burmese MS; Mon resources

I've come upon the name H.L. Shorto a few times recently, and this will be 
of interest to list members: 

(1) H.L. Shorto has composed a catalogue of Burmese MS in the Chester Beatty 
Library's S.E.A. MS Holdings --this list is unpublished, and I have written 
to the library requesting it (or information as to how to get it). This 
library is supposed to have major holdings of S.E.A. Pali resources --but 
they have no staff specialized in the region. I note that the editors of an 
article at S.O.A.S. were themselves unable to get Shorto's list from the 
Chester Beatty Library --so I may not be able to get a reply either. 

(2) His name appears twice in this list of Mon resources --and, of course, 
the book on Mon epigraphy will have a great deal of overlap with Pali:
* Halliday, Robert. 1922. A Mon-English dictionary. Bangkok: Siam 
society.
* Pan Hla, Nai. 1989. An introduction to Mon language Center for 
Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.
* Shorto, H.L. 1962. A dictionary of modern spoken Mon. Oxford University 
Press.
* Shorto, H.L. 1971. A dictionary of the Mon inscriptions from the sixth 
to the sixteenth centuries. Oxford University Press. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
They for whom there is no accumulation, (of kammic activities or the four 
necessities of life) who reflect well over their food, who has Deliverance, 
which is Void and Signless, as their object - their course like that of 
birds in the air cannot be traced.
Random Dhammapada Verse 92

1256 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Sep 4, 2005 7:17am 
Subject: SV: H.L. Shorto; Burmese MS; Mon resources

Dear E.M.,

Thank you very much for this valuable information.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 4. september 2005 10:38
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] H.L. Shorto; Burmese MS; Mon resources


I've come upon the name H.L. Shorto a few times recently, and this will be 
of interest to list members: 

(1) H.L. Shorto has composed a catalogue of Burmese MS in the Chester Beatty

Library's S.E.A. MS Holdings --this list is unpublished, and I have written 
to the library requesting it (or information as to how to get it). This 
library is supposed to have major holdings of S.E.A. Pali resources --but 
they have no staff specialized in the region. I note that the editors of an

article at S.O.A.S. were themselves unable to get Shorto's list from the 
Chester Beatty Library --so I may not be able to get a reply either. 

(2) His name appears twice in this list of Mon resources --and, of course, 
the book on Mon epigraphy will have a great deal of overlap with Pali:
* Halliday, Robert. 1922. A Mon-English dictionary. Bangkok: Siam 
society.
* Pan Hla, Nai. 1989. An introduction to Mon language Center for 
Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.
* Shorto, H.L. 1962. A dictionary of modern spoken Mon. Oxford University

Press.
* Shorto, H.L. 1971. A dictionary of the Mon inscriptions from the sixth 
to the sixteenth centuries. Oxford University Press. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
They for whom there is no accumulation, (of kammic activities or the four 
necessities of life) who reflect well over their food, who has Deliverance, 
which is Void and Signless, as their object - their course like that of 
birds in the air cannot be traced.
Random Dhammapada Verse 92 

1257 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 5, 2005 1:45am 
Subject: Kacc.: Date & Origin

Just thought I'd write a brief note on Kacc., as I've only recently read 
L.C.'s comments on Kacc. (posted to the list before I'd joined it) --as a 
result of Jim's recent posting of the accumulated past messages concatenated 
into a text file. 

In the past, I've posted my own "working hypothesis" on Kacc. to this list 
--and I am slightly more prolix in the introduction to my own book. 

Very briefly: 

(1) There remains fundamental and widespread confusion as to what a 
Prakritic language is, and what the relationship between "Pali", "Prakrit", 
and "Magadhi" could have been --or could not have been. On this subject, I 
will simply point my finger at M. Deshpande's opus, and lament that Pali 
studies remains haunted by (very Anglo-Saxon) preconceptions that 
philosophers of classical India (like the modern English equivalent) would 
(or: could) only write poetry in their mother tongue. Pali was not (and 
never has been) a spoken/mother tongue in Magadha --nor anywhere in India.
Nor did King Henry the fifth really speak in Iambic pentameter as 
Shakespear's history might suggest.
Many of the inferences that modern scholars have drawn about Pali's 
origins rest on socio-linguistic preconceptions that are quite alien to 
ancient India. 

(2) Assigning a date based on examples in the "payoga" tends to ignore the 
(very obvious) layering of the text --and I do not see how the date of 
subsequent layers serves to identify the timeline of the earlier ones. I 
will say further that it is surprising that this is such a knotted issue in 
scholarship on Kacc., where the layers are very obvious (sutta vs. vivarana 
vs. payoga) --whereas the very complex and difficult "layers" that are 
suggested by the "borrowed texts" of (e.g.) A.N. showing up in the Vinaya is 
a much more difficult issue (and one that seems to have received more 
careful and considered attention, re: fixing a hypothetical date). 

(3) All of the "regional" inferences drawn from the study of the Ashokan 
inscriptions need to be re-examined, or dispensed with. Almost every 
academic invocation of the inscriptions as a proof of "Eastern" or "Western" 
elements of Pali (and other Prakrits) that I've seen is seriously flawed 
--and I recall V. Bubenik remarking to the same effect (the latter is quoted 
in my appendix, I believe).
In as much as the assigned dates of Kacc. have relied on drawing up a 
timeline from supposed "regional" influences in the development of Pali we 
must recognise that we really know nothing at all --except that some 
scholars have made something out of nothing in this respect. 

(4) The fact that Buddhaghosa does not quote/name Kacc. is *not* evidence 
that Kacc. post-dates B.G. --that is an _argumentum ex silentio_ at best.
Although I remain "open minded" as to a late origin, there seems to be 
an inexplicable consensus that Kacc. can be assigned to the 7th century "in 
the absence of any evidence to the contrary" --but it would indeed seem to 
me an extraordinary leap to assign Kacc. to the 7th century (or any other 
century A.D.), given what (little) we know about Pali compositions at that 
time.
If we were to genuinely follow the hypothesis that everything B.G. 
doesn't mention post-dates him, we would have to carve a huge hole out of 
the canon --besides which, this type of thinking ignores the *positive* 
evidence that B.G. had his own strong views on grammar.
Given the B.G. has (to a large extent) "his own" set of grammatical 
terminology (i.e., not seen/extant before him) and his own sort of verve in 
treating grammatical issues (a point duly emphasised by Malalasekera) it 
would be unreasonable to expect him to slavishly follow any prior 
grammatical authority. He was either an innovator in grammatics, or drew 
from a tradition that is no longer extant (likely: both).
It also seems to be the case that the Sinhalese had no particular 
esteem for Kacc. until after the Burmese became so enthusiastic about it 
--the Burmese "revival" of grammar, and the sudden push for vernacular 
glosses (etc.) on sources incl. Kacc is a contrast to the earlier evolution 
in Sri Lanka, where various grammarians seem to have been quite unimpressed 
by Kacc., and were content to develop grammatical science each in their own 
direction, and to dissent from Kacc. and improve on his methods (again, the 
aspect of "dissent" is emphasised by Malalasekera in comparing Sinhalese 
grammarians).
Thus, it seems to me that Kacc. becomes an olympian figure quite late 
--probably with the rise of Burmese commentaries on his text. Thus, I don't 
see why the silence of B.G. should imply the non-existence of Kacc. any more 
than it should imply the non-existence of the texts that awaited 
Dhammapaala's commentaries. 

I would be very interested to read Dr. Pind's comments on these matters --I 
have not been able to (yet) read his published opinions on the subject 
--although I think I may soon receive a package thereof in the mail, 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those who feel shame when they ought not to, and do not feel shame when they 
ought to, such men due to their wrong views go to woeful states.
Random Dhammapada Verse 316

1258 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 5, 2005 2:11am 
Subject: A Thai Pali grammar (incl. Kacc.?)

I note the following comment from P. Skilling. It is not quite clear to me 
(from the phrasing/context) whether or not this grammar includes the text of 
Kacc. (if anyone on the list knows, please send me a note). 

" ... There is a good summary in Thai by
Dr. Supaphan Na Bang Chang in the introduction to her massive Pali grammar.
There is a much earlier edition (?) of Kaccayana by a great Pali scholar
which I have not been able to find anywhere. ..." 

Apparently this grammar (by Supaphan Na Bang Chang) is a readily available 
resource in Thailand; but I do not think I've ever seen it. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Ah, happily do we live without hate amongst the hateful; amidst hateful men 
we dwell unhating.
Random Dhammapada Verse 197

1259 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Sep 5, 2005 2:26am 
Subject: SV: A Thai Pali grammar (incl. Kacc.?)

Dear E.M.,

I have an excellent Thai edition of Kaccayana. The title page reads
Kaccaayatherena viracitam Kaccaayamabyaakara.nam, Thai ra.t.the
Mahaaculaala.nkara.naraajavidyaalayena muddaapita.m. Buddhavasse 2540 i.e.
A.D. 1997.

I have found someone in Copenhagen who can help me with the title pages of
my Burmese Kacc editions. I shall send you information when I am back in
Copenhagen in about three weeks.

Best,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 5. september 2005 08:11
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] A Thai Pali grammar (incl. Kacc.?)


I note the following comment from P. Skilling. It is not quite clear to me 
(from the phrasing/context) whether or not this grammar includes the text of

Kacc. (if anyone on the list knows, please send me a note). 

" ... There is a good summary in Thai by
Dr. Supaphan Na Bang Chang in the introduction to her massive Pali grammar.
There is a much earlier edition (?) of Kaccayana by a great Pali scholar
which I have not been able to find anywhere. ..." 

Apparently this grammar (by Supaphan Na Bang Chang) is a readily available 
resource in Thailand; but I do not think I've ever seen it. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Ah, happily do we live without hate amongst the hateful; amidst hateful men 
we dwell unhating.
Random Dhammapada Verse 197 

1260 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Sep 5, 2005 2:39am 
Subject: SV: Kacc.: Date & Origin

Dear E.M.

I am on my way to Vienna. When I return to Copenhagen I take a holiday with
my family on a distant island in the Mediteranian. When I am back, I shall
answer your post as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I have been sick for a
while so I have not yet managed to send you the promised articles.
Hopefully, I shall soon receive off-prints of my latest article, which,
incidentally, is the first in a series devoted to the linguistic analysis of
alleged maagadhisms in the pali canon. In my opinion the assumption that
there are maagadhisms in the canon is based upon a flawed linguistic
analysis and flawed analyses entails flawed inferences.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 5. september 2005 07:46
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Kacc.: Date & Origin


Just thought I'd write a brief note on Kacc., as I've only recently read 
L.C.'s comments on Kacc. (posted to the list before I'd joined it) --as a 
result of Jim's recent posting of the accumulated past messages concatenated

into a text file. 

In the past, I've posted my own "working hypothesis" on Kacc. to this list 
--and I am slightly more prolix in the introduction to my own book. 

Very briefly: 

(1) There remains fundamental and widespread confusion as to what a 
Prakritic language is, and what the relationship between "Pali", "Prakrit", 
and "Magadhi" could have been --or could not have been. On this subject, I 
will simply point my finger at M. Deshpande's opus, and lament that Pali 
studies remains haunted by (very Anglo-Saxon) preconceptions that 
philosophers of classical India (like the modern English equivalent) would 
(or: could) only write poetry in their mother tongue. Pali was not (and 
never has been) a spoken/mother tongue in Magadha --nor anywhere in India.
Nor did King Henry the fifth really speak in Iambic pentameter as 
Shakespear's history might suggest.
Many of the inferences that modern scholars have drawn about Pali's 
origins rest on socio-linguistic preconceptions that are quite alien to 
ancient India. 

(2) Assigning a date based on examples in the "payoga" tends to ignore the 
(very obvious) layering of the text --and I do not see how the date of 
subsequent layers serves to identify the timeline of the earlier ones. I 
will say further that it is surprising that this is such a knotted issue in 
scholarship on Kacc., where the layers are very obvious (sutta vs. vivarana 
vs. payoga) --whereas the very complex and difficult "layers" that are 
suggested by the "borrowed texts" of (e.g.) A.N. showing up in the Vinaya is

a much more difficult issue (and one that seems to have received more 
careful and considered attention, re: fixing a hypothetical date). 

(3) All of the "regional" inferences drawn from the study of the Ashokan 
inscriptions need to be re-examined, or dispensed with. Almost every 
academic invocation of the inscriptions as a proof of "Eastern" or "Western"

elements of Pali (and other Prakrits) that I've seen is seriously flawed 
--and I recall V. Bubenik remarking to the same effect (the latter is
quoted 
in my appendix, I believe).
In as much as the assigned dates of Kacc. have relied on drawing up a 
timeline from supposed "regional" influences in the development of Pali we 
must recognise that we really know nothing at all --except that some 
scholars have made something out of nothing in this respect. 

(4) The fact that Buddhaghosa does not quote/name Kacc. is *not* evidence 
that Kacc. post-dates B.G. --that is an _argumentum ex silentio_ at best.
Although I remain "open minded" as to a late origin, there seems to be 
an inexplicable consensus that Kacc. can be assigned to the 7th century "in 
the absence of any evidence to the contrary" --but it would indeed seem to 
me an extraordinary leap to assign Kacc. to the 7th century (or any other 
century A.D.), given what (little) we know about Pali compositions at that 
time.
If we were to genuinely follow the hypothesis that everything B.G. 
doesn't mention post-dates him, we would have to carve a huge hole out of 
the canon --besides which, this type of thinking ignores the *positive* 
evidence that B.G. had his own strong views on grammar.
Given the B.G. has (to a large extent) "his own" set of grammatical 
terminology (i.e., not seen/extant before him) and his own sort of verve in 
treating grammatical issues (a point duly emphasised by Malalasekera) it 
would be unreasonable to expect him to slavishly follow any prior 
grammatical authority. He was either an innovator in grammatics, or drew 
from a tradition that is no longer extant (likely: both).
It also seems to be the case that the Sinhalese had no particular 
esteem for Kacc. until after the Burmese became so enthusiastic about it 
--the Burmese "revival" of grammar, and the sudden push for vernacular 
glosses (etc.) on sources incl. Kacc is a contrast to the earlier evolution 
in Sri Lanka, where various grammarians seem to have been quite unimpressed 
by Kacc., and were content to develop grammatical science each in their own 
direction, and to dissent from Kacc. and improve on his methods (again, the 
aspect of "dissent" is emphasised by Malalasekera in comparing Sinhalese 
grammarians).
Thus, it seems to me that Kacc. becomes an olympian figure quite late 
--probably with the rise of Burmese commentaries on his text. Thus, I
don't 
see why the silence of B.G. should imply the non-existence of Kacc. any more

than it should imply the non-existence of the texts that awaited 
Dhammapaala's commentaries. 

I would be very interested to read Dr. Pind's comments on these matters --I 
have not been able to (yet) read his published opinions on the subject 
--although I think I may soon receive a package thereof in the mail, 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those who feel shame when they ought not to, and do not feel shame when they

ought to, such men due to their wrong views go to woeful states.
Random Dhammapada Verse 316 

1261 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Sep 5, 2005 7:54am 
Subject: Re: A Thai Pali grammar (incl. Kacc.?)

Dear Eisel,

I think the book is just a summary of Kaccaayana, Moggallaana, and the
Saddniiti. This book came up in our discussions early last year. (See
messages 794 and forward). At least one of our members has a copy and
another has seen it. I reproduce the Library of Congress data on it
from message 797 as follows:

LC Control Number: 96947248
Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Brief Description: Suphaphan Na Bang Chang.
Waiyakon Bali tamno Katchayanawayakon, Mokkhanlanawayakon
Satthanitipakon / Suphaphan Na Bang Chang.
Phim khrang rk.
Krung Thep Maha Nakhon : Munnithi Mahamakutratchawitthayalai,
2534 [1991]
10, 869 p. ; 28 cm.
CALL NUMBER: PK1017 .S87 1991 Thai

Jim

> I note the following comment from P. Skilling. It is not quiteclear to me
> (from the phrasing/context) whether or not this grammar includes the text of
> Kacc. (if anyone on the list knows, please send me a note).
>
> " ... There is a good summary in Thai by
> Dr. Supaphan Na Bang Chang in the introduction to her massive Pali grammar.
> There is a much earlier edition (?) of Kaccayana by a great Pali scholar
> which I have not been able to find anywhere. ..."

1262 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Mon Sep 5, 2005 2:56pm 
Subject: Re: A Thai Pali grammar (incl. Kacc.?)

i have most of these books (suphapan and others) and most 
h.l. shorto stuff i can check specific things when i return 
to my office if anyone is interested.
in a rush,
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 07:54:55 -0400
>From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] A Thai Pali grammar (incl. 
Kacc.?) 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>
>Dear Eisel,
>
>I think the book is just a summary of Kaccaayana,  Moggallaana, and the
>Saddniiti. This book came up in our discussions early last year. (See
>messages 794 and forward). At least one of our members has a copy and
>another has seen it. I reproduce the Library of Congress data on it
>from message 797 as follows:
>
>LC Control Number: 96947248
>Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
>Brief Description: Suphaphan Na Bang Chang.
>Waiyakon Bali tamno Katchayanawayakon,  Mokkhanlanawayakon
>Satthanitipakon / Suphaphan Na Bang Chang.
>Phim khrang rk.
>Krung Thep Maha Nakhon : Munnithi Mahamakutratchawitthayalai,
>2534 [1991]
>10, 869 p. ; 28 cm.
>CALL NUMBER: PK1017 .S87 1991 Thai
>
>Jim
>
>> I note the following comment from P. Skilling. It is not quite>clear to me
>> (from the phrasing/context) whether or not this grammar includes the >text of
>> Kacc. (if anyone on the list knows, please send me a note).
>>
>> " ... There is a good summary in Thai by
>> Dr. Supaphan Na Bang Chang in the introduction to her massive Pali>grammar.
>> There is a much earlier edition (?) of Kaccayana by a great Pali>scholar
>> which I have not been able to find anywhere. ..."
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1263 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Sep 6, 2005 3:18am 
Subject: Re: SV: Kacc.: Date & Origin

Dr. Pind, 

> In my opinion the assumption that
> there are maagadhisms in the canon is based upon a flawed linguistic
> analysis and flawed analyses entails flawed inferences.

I agree profoundly. Two thoughts: (1) I managed to find one of the standard 
articles on "Magadhisms in the AP's KV" (in Bangkok) recently, and I found 
it very flawed and unconvincing (as you say), (2) I recently read an article 
about heretofore ignored "Sinhalo-Prakritisms" in the suttapitaka 
--apparently just two passages have been positively identified as having 
phrases in Sinhalese Prakrit, but this may entail that many "exotic" 
theories about Magadha could be more directly explained by Sinhalese Prakrit 
creeping into the text (KV would be a pretty obvious text for this to be 
true of...). 

Quote:
"These four stanzas seem to be ambiguous and meaningless only if they are 
considered as Pali compositions. As pointed out by the Venerable Pragnarama, 
they are composed in Sinhala Prakrit. He was led to this remarkable 
discovery by the word "vadanake" found in each of the four stanzas"
Source: http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/ebdha308.htm 

For all I know, this theory may also be flawed: I have not evaluated the 
strength of the Sinhalese Prakrit argument --but I have evaluated the 
weakness of the Maghada Prakrit argument, and I am very open to new 
explanations of this kind. 

Best wishes for a full recovery, 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
A man will never be accomplished, even if he is fair in complexion or good 
in speech, if he is greedy, envious and deceitful.
Random Dhammapada Verse 262

1264 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Sep 8, 2005 2:19am 
Subject: Wat That Phanom / Bombs

Although it is "off topic", this subject has come up on the list on two 
separate occasions, so I note the following both "out of human interest" and 
to close the subject: 

I went to the Australian Embassy today to collect the new map* of aerial 
bombardment, and it affirms (with scientific accuracy) that the myth that 
the U.S. only bombed "remote mountain/jungle areas" is just that: a myth. 

On the contrary the map shows that the only areas that the U.S. _didn't_ 
bomb were a few "remote mountain/jungle areas" (specifically: western Bokeo 
province, extreme north of Phongsali province, & west Sayabouri) --and 
Vientiane Prefecture itself within the Royalist line of control. 

Thus, emprically, it is quite possible that Wat That Phanom was destoyed by 
bombing (or reverberations from bombing) as this map shows aerial 
bombardment in the Mekong Valley from Bolikhamsai down to Champasak (and 
beyond to Cambodia, of course). The bombing along the 17th parallel was 
quite intense all the way over to (and including) the banks of the Mekong. 
There is another dense concentration of aerial bombardment on the banks of 
the Mekong by the Khammouan-Bolikhamxai border area. 

I hope this will put the myth to rest --at least for the members of this 
list. 

One further note of clarification: maps of "UXO distribution" are not the 
same as maps of "Aerial bombardment" --some areas that were intensely 
bombarded had relatively low concentrations of UXO because the U.S. was 
using larger-payload explosives (rather than small, anti-personnel 
explosives). Thus, one needs to examine two separate maps to get a real 
sense of what areas were destroyed. 

*This is a "new" map, as it incorporates the information recently provided 
by the U.S. under Bush's co-operation policy. Previous maps were only based 
on ground-level observations, whereas this one incorporates precise data 
about aerial bombardment. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
That which is made of iron, wood or hemp, is not a strong bond, say the 
wise; the longing for jewels, ornaments, children, and wives is a far 
greater attachment.
Random Dhammapada Verse 345

1265 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Sep 8, 2005 2:30am 
Subject: Pali MS in Ireland (Chester Beatty Library)

I reproduce the following reply (re: Pali MS) from "the CBL" --including 
their error as to my gender in the first line.
----------- 

Dear Ms. Mazard, 


Thank you for your query regarding Pali material in our collection. 


We have approximately 50 Pali/bilingual manuscripts in our Burmese 
collection including quite a number of kammavaca and several grammars. There 
are also approximately 10 Thai works in Pali and several other miscellaneous 
works form Ceylon and the Indian subcontinent. Several of the Burmese 
kammavaca have been photographed as well one of the Thai manuscripts. 


Professor Shorto did in fact complete a draft catalogue of the Burmese 
collection in 1955 but it was never published. Several years ago, Patricia 
Herbert (from the British Library) assessed Shortos draft to determine what 
additional work needed to be carried out before its publication. Henry 
Ginsburg (from the British Library) has also made a brief hand list of the 
Thai collection which we hope to publish at a later date. If you would like 
to see copies of these lists, could you please make a formal application to 
the director of the library, Dr. Michael Ryan (mryan@cbl.ie.) 


I hope I have answered at least some of your questions, but if I can be of 
further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. 


Sincerely yours, 

Laura Muldowney 

East Asian collections 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those who know wrong as wrong and right as right, such men, due to their 
right views go to a blissful state.
Random Dhammapada Verse 319

1266 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Thu Sep 8, 2005 2:52am 
Subject: Re: Wat That Phanom / Bombs

good stuff. thanks.
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 12:19:00 +0600
>From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Wat That Phanom / Bombs 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>Although it is "off topic", this subject has come up on the list on two 
>separate occasions, so I note the following both "out of human interest" and 
>to close the subject: 
>
>I went to the Australian Embassy today to collect the new map* of aerial 
>bombardment, and it affirms (with scientific accuracy) that the myth that 
>the U.S. only bombed "remote mountain/jungle areas" is just that: a myth. 
>
>On the contrary the map shows that the only areas that the U.S. _didn't_ 
>bomb were a few "remote mountain/jungle areas" (specifically: western Bokeo 
>province, extreme north of Phongsali province, & west Sayabouri) --and 
>Vientiane Prefecture itself within the Royalist line of control. 
>
>Thus, emprically, it is quite possible that Wat That Phanom was destoyed by 
>bombing (or reverberations from bombing) as this map shows aerial 
>bombardment in the Mekong Valley from Bolikhamsai down to Champasak (and 
>beyond to Cambodia, of course). The bombing along the 17th parallel was 
>quite intense all the way over to (and including) the banks of the Mekong. 
>There is another dense concentration of aerial bombardment on the banks of 
>the Mekong by the Khammouan-Bolikhamxai border area. 
>
>I hope this will put the myth to rest --at least for the members of this 
>list. 
>
>One further note of clarification: maps of "UXO distribution" are not the 
>same as maps of "Aerial bombardment" --some areas that were intensely 
>bombarded had relatively low concentrations of UXO because the U.S. was 
>using larger-payload explosives (rather than small, anti-personnel 
>explosives). Thus, one needs to examine two separate maps to get a real 
>sense of what areas were destroyed. 
>
>*This is a "new" map, as it incorporates the information recently provided 
>by the U.S. under Bush's co-operation policy. Previous maps were only based 
>on ground-level observations, whereas this one incorporates precise data 
>about aerial bombardment. 
>
>E.M. 
>
>-- 
>A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
>View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
>That which is made of iron, wood or hemp, is not a strong bond, say the 
>wise; the longing for jewels, ornaments, children, and wives is a far 
>greater attachment.
>Random Dhammapada Verse 345 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1267 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Sep 9, 2005 3:57am 
Subject: SV: Kacc.: Date & Origin

Dear E.M.

I have added brief comments to your note below each paragraph. 

Best wishes,

Ole Pind 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 5. september 2005 07:46
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Kacc.: Date & Origin


Just thought I'd write a brief note on Kacc., as I've only recently read 
L.C.'s comments on Kacc. (posted to the list before I'd joined it) --as a 
result of Jim's recent posting of the accumulated past messages concatenated

into a text file. 

In the past, I've posted my own "working hypothesis" on Kacc. to this list 
--and I am slightly more prolix in the introduction to my own book. 

Very briefly: 

(1) There remains fundamental and widespread confusion as to what a 
Prakritic language is, and what the relationship between "Pali", "Prakrit", 
and "Magadhi" could have been --or could not have been. On this subject, I 
will simply point my finger at M. Deshpande's opus, and lament that Pali 
studies remains haunted by (very Anglo-Saxon) preconceptions that 
philosophers of classical India (like the modern English equivalent) would 
(or: could) only write poetry in their mother tongue. Pali was not (and 
never has been) a spoken/mother tongue in Magadha --nor anywhere in India.

The language of the canon is evidently not related to any eastern dialect,
and the widespread assumption (German and Anglo-Saxon) that the canon
contains maagadhisms reflecting an eastern linguistic context and therefore
an eastern background is in my view based upon misguided analyses of the
language of the canon. I do believe, however, that the language of the canon
reflects a spoken MI language, possibly a central dialect, otherwise one
cannot explain the phonetics of it, especially the widespread use of glides.
In addition, the syntactical properties of the language exhibit - and this
may come as a surprise to MI scholars, it certainly came as a surprise to me
when I noticed - many syntactical features that are addressed in Panini's
well-known Sanskrit grammar. This remarkable syncretism forces us, I
believe, to reconsider the possible linguistic background of the canonical
language. Take, for instance, the use in the canon of the perifrastic future
in construction with abhijaanaami when this verb means to recall, remember.
Paanini addresses this construction in his grammar, but prescribes the use
of the sigmatic future, whereas the compilors of the canon preferred to use
the perifrastic future. This slight canonical deviation from the Paninian
standard must, I believe, be a feature of a spoken language. This syncretism
has evidently implications for our understanding of the lingustic standard
laid down by the compilers of the canon. Needless to say, it has also
implications for the date of Panini.

Nor did King Henry the fifth really speak in Iambic pentameter as 
Shakespear's history might suggest.
Many of the inferences that modern scholars have drawn about Pali's 
origins rest on socio-linguistic preconceptions that are quite alien to 
ancient India. 

Yes, undoubtedly.


(2) Assigning a date based on examples in the "payoga" tends to ignore the 
(very obvious) layering of the text --and I do not see how the date of 
subsequent layers serves to identify the timeline of the earlier ones. I 
will say further that it is surprising that this is such a knotted issue in 
scholarship on Kacc., where the layers are very obvious (sutta vs. vivarana 
vs. payoga) --whereas the very complex and difficult "layers" that are 
suggested by the "borrowed texts" of (e.g.) A.N. showing up in the Vinaya is

a much more difficult issue (and one that seems to have received more 
careful and considered attention, re: fixing a hypothetical date). 

The Kaccayanavutti seems to presuppose the A.t.thakathas, and appears to be
a compilation by different hands. It is almost impossible to assign a date
to Kacc which often reads like a compilation of grammatical notes strung
together with no obvious logical pattern to it. Apart from the Katantra the
compilors used Panini's grammar. The suttas contain errors due to scribal
errors. Some of the rules are very strange and virtually inexplicable. I
have a feeling that some of them may actually reflect that part of the lost
Kaumaralata that is supposed to deal with Buddhist Sanskrit. This is just a
guess. To Buddhaghosa and post-Buddhaghosa scholars grammar is Paninian
grammar, and Kacc that does not address many of the features of the
canonical language that the early commentators wanted to explain was not
even considered as worthy of interest. Kacc is, for instance, only mentioned
a few times in commentarial lit., in which all references to grammar is
invariably Paninian grammar. 

(3) All of the "regional" inferences drawn from the study of the Ashokan 
inscriptions need to be re-examined, or dispensed with. 

Yes. I fully agree.

Almost every 
academic invocation of the inscriptions as a proof of "Eastern" or "Western"

elements of Pali (and other Prakrits) that I've seen is seriously flawed 
--and I recall V. Bubenik remarking to the same effect (the latter is
quoted in my appendix, I believe).


In as much as the assigned dates of Kacc. have relied on drawing up a 
timeline from supposed "regional" influences in the development of Pali we 
must recognise that we really know nothing at all --except that some 
scholars have made something out of nothing in this respect. 

I basically agree with your remarks. For well over a century Scholars have
made dubious inferences about the language of the canon based upon
extrapolations from the Ashokan inscriptions. One should give that up
completely.

(4) The fact that Buddhaghosa does not quote/name Kacc. is *not* evidence 
that Kacc. post-dates B.G. --that is an _argumentum ex silentio_ at best.
Although I remain "open minded" as to a late origin, there seems to be 
an inexplicable consensus that Kacc. can be assigned to the 7th century "in 
the absence of any evidence to the contrary" --but it would indeed seem to 
me an extraordinary leap to assign Kacc. to the 7th century (or any other 
century A.D.), given what (little) we know about Pali compositions at that 
time.
If we were to genuinely follow the hypothesis that everything B.G. 
doesn't mention post-dates him, we would have to carve a huge hole out of 
the canon --besides which, this type of thinking ignores the *positive* 
evidence that B.G. had his own strong views on grammar.
Given the B.G. has (to a large extent) "his own" set of grammatical 
terminology (i.e., not seen/extant before him) and his own sort of verve in 
treating grammatical issues (a point duly emphasised by Malalasekera) it 
would be unreasonable to expect him to slavishly follow any prior 
grammatical authority. He was either an innovator in grammatics, or drew 
from a tradition that is no longer extant (likely: both).
It also seems to be the case that the Sinhalese had no particular 
esteem for Kacc. until after the Burmese became so enthusiastic about it 
--the Burmese "revival" of grammar, and the sudden push for vernacular 
glosses (etc.) on sources incl. Kacc is a contrast to the earlier evolution 
in Sri Lanka, where various grammarians seem to have been quite unimpressed 
by Kacc., and were content to develop grammatical science each in their own 
direction, and to dissent from Kacc. and improve on his methods (again, the 
aspect of "dissent" is emphasised by Malalasekera in comparing Sinhalese 
grammarians).
Thus, it seems to me that Kacc. becomes an olympian figure quite late 
--probably with the rise of Burmese commentaries on his text. Thus, I
don't 
see why the silence of B.G. should imply the non-existence of Kacc. any more

than it should imply the non-existence of the texts that awaited 
Dhammapaala's commentaries. 


Indigenous scholars were evidently unimpressed with Kacc, but it was thought
to be the work of Mahaakaccayana and therefore revered. Moggallana who wrote
a far better grammar from a formal point of view incorporated all material
from Kacc and Kacc-v and some from the atthakathas, and left out rules he
with good reason considered misleading or unnessecary.


I would be very interested to read Dr. Pind's comments on these matters --I 
have not been able to (yet) read his published opinions on the subject 
--although I think I may soon receive a package thereof in the mail, 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those who feel shame when they ought not to, and do not feel shame when they

ought to, such men due to their wrong views go to woeful states.
Random Dhammapada Verse 316 

1268 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:01am 
Subject: Re: SV: Kacc.: Date & Origin

In reply to Dr. Pind, 

> the widespread assumption (German and Anglo-Saxon) that the canon
> contains maagadhisms reflecting an eastern linguistic context and therefore
> an eastern background is in my view based upon misguided analyses ...

I agree. 

It is certainly very convenient for the related "Magadhism theses" that 
certain languages that were demonstrably important in the historical 
development of Theravada Buddhism are no longer extant (e.g., Paisaci) to 
further complicate matters. 

> I do believe, however, that the language of the canon
> reflects a spoken MI language, possibly a central dialect, otherwise one
> cannot explain the phonetics of it, especially the widespread use of glides.

From my own perspective, this puts even greater importance on the role of 
orthography in reducing an oral tradition to writing. It may be (e.g.) that 
the "linguistic" differences between segments of the Jain canon are more 
attributable to different "orthographical methodologies" (at some remote 
period of anitquity --not at all evident/reflected in the orthography used 
today) used by the two sects of Jainism, or in different regions & 
traditions. Thus, some comparative linguistic evidence in Jain Prakrit may 
really be "non-linguistic". I have used this as a first example as it is 
inherently less controvertial to Buddhists. More controvertial is to 
consider the palpable evidence we have that differences in orthography have 
played a role in the repeated re-construction of the canon in Burma, 
Thailand, & Sri Lanka --i.e., that texts restored from Burmese sources in 
Sri Lanka exhibit spellings that reflect a Sinhalese scribe's attempts to 
transliterate from the Burmese script. (This example is fresh in my mind 
thanks to a provocative article from Bhante Nyanatusita) 

This is an imperfect example, as it concerns the "transmission" of one 
written text to another written text --the transmission of a spoken 
literature to a written literature (in which many of the participants are 
illiterate, and come from different lingual groups --e.g., the certain 
participation of monks who were "Dravidian as a first language" in the 
council at Matale, etc.) seems to me to create many questions as to what 
extent (possibly unanswerable) questions of orthography may interfere with 
linguistic analysis. 

> It is almost impossible to assign a date
> to Kacc which often reads like a compilation of grammatical notes strung
> together with no obvious logical pattern to it.
> ... Some of the rules are very strange and virtually inexplicable.

I agree --but I think this very "imperfection" (both inherent and measured 
in relation to the language emprically found in the canon) suggests an early 
origin. How could anyone have invented this stuff in the 7th century A.D.? 
The "late origin" hypothesis becomes harder to support than an "early 
origin" assumption --even if it is declared to be nothing but an assumption. 

> Indigenous scholars were evidently unimpressed with Kacc...

I agree --and I don't know why so little of the literature recognises this. 
My basic hypothesis on this point would be: the Kaccayana-Vyakarana was an 
early and imperfect grammar that was of regarded as relatively unhelpful in 
the recorded history of Sri Lanka (i.e., compared to its competitors, Mogg. 
etc.) until several layers of additional interpretation and explication were 
added in the 14th/15th century --primarily by the Burmese. Suddenly, the 
old "Ur-text" became useful again, and infused with new life and 
significance. Obversely, it may be that some earlier version of Kacc. was 
of greater use at a much earlier period of Buddhist history (i.e., basically 
unknown to us) --and before Mogg., etc., existed. In other words: there may 
have been layers of interpretation and explication that made (an earlier 
version of) Kacc. useful and meaningful in the context of peninsular India 
--but of this we know nothing. 

Sadly, grammatical rules were not inscribed in caves to be preserved for 
future generations. The only inscriptions I see around here consist of the 
bragging of conquerors devoting a stone lingam to Shiva, etc. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
A man should not live heedlessly but should exert himself to live 
righteously. Such a man is happy in this world and in the next.
Random Dhammapada Verse 168

1269 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Sat Sep 10, 2005 11:07pm 
Subject: Re: SV: Kacc.: Date & Origin

this is a very informative conversation. it is refreshing to
see some one working with orthographic issues. i have written
about mss. orthography (in Pali, bi-lingual and vernacular
mss) recently. i would like to have any more information on
the statement "More controvertial is to 
>consider the palpable evidence we have that differences in orthography have 
>played a role in the repeated re-construction of the canon in Burma, 
>Thailand, & Sri Lanka." 

can you recommend any source on Thai
"palpable" evidence that I may not know. I am always looking
to learn more about this subject.
justin 

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 12:01:43 +0600
>From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
>Subject: Re: SV: [palistudy] Kacc.: Date & Origin 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>In reply to Dr. Pind, 
>
>> the widespread assumption (German and Anglo-Saxon) that the canon
>> contains maagadhisms reflecting an eastern linguistic context and therefore
>> an eastern background is in my view based upon misguided analyses ...
>
>I agree. 
>
>It is certainly very convenient for the related "Magadhism theses" that 
>certain languages that were demonstrably important in the historical 
>development of Theravada Buddhism are no longer extant (e.g., Paisaci) to 
>further complicate matters. 
>
>> I do believe, however, that the language of the canon
>> reflects a spoken MI language, possibly a central dialect, otherwise one
>> cannot explain the phonetics of it, especially the widespread use of glides.
>
> From my own perspective, this puts even greater importance on the role of 
>orthography in reducing an oral tradition to writing. It may be (e.g.) that 
>the "linguistic" differences between segments of the Jain canon are more 
>attributable to different "orthographical methodologies" (at some remote 
>period of anitquity --not at all evident/reflected in the orthography used 
>today) used by the two sects of Jainism, or in different regions & 
>traditions. Thus, some comparative linguistic evidence in Jain Prakrit may 
>really be "non-linguistic". I have used this as a first example as it is 
>inherently less controvertial to Buddhists. More controvertial is to 
>consider the palpable evidence we have that differences in orthography have 
>played a role in the repeated re-construction of the canon in Burma, 
>Thailand, & Sri Lanka --i.e., that texts restored from Burmese sources in 
>Sri Lanka exhibit spellings that reflect a Sinhalese scribe's attempts to 
>transliterate from the Burmese script. (This example is fresh in my mind 
>thanks to a provocative article from Bhante Nyanatusita) 
>
>This is an imperfect example, as it concerns the "transmission" of one 
>written text to another written text --the transmission of a spoken 
>literature to a written literature (in which many of the participants are 
>illiterate, and come from different lingual groups --e.g., the certain 
>participation of monks who were "Dravidian as a first language" in the 
>council at Matale, etc.) seems to me to create many questions as to what 
>extent (possibly unanswerable) questions of orthography may interfere with 
>linguistic analysis. 
>
>> It is almost impossible to assign a date
>> to Kacc which often reads like a compilation of grammatical notes strung
>> together with no obvious logical pattern to it.
>> ... Some of the rules are very strange and virtually inexplicable.
>
>I agree --but I think this very "imperfection" (both inherent and measured 
>in relation to the language emprically found in the canon) suggests an early 
>origin. How could anyone have invented this stuff in the 7th century A.D.? 
>The "late origin" hypothesis becomes harder to support than an "early 
>origin" assumption --even if it is declared to be nothing but an assumption. 
>
>> Indigenous scholars were evidently unimpressed with Kacc...
>
>I agree --and I don't know why so little of the literature recognises this. 
>My basic hypothesis on this point would be: the Kaccayana-Vyakarana was an 
>early and imperfect grammar that was of regarded as relatively unhelpful in 
>the recorded history of Sri Lanka (i.e., compared to its competitors, Mogg. 
>etc.) until several layers of additional interpretation and explication were 
>added in the 14th/15th century --primarily by the Burmese.  Suddenly, the 
>old "Ur-text" became useful again, and infused with new life and 
>significance. Obversely, it may be that some earlier version of Kacc. was 
>of greater use at a much earlier period of Buddhist history (i.e., basically 
>unknown to us) --and before Mogg., etc., existed. In other words: there may 
>have been layers of interpretation and explication that made (an earlier 
>version of) Kacc. useful and meaningful in the context of peninsular India 
> --but of this we know nothing. 
>
>Sadly, grammatical rules were not inscribed in caves to be preserved for 
>future generations. The only inscriptions I see around here consist of the 
>bragging of conquerors devoting a stone lingam to Shiva, etc. 
>
>E.M. 
>
>
>-- 
>A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
>View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
>A man should not live heedlessly but should exert himself to live 
>righteously. Such a man is happy in this world and in the next.
>Random Dhammapada Verse 168 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1270 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Sep 12, 2005 0:37pm 
Subject: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 

Dear all,
I would appreciate feedback about creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali 
Literature Wikipedia like webspace. The aim would be to finish off 
proofreading the largely unproofread digital Buddhajayanthi (now 
available on the Metta Lanka and Journal of Buddhist Ethics website) and 
creating a new completely free and uninstitutionalised Pali Tipitaka and 
Pali Literature Wiki-space out of it by incorporating all the readings 
from all available editions of Pali works and manuscripts. Other 
digitalised Pali works, translations, etc, could also be incorporated. 
It will need to be a moderated Wikipedia though. Ven. Mettavihari, who 
is the organiser of the Buddhajayanthi digital Tipitaka edition, is 
willing to provide the digital Buddhajayanthi and a separate webspace 
for this purpose on the condition that it will be a moderated Wikepedia. 
Qualified scholars will need to oversee the input of readings and texts 
and see to it that the texts will not be meddled with in the wrong way 
as apparently happens in some Wikipedias.
If you have any ideas or suggestions then please let me know.
Yours,
Bhikkhu Nyanatusita

Kandy
Sri Lanka

1271 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Sep 13, 2005 5:25am 
Subject: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 	

Bhante, 


My experience with the "Wiki" format (for scholarly collaboration) is that 
it is not well suited to any subject requiring a high degree of technical 
accuracy or specialization. 

Even a form such as this one (a "list serv") is superior for ironing out 
the small details of a proof-reading or translation. 

However, I do think that a hyperlinked tipitaka could easily incorporate: 
(1) existing digitized editions, (2) scans of existing MS microfiche & 
images [e.g., "just click here to see the scan of the corresponding page in 
the Cambodian edition..."], and (3) the ability for participants to "mail 
in" their suggestions and corrections. 

An open wiki format is likely to reduplicate labour --and put an undue 
editorial stress on a single "system operator". 

The reason that the Wiki format was invented was to facilitate "democratic 
editing"; however, there are very few scholarly matters that can be resolved 
with a vote. I recently witnessed that the Wikipedia held a vote to 
determine the correct name of Schopenhauer's birthplace; this begs the 
question "why would a matter of fact be determined by 'majority rule'?" 
--and, sadly, the majority do not know enough to make informed decisions 
about scholarly and historical matters. 

However, the expanding scope of (1) available digitized images of Pali MS & 
editions, and (2) the ability to render Pali in indigenous script, will 
favour a cross-hyperlinked "canon" to enable comparative reading across 
editions. By the same token, one could enable comparative reading of 
associated translations (i.e., "linked to" the corresponding page of Pali). 

The Tibetans are far ahead of the Theravadins in this respect; there is 
already a "hyperlinked" Tibetan canon, with "clickable" cross-references for 
almost every word --providing correspondence, definitions, translations, 
variations, etc. 

I think that one big opportunity will be scanning microfiche to provide 
digital images of existing collections on-line. Microfiche is durable, but 
inaccessible; putting it on the internet will be a big help to scholars 
--and monks in poor countries that have neither books nor microfiche viewers 
(e.g., Laos!). 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those who are infatuated with lust fall back into the stream as (does) a 
spider into the web spun by itself. This too the wise cut off and wander, 
with no longing, released from all sorrow.
Random Dhammapada Verse 347

1272 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:40am 
Subject: Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa)

I was going to send this off-list to a few different members, but it stands 
to reason that it will interest more than a few on-list. Note that I sent 
this in "as a set of corrections" and so it serves my purpose to be brief. 
This is hardly an encyclopedic explanation of the misuse of Ashoka's 
edicts-- but it may be amusing to members, and relates to some earlier 
comments along these lines. 

Many of us in asia have to face down the "modern mythology" that has been 
constructed around the origins of Pali literature in S.E.A., and the Ashokan 
edicts play a strange role in these myths.
---------------
Hello ..., 

I composed a short note below on factual errors in one of the articles on 
your website. Sadly, these "errors" are promoted as a kind of propaganda in 
Thai museums, and many people are confused by vague statements about the 
history of the region. 

Perhaps you could post these "corrections" as a hyperlink from the original 
article? Much of the information on the 19th & 20th century in that article 
is correct --but the early history is very much in error. 

... 

Yours, 

Eisel Mazard
------------------------
Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in 
Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa), first published in Vidyodaya, Vol.12, 
Colombo, 1984, pp.418-224. 

1. " at the beginning of the second century B.C. their long migration from 
the valleys between the Huang Ho and Yangtze Kiang in China began in 
earnest."
This is misleading. The Tai-Kadai migrations into what is now Thailand, 
Shan State, etc., "began in earnest" in the 13th cenutry A.D. --and the 
evidence of substantial Tai polities and kingdoms in the region are of an 
even later date. A very small Tai/Thai presence in (what is today) Vietnam, 
Laos and northernmost Lanna, might be supposed as early as the 11th century, 
but even this would be theoretical. We have two important inscriptions from 
as late as 1167 (at Nakon Sawan) and 1183 (at Jaiya) that are in Cambodian 
script, and show no evidence of Thai/Tai presence or participation in the 
local culture whatsoever; rather, these seem to indicate that until (at 
least) the 12th century, most of (modern) Thailand remained either Mon or 
Khmer.
There are conjectures about the movements of proto-Tai peoples within the 
bounds of (what is today) modern China circa the 2nd century B.C., but these 
are speculations concerning the earliest origins of Tai linguistic groups, 
and do not imply that any Thai people were actually in (what later became) 
Thailand for more than a thousand years thereafter. Thus, Saddhatissa's 
mention of such an early date (for the beginning of the southward migration 
into Thailand) seems to be deceptive.
The stone-age sites in (modern) Lao and the Issan country are absolutely 
"pre-Thai", and the people who inhabited those ancient sites were neither 
ethnically nor lingually related to the Thais. The Tai-Kadai migration 
should be clearly understood to be a phenomenon of the 12th century A.D. and 
later. It is not until the fall of Haripunjaya in the 14th century that we 
can speak of Thai predominance in the North. 

2. "Some scholars say that Buddhism was brought to Thailand by missionaries 
of the Emperor Asoka, two of whom were the theras Sona and Uttara who went 
to Suvannabhumi (the Golden Land or Land of Gold). [...] Some identify 
Suvannabhumi with Burma and others with the Hiranyavati district along the 
Sona river. But the many artefacts found in Thailand around Nakon Pathom 
show that it was almost certainly modern-day Thailand."
This is false. There is no respectable scholarship that supports the 
identification of Ashoka's use of the word "Suvannabhumi" with Thailand, nor 
Burma. There are absolutely no artefacts in Nakon Pathom that indicate any 
connection to Ashoka's dynasty; the truth is that the earliest 
archaeological finds (at Nakhon Pathom) are only two fragments of Buddhist 
inscriptions and they date from the 6th century A.D. or later. The article 
tries to confuse the reader by suggesting that these artefacts prove a 
connection between the Dvaravati in Thailand (in the 6th century A.D.) and 
Ashoka in Northern India (in the 3rd century B.C.); anyone who looks at a 
map will realize that these archaeological finds are both too far away, and 
about 900 years too late, to "show that [where Ashoka sent his Buddhist 
missionaries] was almost certainly modern-day Thailand".
We should also be unambiguous about the fact that the inhabitants of Nakhon 
Pathom (circa the sixth century A.D.) were not Thai. The early Dvaravati 
art that is found in Nakon Pathom is important for understanding the spread 
and development of Theravada Buddhism in Thailand, however, it neither 
identifies "Dvaravati" with "Suvannabhumi", nor does it identify any 
connection between pre-Thai civilization and the emperor Ashoka.
Saddhatissa vaguely mentions "many artetacts found  around Nakhon Pathom", 
but
It is significant to note that the mythological traditions that claim that 
Ashoka sent missionaries to this part of Asia are from the 19th century. 
These are modern myths that have developed in response to Western scholars 
translating and publishing the edicts of Ashoka.
It is very obvious from the study of the Ashokan inscriptions that the 
"Suvannabhumi" mentioned there is in peninsular India; the attempts to 
identify this word with any place in South-East Asia (Burma or Thailand) 
tend to rely on confusing Ashoka's use of the word (in the 3rd century B.C.) 
with the much later usage found in the Sinhalese Mahavamsa, or the very 
vague descriptions of the region provided by the records of Chinese pilgrims 
on their way to and from India.
Even if it were (magically) true that Ashoka had sent missionaries to 
Thailand, there would not have been any Thai people there to receive them. 
Ashoka's thrid council was in the third century B.C.; there were absolutely 
no Thai people anywhere near Thailand at that time --even Saddhatissa's own 
absurd (and vague) claim about the 2nd century B.C. would be a hundred years 
too late. The reality is that the Tai-Kadai migration was more than a 
thousand years too late. 

3. "The first form of Buddhism to reach Thailand was that of the Theravada 
and this is borne out by the many historical remains which were found at 
Nakon Pathom."
This is misleading and untrue. As with Indonesia and the Malay peninsula 
to the south, the southern coastal regions of (what became) Thailand were 
certainly Mahayana first, and later converted to Theravada Buddhism. The 
same is even more dramatically true for eastern Thailand, where massive 
stone edifices (such as Prasat Hin Phi-Mai) stand as a constant reminder 
that the practice of a mix of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism prevailed up 
until a fairly late date (as in Cambodia). The transition to Theravada 
Buddhism in Cambodia is dated to the 15th century A.D.; at this time, the 
Cambodians ruled most of what was later to become Thailand.
There is strong evidence that it was not merely the Khmer, but also the 
Thai "immigrants" to their territory, who practiced hybrid Hindu-Mahayanism. 
We have a Thai inscription from as late as 1510 (Kampheng Phet Royal 
inscription, no. 13) on the base of an image of Shiva, asking the latter 
diety for the protection of "Buddhism, Hinduism, and traditional cults" 
[Michael Vickery, Cambodia in the 15th Century]. The worship of Shiva and 
his associated Lingam cults predominated in Khmer (and Khmer-influenced) 
Asia, and all scholarship affirms that the Thais inherited this hybrid 
religion from Cambodia, or that they emulated Cambodian religious forms in 
their earliest period inhabiting the region. Hindu dieties have also been 
found in several important temples throughout the sprawling archaeological 
site of Sukhothai.
Conversely, it is true that the Mon were practicing Theravada Buddhism from 
a very early period (there is debate and uncertainy as to just how early 
Theravada Buddhism arrived among the Mon; their own histories seem to 
indicate that Theravada orthodoxy had trouble expunging earlier, Mahayana 
elements); but the article gives the false impression that the Thais were in 
some sense Theravada from a very early period on account of Mon/Dvaravati 
history.
This kind of appropriation is really very insulting. The Mon are not Thai; 
they inhabited the low country of Burma, and some areas of what is today 
Thailand, long before the Thai or the Burmese peoples migrated into 
South-East Asia. Since about 1750, they have been the victims of an 
intermittent campaign of genocidal persecution, and today are found (in 
miserable conditions) in concentration camps along the Thai border. Given 
this recent (and ongoing) history, a certain degree of cultural sensitivity 
is in order.
The history of the Mon people is indeed important for understanding the 
history of Theravada Buddhism in the region; however, it is simply not part 
of the history of Thais or Thailand. 

4. " it can be assumed that early missionaries went there from Magadha in 
Bihar.  The Great Stupa (Phra Pathom Chedi) can be compared with Sanchi 
Evidently the earliest Buddhist scriptures must have reached Asian kingdoms 
from India in the third century B.C."
This is misleading. Statements of this kind seem to be intentionally vague 
as to the relative dates of the actual archaeological remains in Nakon 
Pathom and India respecitvely. It is simply laughable to "assume" that 
missionaries directly connected these sites to mainland India prior to the 
canonization of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It would be very difficult to 
"assume" that scriptures reached Thailand (directly from India) more than 
two hundred years prior to their being recorded in writing (in Matale, Sri 
Lanka, circa 29 B.C.). There is absolutely no evidence to support such a 
theory, and all responsible scholarship assumes the contrary --i.e., that 
the Thais received the written scriptures of Theravada Buddhism at a much 
later date, and as part of a tradition that was reliant upon Sri Lanka. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
For one who is in the habit of constantly honouring and respecting the 
elders, four blessings increase - age, beauty, bliss, and strength.
Random Dhammapada Verse 109

1273 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Tue Sep 13, 2005 11:24am 
Subject: Re: Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa)

responding to Eisel:

Time doesn't permit to address this in detail, but a few comments 
seem worthwhile:

1. It used to be believed that the ancestors of the Tai peoples went 
through a 'long migration' starting in around the 2nd century B.C. 
and eventually arrived in present-day Laos, Burma and Thailand in the 
first part of the second millennium A.D. There are those now who 
doubt this.

2. There is no mention of Suva.n.nabhuumi in the inscriptions of 
Asoka. The source for this is the Pali Commentaries. Ven. Saddhatissa 
accepted these as an authoritative source for the reign of Asoka and 
hence believed that Asoka sent a mission to Suva.n.nabhuumi. What is 
meant by Suva.n.nabhuumi in this and other first millennium sources 
is, as Dr Saddhaatissa pointed out, much discussed.

3. Thai, Khmer and Mon are languages, not races. We need not doubt 
that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it 
was two thousand years ago. Many, probably most, of the ancestors of 
present-day Thai speakers certainly spoke Mon or Khmer or very 
probably various other extinct languages. Inscriptions of course tend 
to represent the culturally dominant language of a ruling class, 
rather than the languages actually spoken among the population at 
large.

4. There is no doubt that a form of Buddhism using a type of Pali is 
very old among the Pyu speakers in Burma, among the Mon speakers in 
Southern Burma and among Mon speakers in North, Central and even 
Southern Thailand, even among some Khmer users. We do not know 
whether this came from southern India or from Ceylon. It is clear 
that in many of these areas there is some influence of Mahaayaana in 
the second half of the first millennium. Note that the same is also 
true in Ceylon; for all we know the influence came from there as much 
as from India. A kind of Mahaayaana Theravaada seems to have been 
strong in Ceylon during this period, at least among the wealthier 
classes.

5. After the 'reform' of Paraakramabaahu in the twelfth century the 
new Ceylonese orthodoxy was gradually introduced across S.E. Asia. 
This can be viewed as the introduction of Theravada, since those 
involved would certainly have reserved the term Theravaada for their 
own tradition. But it does not alter the fact that something close to 
Theravaada does seem to have been present in most of this area for a 
very long time before this.

Lance Cousins

> ------------------------
>Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in
>Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa), first published in Vidyodaya, Vol.12,
>Colombo, 1984, pp.418-224.
>
>1. " at the beginning of the second century B.C. their long migration from
>the valleys between the Huang Ho and Yangtze Kiang in China began in
>earnest."
> This is misleading. The Tai-Kadai migrations into what is 
>now Thailand,
>Shan State, etc., "began in earnest" in the 13th cenutry A.D. --and the
>evidence of substantial Tai polities and kingdoms in the region are of an
>even later date. A very small Tai/Thai presence in (what is today) Vietnam,
>Laos and northernmost Lanna, might be supposed as early as the 11th century,
>but even this would be theoretical. We have two important inscriptions from
>as late as 1167 (at Nakon Sawan) and 1183 (at Jaiya) that are in Cambodian
>script, and show no evidence of Thai/Tai presence or participation in the
>local culture whatsoever; rather, these seem to indicate that until (at
>least) the 12th century, most of (modern) Thailand remained either Mon or
>Khmer.
> There are conjectures about the movements of proto-Tai 
>peoples within the
>bounds of (what is today) modern China circa the 2nd century B.C., but these
>are speculations concerning the earliest origins of Tai linguistic groups,
>and do not imply that any Thai people were actually in (what later became)
>Thailand for more than a thousand years thereafter. Thus, Saddhatissa's
>mention of such an early date (for the beginning of the southward migration
>into Thailand) seems to be deceptive.
> The stone-age sites in (modern) Lao and the Issan country are 
>absolutely
>"pre-Thai", and the people who inhabited those ancient sites were neither
>ethnically nor lingually related to the Thais. The Tai-Kadai migration
>should be clearly understood to be a phenomenon of the 12th century A.D. and
>later. It is not until the fall of Haripunjaya in the 14th century that we
>can speak of Thai predominance in the North.
>
>2. "Some scholars say that Buddhism was brought to Thailand by missionaries
>of the Emperor Asoka, two of whom were the theras Sona and Uttara who went
>to Suvannabhumi (the Golden Land or Land of Gold). [...] Some identify
>Suvannabhumi with Burma and others with the Hiranyavati district along the
>Sona river. But the many artefacts found in Thailand around Nakon Pathom
>show that it was almost certainly modern-day Thailand."
> This is false. There is no respectable scholarship that supports the
>identification of Ashoka's use of the word "Suvannabhumi" with Thailand, nor
>Burma. There are absolutely no artefacts in Nakon Pathom that indicate any
>connection to Ashoka's dynasty; the truth is that the earliest
>archaeological finds (at Nakhon Pathom) are only two fragments of Buddhist
>inscriptions and they date from the 6th century A.D. or later. The article
>tries to confuse the reader by suggesting that these artefacts prove a
>connection between the Dvaravati in Thailand (in the 6th century A.D.) and
>Ashoka in Northern India (in the 3rd century B.C.); anyone who looks at a
>map will realize that these archaeological finds are both too far away, and
>about 900 years too late, to "show that [where Ashoka sent his Buddhist
>missionaries] was almost certainly modern-day Thailand".
> We should also be unambiguous about the fact that the 
>inhabitants of Nakhon
>Pathom (circa the sixth century A.D.) were not Thai. The early Dvaravati
>art that is found in Nakon Pathom is important for understanding the spread
>and development of Theravada Buddhism in Thailand, however, it neither
>identifies "Dvaravati" with "Suvannabhumi", nor does it identify any
>connection between pre-Thai civilization and the emperor Ashoka.
> Saddhatissa vaguely mentions "many artetacts found  around 
>Nakhon Pathom",
>but
> It is significant to note that the mythological traditions 
>that claim that
>Ashoka sent missionaries to this part of Asia are from the 19th century. 
>These are modern myths that have developed in response to Western scholars
>translating and publishing the edicts of Ashoka.
> It is very obvious from the study of the Ashokan inscriptions that the
>"Suvannabhumi" mentioned there is in peninsular India; the attempts to
>identify this word with any place in South-East Asia (Burma or Thailand)
>tend to rely on confusing Ashoka's use of the word (in the 3rd century B.C.)
>with the much later usage found in the Sinhalese Mahavamsa, or the very
>vague descriptions of the region provided by the records of Chinese pilgrims
>on their way to and from India.
> Even if it were (magically) true that Ashoka had sent missionaries to
>Thailand, there would not have been any Thai people there to receive them. 
>Ashoka's thrid council was in the third century B.C.; there were absolutely
>no Thai people anywhere near Thailand at that time --even Saddhatissa's own
>absurd (and vague) claim about the 2nd century B.C. would be a hundred years
>too late. The reality is that the Tai-Kadai migration was more than a
>thousand years too late.
>
>3. "The first form of Buddhism to reach Thailand was that of the Theravada
>and this is borne out by the many historical remains which were found at
>Nakon Pathom."
> This is misleading and untrue. As with Indonesia and the 
>Malay peninsula
>to the south, the southern coastal regions of (what became) Thailand were
>certainly Mahayana first, and later converted to Theravada Buddhism. The
>same is even more dramatically true for eastern Thailand, where massive
>stone edifices (such as Prasat Hin Phi-Mai) stand as a constant reminder
>that the practice of a mix of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism prevailed up
>until a fairly late date (as in Cambodia). The transition to Theravada
>Buddhism in Cambodia is dated to the 15th century A.D.; at this time, the
>Cambodians ruled most of what was later to become Thailand.
> There is strong evidence that it was not merely the Khmer, but also the
>Thai "immigrants" to their territory, who practiced hybrid Hindu-Mahayanism.
>We have a Thai inscription from as late as 1510 (Kampheng Phet Royal
>inscription, no. 13) on the base of an image of Shiva, asking the latter
>diety for the protection of "Buddhism, Hinduism, and traditional cults"
>[Michael Vickery, Cambodia in the 15th Century]. The worship of Shiva and
>his associated Lingam cults predominated in Khmer (and Khmer-influenced)
>Asia, and all scholarship affirms that the Thais inherited this hybrid
>religion from Cambodia, or that they emulated Cambodian religious forms in
>their earliest period inhabiting the region. Hindu dieties have also been
>found in several important temples throughout the sprawling archaeological
>site of Sukhothai.
> Conversely, it is true that the Mon were practicing Theravada 
>Buddhism from
>a very early period (there is debate and uncertainy as to just how early
>Theravada Buddhism arrived among the Mon; their own histories seem to
>indicate that Theravada orthodoxy had trouble expunging earlier, Mahayana
>elements); but the article gives the false impression that the Thais were in
>some sense Theravada from a very early period on account of Mon/Dvaravati
>history.
> This kind of appropriation is really very insulting. The Mon 
>are not Thai;
>they inhabited the low country of Burma, and some areas of what is today
>Thailand, long before the Thai or the Burmese peoples migrated into
>South-East Asia. Since about 1750, they have been the victims of an
>intermittent campaign of genocidal persecution, and today are found (in
>miserable conditions) in concentration camps along the Thai border. Given
>this recent (and ongoing) history, a certain degree of cultural sensitivity
>is in order.
> The history of the Mon people is indeed important for understanding the
>history of Theravada Buddhism in the region; however, it is simply not part
>of the history of Thais or Thailand.
>
>4. " it can be assumed that early missionaries went there from Magadha in
>Bihar.  The Great Stupa (Phra Pathom Chedi) can be compared with Sanchi
>Evidently the earliest Buddhist scriptures must have reached Asian kingdoms
>from India in the third century B.C."
> This is misleading. Statements of this kind seem to be 
>intentionally vague
>as to the relative dates of the actual archaeological remains in Nakon
>Pathom and India respecitvely. It is simply laughable to "assume" that
>missionaries directly connected these sites to mainland India prior to the
>canonization of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It would be very difficult to
>"assume" that scriptures reached Thailand (directly from India) more than
>two hundred years prior to their being recorded in writing (in Matale, Sri
>Lanka, circa 29 B.C.). There is absolutely no evidence to support such a
>theory, and all responsible scholarship assumes the contrary --i.e., that
>the Thais received the written scriptures of Theravada Buddhism at a much
>later date, and as part of a tradition that was reliant upon Sri Lanka.
>

1274 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Tue Sep 13, 2005 0:11pm 
Subject: Re: SV: Kacc.: Date & Origin

Ole Pind wrote:

>The Kaccayanavutti seems to presuppose the A.t.thakathas, and appears to be
>a compilation by different hands. It is almost impossible to assign a date
>to Kacc which often reads like a compilation of grammatical notes strung
>together with no obvious logical pattern to it. Apart from the Katantra the
>compilors used Panini's grammar. The suttas contain errors due to scribal
>errors. Some of the rules are very strange and virtually inexplicable. I
>have a feeling that some of them may actually reflect that part of the lost
>Kaumaralata that is supposed to deal with Buddhist Sanskrit. This is just a
>guess. To Buddhaghosa and post-Buddhaghosa scholars grammar is Paninian
>grammar, and Kacc that does not address many of the features of the
>canonical language that the early commentators wanted to explain was not
>even considered as worthy of interest. Kacc is, for instance, only mentioned
>a few times in commentarial lit., in which all references to grammar is
>invariably Paninian grammar.

I think the earlier discussion was mainly occasioned by my objection 
to the idea that Kacc is the work of the Buddha's disciple, 
Mahaakaccaana. Your remarks above would equally seem to rule that out.

You suggest that the vutti seems to presuppose the A.t.thakathaa. 
Since the A.t.thakathaa seem to have been written over a period of 
time (including works such as Ap-a), this suggests that you do indeed 
date the vutti to around the seventh century, or am I 
misunderstanding you ?

You state that Kacc is referred to only a few times in commentarial 
literature. I have been under the impression that it is never 
mentioned by Buddhaghosa, but only in such works as Ap-a. Or, do you 
know an earlier mention ?

Lance Cousins

1275 
From: Jim Anderson <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Sep 13, 2005 2:57pm 
Subject: computer problem

Dear members,

I'm writing this from the local village library. I'm
sorry to inform you that my computer broke down last
Friday and thatI will be offline for a few weeks. I
will respond to message addressed to me as soon as I
can. I was in the village to pick up a heavy parcel
of, I presume, grammatical texts in the Thai script.
This was sent by Ven. Dhammanando and I'm looking
forward to opening up the parcel when I get back to
the cottage which is a 3 mile walk from here.

Best wishes,
Jim

1276 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Sep 14, 2005 4:13am 
Subject: Re: Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa)

In reply to L.C., 

You seem to have mistaken my own "voice" for the quotations from 
Saddhatissa --I am the one trying to refute S.-- thus, to begin with, I am 
again put in the rather strange position of correcting you, but agreeing.
After that, I move on to stridently disagreeing with you (re: the history 
of ethnic & lingual change in the region), as I think you've made a few 
generalizations about the history of Thailand that are fantastically false. 

The original article that I was responding to is here: 
http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/ebdha307.htm 

> 2. There is no mention of Suva.n.nabhuumi in the inscriptions of 
> Asoka.

*Cough cough* --my reply quotes Saddhatissa's claim to the contrary. I 
stated at length that there were no S.E.A. toponyms in the Ashokan edicts; 
however, Saddhatissa (like all the Thai National Museums) puts forward the 
myth that the Ashokan edicts name some such place in modern Thailand or 
Burma. The Burmese (and, yes, the Mons) also have modern myths involving 
the creative interpretation of the toponyms in the edicts. 

I am indeed aware that there are statements in the commentaries identifying 
a place called Suvannabhumi as somewhere separated by "7 days' voyage at 
sea" --however, what my brief message stated very clearly, is that this has 
nothing to do with Ashoka, and was written more than a thousand years later 
than him or his edicts. 

> We need not doubt 
> that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it 
> was two thousand years ago.

That would be hilarious if this were a laughing matter. You can pick up any 
sociology textbook at a Thai University and take a look at the hard 
demographics; the ethnic makeup of modern Thailand has *RADICALLY CHANGED* 
in the past 200 years --not to mention the past 2000. One of the most 
obvious changes has been the massive influx of Chinese since the 19th 
century; perhaps 30 million "modern Thai" are the products of Chinese 
intermarriage, and about 12% of the population is Chinese "per se". This 
migration basically dates from the mid-Qing dynasty; and it has completely 
transformed the ethnicity and culture of central Thailand. The process of 
this transformation has been much smoother than (e.g.) the settlement of 
Chinese in Malaysia in the same period --but I've never met anyone in 
Thailand who was unaware of the ethnic difference between "central Thais" 
and the rest of the country that this history has produced. 

This is only the most modern example, L.C.; anyone with a passing 
familiarity with the history of Thai-Burmese relations will know that each 
and every war between those two sides involved the forced relocation of 
large populations (i.e., large relative to total population). Land was not 
scarce in this region; manpower was the scarce resource, and wars were 
fought with the main prize being labour --both slaves and free persons-- 
brought back at the end of the war. The dramatic effects of conflicts with 
the burmese in establishing new population centers, and depopulating others, 
as well as suddenly shifting the ethnic composition of different regions in 
the North, is VERY WELL DOCUMENTED in the history of S.E.A. 

I don't know nearly as much about demographic shifts in Southern Thailand; 
however, in research on general demographics and population changes (for my 
former employer) everything I read showed major, rapid changes in the past 
200 years for just about all of Thailand --isolated mountian villages 
notwithstanding. In the North, one major catalyst for changes in the ethnic 
composition of Thailand has always been the expansion of Han power (to the 
exclusion of other ethnicities in China); the arrival of (e.g.) the Akha, 
the Lu and the Hmong in Thailand were all forced by the expanding sphere of 
Han Chinese racial hegemony. If you don't think "racial hegemony" applies, 
take a look at the history of "the Mien [= Hmong] rebellion" and the 
genocidal campaign that followed it. From the history written by the 
Chinese themselves, we know that such genocidal campaigns have a long 
history in the region; and we know that they commonly resulted in new ethnic 
groups arriving in Thailand. 

Colonialism and the railway increased the speed of change; but, unlike 
Europe (in the Feudal period) pre-modern Thailand/S.E.A. was an area of 
ethnic flux and ongoing changes. The model of taking slaves and war 
captives (often called "The Mandala system") ensured this to a large extent; 
as did the absence of a European approach to ancient economies --i.e., trade 
was not controlled by fixed frontiers. 

> 3. Thai, Khmer and Mon are languages, not races.

That's about as accurate as to say (in the context of South Africa) that 
"Afrikans Dutch" is "a language and not a race". I suppose it is just a 
coincidence that the white people attend school in Dutch --and that it is 
the Dutch-language schools that are well funded by the rich. Similarly, I 
am not one to pretend that it is a coincidence that "the white people" of 
Thailand speak "central Thai"; the ethnic difference between the Bangkok 
Thais (who have inter-married with the Chinese at an impressive rate) and 
the Issan, Mon, Khmer, Malayan, and other races that can be found in 
Thailand is pretty obvious to the untrained eye. In Surin, the people do 
not look Thai, and they do not speak Thai; they are ethnically and lingually 
Khmer. If one of them stands in the middle of an upscale mall in Bangkok, 
their ethnic difference from the crowd around them will be evident to all. 
The split between "central Thai" and so-called "Southern Thai" (i.e., Malay) 
is very much in the newspapers at the moment; every few years there are race 
riots in the North, too, when the "White people" decide to destroy a tribal 
village, etc. All of the tribal language distinctions in the north are very 
closely related to ethnic distinctions; I don't think anyone could argue the 
contrary. 

Brief conclusion: contrary to L.C.'s statement that
> We need not doubt 
> that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it 
> was two thousand years ago.
One might instead say that we should indeed doubt that the ethnic 
composition of Thailand has anything at all in common with 2,000 years ago. 
The same can be said of Nepal, Yunn, or even Egypt, and many other countries 
around the world, where massive ethnic changes have transpired in the same 
period. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
For as long as the slightest brushwood (of the passions) of man towards 
women is not cut down, so long is his mind in bondage, like the calf to its 
mother-cow.
Random Dhammapada Verse 284

1277 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Sep 14, 2005 4:24am 
Subject: Pyu / earliest Buddhism in Burma

Branching off as a separate subject, in reply to L.C.: 

> 4. There is no doubt that a form of Buddhism using a type of Pali is 
> very old among the Pyu speakers in Burma, among the Mon speakers in 
> Southern Burma and among Mon speakers in North, Central and even 
> Southern Thailand ...

Although I do not disagree with this vague statement, what I was 
specifically arguing against was the article's abuse of such generalities 
(e.g., using terms like "very early" to gloss over a gap of many hundreds of 
years) support the claim that (1) Theravada Buddhism pre-dates Mahayana 
Buddhism in the region, and (2) the history of Pali literature (i.e., the 
Pali canon) in Thailand dates from the arrival of missionaries sent by 
Ashoka (i.e., contemporary with Ashoka). I would expect that everyone on 
the list will disagree with these two points; the question of exactly how 
early Theravada Buddhism was among the Mon & Pyu (or what kind of canon they 
might have had) is a very good question --but the answer (if it shall ever 
be known) will have nothing to do with Ashoka or his missionaries. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
In the sky there is no track. Outside there is no Saint. Mankind delights in 
obstacles. The Tathagatas are free from obstacles.
Random Dhammapada Verse 254

1278 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:04am 
Subject: Re: Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa)

replying to Eisel:

> > 2. There is no mention of Suva.n.nabhuumi in the inscriptions of
>> Asoka.
>
> *Cough cough* --my reply quotes Saddhatissa's claim to the contrary. I
>stated at length that there were no S.E.A. toponyms in the Ashokan edicts;
>however, Saddhatissa (like all the Thai National Museums) puts forward the
>myth that the Ashokan edicts name some such place in modern Thailand or
>Burma. The Burmese (and, yes, the Mons) also have modern myths involving
>the creative interpretation of the toponyms in the edicts.

I have again looked at the article and it makes no claim that the 
word Suva.n.nabhuumi is found in the Edicts of Asoka. If I have 
missed something, please cite the exact passage.

At 4:40 pm +0600 13/9/05, navako wrote:
>There is no respectable scholarship that supports the
>identification of Ashoka's use of the word "Suvannabhumi" with Thailand, nor
>Burma.

This is an explicit statement on your part that Asoka used the word 
"Suvannabhumi". I do not recall seeing that in the inscriptions of 
Asoka.

> I am indeed aware that there are statements in the commentaries identifying
>a place called Suvannabhumi as somewhere separated by "7 days' voyage at
>sea" --however, what my brief message stated very clearly, is that this has
>nothing to do with Ashoka, and was written more than a thousand years later
>than him or his edicts.

This depends on the authority one gives to the evidence of the commentaries.

In fact, the story of the missions occurs first in the Diipava.msa 
which dates to around the end of the reign of Mahaasena (301 or 361, 
depending on chronology). Let us say around 600 years. For those who 
believe that the commentaries are Pali renderings of earlier 
commentaries the traditions will be much earlier.

> > We need not doubt
>> that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it
>> was two thousand years ago.
>
>That would be hilarious if this were a laughing matter. You can pick up any
>sociology textbook at a Thai University and take a look at the hard
>demographics; the ethnic makeup of modern Thailand has *RADICALLY CHANGED*
>in the past 200 years --not to mention the past 2000. One of the most
>obvious changes has been the massive influx of Chinese since the 19th
>century; perhaps 30 million "modern Thai" are the products of Chinese
>intermarriage, and about 12% of the population is Chinese "per se". This
>migration basically dates from the mid-Qing dynasty; and it has completely
>transformed the ethnicity and culture of central Thailand. The process of
>this transformation has been much smoother than (e.g.) the settlement of
>Chinese in Malaysia in the same period --but I've never met anyone in
>Thailand who was unaware of the ethnic difference between "central Thais"
>and the rest of the country that this history has produced.

Yes, I should have excluded the relatively recent immigration of Chinese.

>
>This is only the most modern example, L.C.; anyone with a passing
>familiarity with the history of Thai-Burmese relations will know that each
>and every war between those two sides involved the forced relocation of
>large populations (i.e., large relative to total population). Land was not
>scarce in this region; manpower was the scarce resource, and wars were
>fought with the main prize being labour --both slaves and free persons--
>brought back at the end of the war. The dramatic effects of conflicts with
>the burmese in establishing new population centers, and depopulating others,
>as well as suddenly shifting the ethnic composition of different regions in
>the North, is VERY WELL DOCUMENTED in the history of S.E.A.

So it is. But nothing says that people necessarily retain their 
original language under such circumstances. Many, if not most, 
present-day Thai speakers will have had ancestors who spoke other 
languages.

Note that where (as in S.E. Asia) manpower is a scarce resource it is 
most unlikely that ordinary peasants were slaughtered on a large 
scale.

>[section omitted]
>
>Brief conclusion: contrary to L.C.'s statement that
>> We need not doubt
>> that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it
>> was two thousand years ago.
>One might instead say that we should indeed doubt that the ethnic
>composition of Thailand has anything at all in common with 2,000 years ago. 
>The same can be said of Nepal, Yunn, or even Egypt, and many other countries
>around the world, where massive ethnic changes have transpired in the same
>period.
>
>E.M.
>

People used to say the same about the U.K. but genetic tests have 
shown that the bulk of the population has in fact remained 
genetically similar since before Roman times. (But I must exclude the 
large-scale immigration of recent decades.) It is the ruling groups 
that tend either to displace one another or to merge.

Lance Cousins

1279 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:30am 
Subject: Re: Pyu / earliest Buddhism in Burma

responding further to Eisel:

>Branching off as a separate subject, in reply to L.C.:
>
>> 4. There is no doubt that a form of Buddhism using a type of Pali is
>> very old among the Pyu speakers in Burma, among the Mon speakers in
>> Southern Burma and among Mon speakers in North, Central and even
>> Southern Thailand ...
>
>Although I do not disagree with this vague statement,

Well, I thought it was rather precise :-)

> what I was
>specifically arguing against was the article's abuse of such generalities
>(e.g., using terms like "very early" to gloss over a gap of many hundreds of
>years) support the claim that (1) Theravada Buddhism pre-dates Mahayana
>Buddhism in the region, and

On the contrary, I think that is likely to prove correct for the 
lands ruled by Pyu and Mon aristocracies. (I do not know about the 
southern parts of present-day Thailand, however.) But as I pointed 
out, it depends on your definition of 'Theravaada'.

> (2) the history of Pali literature (i.e., the
>Pali canon) in Thailand dates from the arrival of missionaries sent by
>Ashoka (i.e., contemporary with Ashoka).

What Dr Saddhatissa suggested was that missionaries sent by Asoka 
would have carried an oral version of the scriptures. So, if one 
accepts that missionaries were sent to S.E. Asia, they would 
certainly have carried some of the texts in some form.

> I would expect that everyone on
>the list will disagree with these two points; the question of exactly how
>early Theravada Buddhism was among the Mon & Pyu (or what kind of canon they
>might have had) is a very good question --but the answer (if it shall ever
>be known) will have nothing to do with Ashoka or his missionaries.
>
>E.M.
>

Surely the passages from texts inscribed on gold plates that have 
been recovered from Pyu sites are quite sufficient to establish that. 
I personally believe that the spread of Buddhism up the river valleys 
of Burma and Thailand is likely to predate the existence of 
Mahaayaana Buddhism (even in India). But the archaeological evidence 
is not sufficient at present to establish that with certainty. We 
cannot excavate in many of the places which are most likely to be old.

Lance

1280 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:23am 
Subject: Re: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 	

Dear Eisel,

Thanks for the valuable suggestions.
We are definitely not in for a democratic Tipitaka Wikipedia having a 
majority vote system... It was mentioned in my message that it is to be 
a moderated system.
The link system you suggest is a very good idea and maybe more practical 
as a start. Maybe the problem with the links to other editions and 
manuscripts in other scripts is that very few scholars will know all the 
Asian scripts, even to learn one or two scripts takes a lot of time and 
effort. The Tibetans are at an advantage here because they only employ 
one script. So I feel that it will be important to have a Roman script 
edition in which the readings of all other editions and good quality 
manuscripts are incorporated. This of course can not be managed by one 
moderator, the scope of Pali literature is far too wide, but if experts 
in certain text genres would moderate then it might be more feasable. I 
would be in favor of finishing off proofreading the Buddhajayanthi as a 
pilot project and at the same time creating a new uninstitutionalised 
Tipitaka and Pali Literature site.

Could you clarify: ``(3) the ability for participants to "mail in" their 
suggestions and corrections.''? 

Regarding the durability of microfilms (I suppose that this is what you 
mean with ``microfiche''): They might be durable in the well organised 
and well supported universities in the West, but one can not speak about 
durability in a climate and society like Sri Lanka or Laos. In the 
mid-1980s thousands of Pali, Sanskrit, and Sinhala manuscripts were 
microfilmed by the Sri Lanka National Archives with the support of the 
Ford Foundation, USA. The expensive project ran for a couple of years 
and all the films were deposited at the National Archives which did not 
have the capabiltiy and interest to maintain the films and microfilm 
viewing machines in the long run. Many, if not most films, are severely 
damaged and unusable now due to moisture and dust damage. I and a friend 
tried to get some manuscript microfilms printed out at the NA but, 
besides the fact that the printing quality was hopeless, the clerk 
ripped us (or rather our supporter) off. The Ford Foundation nor any 
other institution ever got any copies of the films. By the way, 
microfilm scanning machines are very expensive and I wonder if the 
quality would be good enough. The British Museum library has microfilmed 
very few if any of its huge collection of Pali manuscripts as far as I 
know and they charge the extravagant price of 29 pounds or so for 
creating a picture of one side of three leaves if I remember correctly. 
I inquired last year about getting a printout of a manuscript but gave 
up. The irony is that most of these manuscripts have either been looted 
or bought for a few pennies in Asia by the British.

I have an interest to set up a project to digitally photograph 
manuscripts in important monastery collections in Sri Lanka, maybe 
starting off with the Siamese Khom and Burmese script manuscripts in Sri 
Lanka as a pilot project, but so far there has not been much interest 
from others. It is also not clear to me whether there are cameras which 
could photograph whole Sinhalese and Burmese palmleafs having 9-10 lines 
a leaf densely written with small letters. Khom manuscripts are much 
more spacious and the letters are large so it is easier to photograph 
them. With the cheap camera I have I can only photograph half the length 
of the leafs but this is quite discouraged by scholars like Dr. 
Jacqueline Filliozat although the quality is excellent. If you would 
know a digital camera which can photograph whole leaves then please let 
me know. Maybe a Canon EOS with a broad lens fitted onto it will do.

What you mean by the ``the expanding scope of available digitized images of Pali MS & editions'' ? I am not aware of any available digitized images of manuscripts except the ones in the EFEO DATA of Dr Jacqueline Filliozat. I have never seen available digital images of editions (except my own images of several different Pali texts in Sinhala script stored on my computer.) 
Printed texts can be photographed easily and quickly, although the slower scanning is of better quality. Digital images of the Sinhalese Kaccayana editions, etc, could easily be made and put on the Internet.

Yours, 
Bh. Nyanatusita





> 
>
>Bhante, 
>
>
> My experience with the "Wiki" format (for scholarly collaboration) is that 
>it is not well suited to any subject requiring a high degree of technical 
>accuracy or specialization. 
>
> Even a form such as this one (a "list serv") is superior for ironing out 
>the small details of a proof-reading or translation. 
>
> However, I do think that a hyperlinked tipitaka could easily incorporate: 
>(1) existing digitized editions, (2) scans of existing MS microfiche & 
>images [e.g., "just click here to see the scan of the corresponding page in 
>the Cambodian edition..."], and (3) the ability for participants to "mail 
>in" their suggestions and corrections. 
>
> An open wiki format is likely to reduplicate labour --and put an undue 
>editorial stress on a single "system operator". 
>
> The reason that the Wiki format was invented was to facilitate "democratic 
>editing"; however, there are very few scholarly matters that can be resolved 
>with a vote. I recently witnessed that the Wikipedia held a vote to 
>determine the correct name of Schopenhauer's birthplace; this begs the 
>question "why would a matter of fact be determined by 'majority rule'?" 
> --and, sadly, the majority do not know enough to make informed decisions 
>about scholarly and historical matters. 
>
> However, the expanding scope of (1) available digitized images of Pali MS & 
>editions, and (2) the ability to render Pali in indigenous script, will 
>favour a cross-hyperlinked "canon" to enable comparative reading across 
>editions. By the same token, one could enable comparative reading of 
>associated translations (i.e., "linked to" the corresponding page of Pali). 
>
> The Tibetans are far ahead of the Theravadins in this respect; there is 
>already a "hyperlinked" Tibetan canon, with "clickable" cross-references for 
>almost every word --providing correspondence, definitions, translations, 
>variations, etc. 
>
> I think that one big opportunity will be scanning microfiche to provide 
>digital images of existing collections on-line. Microfiche is durable, but 
>inaccessible; putting it on the internet will be a big help to scholars 
> --and monks in poor countries that have neither books nor microfiche viewers 
>(e.g., Laos!). 
>
>E.M. 
>
> 
>
>

1281 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:11am 
Subject: Pali electronica: Tibetan & Greek examples

These two examples will be of interest both to Nyanatusita & Jim Anderson: 

(1) The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae CD-ROM
http://www.tlg.uci.edu/
There are many important point of comparison here --it is a fully digitized 
"canon" (of extant greek works) in indigenous script (they coined a range of 
new font entities to enable the disc) with a "Thesaurus" component that is 
similar to the "Pali-Pali Dictionary" that Jim was proposing. 

(2) The Tibetan "Hypercontext" system:
http://hypercontext.sourceforge.net/
Again, this is a massively digitally cross-referenced "canon", with points 
of comparison to the technical ambitions proposed for Pali. Scroll down to 
see the images of the program in action --it's pretty well self-explanatory. 

I'm sure the major Sinic & Japanese canons each have their own digital 
evolution to boast of --but about this I know nothing. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who in this world giving up sense-desires, would renounce worldly life 
and become a homeless one, he who has destroyed sense-desires and becoming, 
- him I call a Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 415

1282 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:39am 
Subject: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 	

Bhante, 

> Maybe the problem with the links to other editions and 
> manuscripts in other scripts is that very few scholars will know all the 
> Asian scripts ...

The Roman-only approach (for this kind of digital resource) is problematic 
from two different perspectives:
(1) It actually removes the scholars from the source text by a significant 
degree of separation/alienation,
(2) Although Romanization can be construed as empowering a very small 
number of PTS-dependent scholars, it is also disempowering to the various 
indigenous Buddhist communities --some of whom are scholars, some are monks, 
and some just laypeople with a moderate degree of interest and application.
On balance, I think that a great deal is lost in Romanization (and current 
methods are problematic; the reduction of euphonic elisions/combinations to 
individuated words separated by nasal sounds is a real desecration of the 
source texts --and this whole business of inserting the apostrophe (') 
creates ambiguities in Romanized Pali that simply aren't there in original 
MS). Besides which, why have such low expectations of western scholars? 
They can learn a few different scripts. I'm 26, and I can Pali in read 5 or 
more different scripts (*not* including Roman); anyone who intends to sink 
more than a few months into study can extend their knowledge of one Indic 
script to include others --but if you become reliant on Romanization, it is 
a big effort to ween yourself off of that dependency. 

> ... even to learn one or two scripts takes a lot of time and 
> effort.

I really don't think it takes more than two weeks, if you already know one 
Asian Pali script, to learn a second or a third one. Developing excellent 
penmanship requires more patience --the hand is slower than the mind. 

> Could you clarify: ``(3) the ability for participants to "mail in" their 
> suggestions and corrections.''? 

I just meant that someone could systematically collect and reply to e-mails 
that have caught/reported errors. Aside from the "e-" in "e-mail", this is 
the same low-tech method that was used to write the Oxford English 
Dictionary. 

> Regarding the durability of microfilms (I suppose that this is what you 
> mean with ``microfiche'')...

Sorry: Canadian English is a mishmash of British, French, and American 
elements. British English itself is the unfortunate product of the Norman 
conquest --i.e., a bunch of Germanic islanders being colonized by 
Francophones. 

> They might be durable in the well organised 
> and well supported universities in the West, but one can not speak about 
> durability in a climate and society like Sri Lanka or Laos.

I agree --and this is all the more reason why these resources should be 
digitized and put onto the internet. 

> By the way, 
> microfilm scanning machines are very expensive and I wonder if the 
> quality would be good enough.

I picked up a microform reader off the sidewalk in Toronto --literally, a 
free Microform reader. All that it needed was a new lightbulb. Some 
"micro-" formats can be printed onto paper by a relatively simple zoom & 
xerox procedure; the "roll" formats (used for archived newspapers, etc.) 
generally require a specialized reader & printer --however, these can be 
cheaply purchased (second hand) from architects and mechanics. Until 
recently, almost every major architecture and machine-tools firm needed this 
kind of equipment --now most of them are selling them off cheaply. 

> The British Museum library has microfilmed 
> very few if any of its huge collection of Pali manuscripts ...

Almost none of the Pali MS in the U.K. have even been catalogued. When I 
contacted the Manchester U. library about the Rhys-Davids collection of Pali 
MS, they were blunt in saying that they had been put in a vault for many 
decades, and not seen by any human eyes since. Generally, all Pali MS in 
Europe are neglected ( ... maybe Denmark is an exception) --and the old 
imperialist arguments that they're better off in the west than in the 
countries where they were produced has "worn very thin". I'm the sort of 
rare Westerner who spoils everyone's dinner by saying aloud that the French 
ought to return all the Cambodian art they've stolen --and I've had a few 
amusing replies from Cambodian museum specialists. For the record: *I* was 
paying for dinner, and a delightful time was had by all. 

> I inquired last year about getting a printout of a manuscript but gave 
> up. The irony is that most of these manuscripts have either been looted 
> or bought for a few pennies in Asia by the British.

Until now, I believe I was the only one on this list ever to complain about 
this history; however, I am accutely aware of the piratical methods whereby 
the British amassed their Indological holdings --most museums and libraries 
are quite vague as to where and when these things were "accessioned" 
--however, if you do the research, you can normally trace a specific MS to a 
specific massacre. The "scorched earth policy" of the Uva rebellion 
doubtless justified the "preservation by way of theft" of many of the 
contents of temples in the area. I should also note that the Thai 
government is now chasing up the U.S.A. for Buddhist relics, statues, etc., 
looted from the Issan country during the American presence there --the irony 
here being that the U.S. & Thailand were allies, not enemies, in that 
conflict. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
For whom there exists neither the hither nor the farther shore, nor both the 
hither and the farther shore, he who is undistressed and unbound, - him I 
call a Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 385

1283 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:30am 
Subject: Re: Factual errors, Ashoka, S.E.A. migrations, etc.

In reply to L.C., 

> This is an explicit statement on your part that Asoka used the word 
> "Suvannabhumi". I do not recall seeing that in the inscriptions of 
> Asoka.

*Ahem* --it is an explicit statement of the view that I am in the procress 
of refuting. However, "as you asked so nicely": 

The toponym Suva.n.na-giri does appear in the Ashokan edicts --not quite 
Suva.n.na-bhumi, but this is encouragement enough for some. The double 
".n.n" of course appears as ".m.n" in Ashokan script; however, the Thai 
government is not about to change the name of the new airport on account of 
such a scholarly detail. Responsible scholarship takes this 
"Suva.n.na-giri" to be in peninsular India; irresponsible scholarship 
invokes it as corroboration of the Suvannabhumi = Thailand/Burma thesis 
--the main point of which (again) is to substantiate the claim that Ashoka 
sent missionaries to Thailand/Burma. He didn't. 

Thus, there is a sense in which Suvannabhumi does (and doesn't) appear in 
the edicts --and/or in the eye of the beholder. 

Even if there were not this crumb of encouragement, the fictional assertion 
of the identity of other toponyms found in the edict with places in Thailand 
& Burma respectively would continue --and it was against this myth that I 
was arguing (i.e., I am not disputing the actual contents of the 
inscriptions, but only some of the propaganda that is loosely based upon 
them --I had thought that was abundantly clear from my former messages). 

> This depends on the authority one gives to the evidence of the commentaries.

Simply put, toponyms change in a period of over 1,000 years. You may 
compare the debates over "Tambapa.n.ni" = Sri Lanka. 

> So it is. But nothing says that people necessarily retain their 
> original language under such circumstances.

This is spurious; I hope that in your heart of hearts you know that it is 
spurious, and are not disregarding the solid scholarship of men like Michael 
Vickery and Hans Penth on the basis of a semantic assertion that language is 
not identical to ethnicity. 

> Many, if not most, 
> present-day Thai speakers will have had ancestors who spoke other 
> languages.

Not "most", "all"; the modern central Thai dialect is basically a 20th 
century invention. Before the centralized state school system extended into 
the provinces, Thai literacy was a highly decentralized affair involving 
monks and (yes) basic education in Pali; this monastic system of education 
tended to preserve local dialects very well --the modern system tends to 
suppress and obliterate them. Between this and the colourful history of 
recent anti-regionalist/anti-communist hysteria that has gripped Bangkok, 
we're looking back at a century of rapid, forced assimilation in many of the 
outlying provinces. However, the lingual change is almost purely in written 
language; the Khmer still speak Khmer, they only read and write in Thai. 
And, of course, the ethnic differences are even more durable. The Thais 
themselves have an acute awareness of the degrees of ethnic difference that 
divide the nation; many foreigners are blind to it --but so what? The 
average Thai is unaware of the secret shame of the average Yorkshireman 
living in London. 

>>The same can be said of Nepal, Yunn, or even Egypt, and many other countries
>>around the world, where massive ethnic changes have transpired in the same
>>period.

> People used to say the same about the U.K. but genetic tests have 
> shown that the bulk of the population has in fact remained 
> genetically similar since before Roman times.

Genetic research has shown the reverse about Nepal, etc., as mentioned. I 
don't know how to break this to you, L.C., but Britain is an island that was 
on the outermost fringes of the Roman empire; the kind of ethnic interchagne 
and migration over the same period in mainland Asia is a much different 
story. Why would they be comparable? 

There are significant regions in Northern Thailand and Laos where (e.g.) the 
Lu or the Akha are the majority; and we know (for many of those regions) 
that 200 years ago they didn't live there at all --they were further north 
in China. These are substantial migrations that have had very palpable 
effects on the ethnic, lingual, and cultural composition of the area; and, 
in the area mentioned, the influx of "new blood" from the north was often 
(reciprocally) related to the fact that there was forced migration westward 
into Burma --i.e., war captives. 

On the rainy isle of England, by comparison, war captives (primarily taken 
by the Vikings) were sold into slavery in the ports of the Roman empire; 
thus, we have a well documented history of britons as slaves (that nobody 
talks about) that had some effects in changing the ethnic composition of the 
medeterranian. The same can be said for eastern europeans bought and sold 
in Rome. The examples of Romans setting up colonies in the opposite 
direction (and, thus, effecting ethnic change) is more often talked about in 
Britain; they ought to relocate parliament to the city of Bath, as they're 
so proud of it. The Swiss still have a few towns where a dialect of Latin 
is the official language --and where the local "ethnicity" traces direct 
descent from Rome. Conversely, there are not a few Swiss towns where the 
ethnic legacy of the brief Mongol invasion can also be traced ... but nobody 
wants to talk about it. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those who are afraid when there should be no fear, and are not afraid when 
there should be fear, such men, due to their wrong views go to woeful states.
Random Dhammapada Verse 317

1284 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:47am 
Subject: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space

Hi Eisel,

>
>
>I really don't think it takes more than two weeks, if you already know one
>Asian Pali script, to learn a second or a third one. Developing excellent
>penmanship requires more patience --the hand is slower than the mind.

Two weeks sounds about right, putting in a concentrated hour or two a day. But another reading skill you haven't mentioned is developing 'instant recognition' of words in the new script (as opposed to spelling your way through words). This requires extensive reading to develop. This skill is vital for being able to skim quickly through texts looking for certain words or grammatical forms, or for quickly taking in a table of contents.

I've tried to develop ways to train myself in this particular skill in the Asian scripts I read. Re-studying the nominal and verbal grammatical paradigms in the target script is one of several ways to build up this 'instant recognition' ability.

However, even though I've put a great deal of time into reading Sinhalese editions and have come to enjoy the script greatly, if I'm working under a time-limit (as is often the case) I rely on a Romanized version for skimming, if it's available. I learned to read roman characters as a child and I believe the brain hardwires languages and scripts learned at that age in a more efficient way than later-learned languages and scripts. So for me it would be silly not to take advantage of my native competence in the Roman script when performing tasks where I'm optimized to use it.

>The Roman-only approach (for this kind of digital resource) is problematic
>from two different perspectives:
> (1) It actually removes the scholars from the source text by a significant
>degree of separation/alienation,

This is a bit vague. How is the scholar reading a text in roman characters more alienated than a scholar reading the text in a script he learned as an adult? That could also be called 'alienation', except that I don't see any reason to put a negative sounding word on it.

As for putting SE Asian readers at a disadvantage, what do you think of the 6th council CD put out by VRI. There you can choose between Roman, Sinhalese, Burmese etc, so the reader can pick whatever is most comfortable. In a digital resource it ought to be easy to provide these sorts of conversion tools.


> On balance, I think that a great deal is lost in Romanization (and current
>methods are problematic; the reduction of euphonic elisions/combinations to
>individuated words separated by nasal sounds is a real desecration of the
>source texts --

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to things of this sort:

Sinhalese version: < padanti >, romanized version:< pada.m ti >, where the dental nasal has been standardized to an anusvara?

I agree that this uglifies the text to a certain degree though I'm not sure how it is to be construed as a 'desecration'. The reason for this, I'm almost certain, has been to aid the reader who might initially confuse the form with a third person plural indicative ending. Sinhalese printed books often also 'desecrate' the text by punctuating it like this "pada"nti, precisely in order to aid the reader in this regard. Is it less of a 'desecration' when Sinhalese editors do this sort of thing?

In any case, it ought to be possible to retain the dental nasal in a romanized edition: padan ti. This would be my preference. Standardizing spelling isn't a goal anymore when making romanized editions (at least I hope it isn't).


>and this whole business of inserting the apostrophe (')
>creates ambiguities in Romanized Pali that simply aren't there in original MS).

Could you provide examples? Because for the most part I'd think that it resolves ambiquities rather than introducing them. This could, however, be a bad thing since if the person resolving an ambiguity has made the wrong decision, his or her intervention could obscure the actual meaning of the text. It would have been better to leave the ambiguity in the edition and allow the reader to decide.



best regards,

/Rett

1285 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:28am 
Subject: Re: Factual errors, Ashoka, S.E.A. migrations, etc. 

In the absence of our moderator, we should probably exercise 
self-discipline. This thread seems to be expanding into all sorts of 
other areas and is in any case probably well beyond the remit of this 
list group. So I will respond one more time and leave it at that.

>In reply to L.C.,
>
>> This is an explicit statement on your part that Asoka used the word
>> "Suvannabhumi". I do not recall seeing that in the inscriptions of
>> Asoka.
>
>*Ahem* --it is an explicit statement of the view that I am in the procress
>of refuting. However, "as you asked so nicely":

I think you need to read more carefully what you actually write. In 
the guise of criticizing an article of Dr Saddhatissa, you appear to 
be actually attacking various other views with which you disagree.

>The toponym Suva.n.na-giri does appear in the Ashokan edicts --not quite
>Suva.n.na-bhumi, but this is encouragement enough for some. The double
>".n.n" of course appears as ".m.n" in Ashokan script; however, the Thai
>government is not about to change the name of the new airport on account of
>such a scholarly detail. Responsible scholarship takes this
>"Suva.n.na-giri" to be in peninsular India; irresponsible scholarship
>invokes it as corroboration of the Suvannabhumi = Thailand/Burma thesis
> --the main point of which (again) is to substantiate the claim that Ashoka
>sent missionaries to Thailand/Burma. He didn't.
>
>Thus, there is a sense in which Suvannabhumi does (and doesn't) appear in
>the edicts --and/or in the eye of the beholder.

This is a red herring. Dr Saddhatissa did not suggest in the article 
you cite (nor anywhere else, I suspect) that Suva.n.nagiri has 
anything to do with Suv.n.nabhuumi. We can agree that forms 
equivalent to Suva.n.nagiri in the inscriptions of Asoka occur in an 
entirely different context to the lists of places with which Asoka 
had some kind of diplomatic and/or religious contact. I do not 
believe that any serious scholar thinks otherwise.

>Even if there were not this crumb of encouragement, the fictional assertion
>of the identity of other toponyms found in the edict with places in Thailand
>& Burma respectively would continue --and it was against this myth that I
>was arguing (i.e., I am not disputing the actual contents of the
>inscriptions, but only some of the propaganda that is loosely based upon
>them --I had thought that was abundantly clear from my former messages).
>
>> This depends on the authority one gives to the evidence of the commentaries.
>
>Simply put, toponyms change in a period of over 1,000 years.

600 years or much less, if based on lost sources.

>You may
>compare the debates over "Tambapa.n.ni" = Sri Lanka.

A difficult question on which I have a whole draft article.

> > So it is. But nothing says that people necessarily retain their
>> original language under such circumstances.
>
>This is spurious; I hope that in your heart of hearts you know that it is
>spurious, and are not disregarding the solid scholarship of men like Michael
>Vickery and Hans Penth on the basis of a semantic assertion that language is
>not identical to ethnicity.
>
>> Many, if not most,
>> present-day Thai speakers will have had ancestors who spoke other
>> languages.
>
>Not "most", "all"; the modern central Thai dialect is basically a 20th
>century invention. Before the centralized state school system extended into
>the provinces, Thai literacy was a highly decentralized affair involving
>monks and (yes) basic education in Pali; this monastic system of education
>tended to preserve local dialects very well --the modern system tends to
>suppress and obliterate them. Between this and the colourful history of
>recent anti-regionalist/anti-communist hysteria that has gripped Bangkok,
>we're looking back at a century of rapid, forced assimilation in many of the
>outlying provinces. However, the lingual change is almost purely in written
>language; the Khmer still speak Khmer, they only read and write in Thai. 
>And, of course, the ethnic differences are even more durable. The Thais
>themselves have an acute awareness of the degrees of ethnic difference that
>divide the nation; many foreigners are blind to it --but so what? The
>average Thai is unaware of the secret shame of the average Yorkshireman
>living in London.

Much of this is irrelevant. The point I was making is that the 
peoples ruled by the ancient Pyu kings, the Mon rulers of Raama~n~na 
and the Mon (and Khmer) rulers of various parts of present-day 
Thailand are part of the ancestry of present-day Thai speakers.

> >>The same can be said of Nepal, Yunn, or even Egypt, and many 
>other countries
>>>around the world, where massive ethnic changes have transpired in the same
>>>period.
>
>> People used to say the same about the U.K. but genetic tests have
>> shown that the bulk of the population has in fact remained
>> genetically similar since before Roman times.
>
>Genetic research has shown the reverse about Nepal, etc., as mentioned. I
>don't know how to break this to you, L.C., but Britain is an island that was
>on the outermost fringes of the Roman empire; the kind of ethnic interchagne
>and migration over the same period in mainland Asia is a much different
>story. Why would they be comparable?

Because people used to adopt precisely the model of constant invasion 
to interpret the history of the British Isles. We now know it is not 
so simple.

>
>There are significant regions in Northern Thailand and Laos where (e.g.) the
>Lu or the Akha are the majority; and we know (for many of those regions)
>that 200 years ago they didn't live there at all --they were further north
>in China. These are substantial migrations that have had very palpable
>effects on the ethnic, lingual, and cultural composition of the area; and,
>in the area mentioned, the influx of "new blood" from the north was often
>(reciprocally) related to the fact that there was forced migration westward
>into Burma --i.e., war captives.

But what language do the descendants of those captives now speak ?

>
>On the rainy isle of England, by comparison, war captives (primarily taken
>by the Vikings) were sold into slavery in the ports of the Roman empire;

Viking raids begin around the ninth century; so I am not sure what 
you mean by the 'Roman Empire'. But given the size of Viking ships I 
doubt that overall numbers of slaves taken can have been that large.

There were of course Morrish slave raids in the 17th century. Even 
then, although the numbers taken (and not ransomed) were significant, 
I doubt that they were that large in relation to overall populations.

>thus, we have a well documented history of britons as slaves (that nobody
>talks about) that had some effects in changing the ethnic composition of the
>medeterranian.

Some, but probably not very much.

>The same can be said for eastern europeans bought and sold
>in Rome. The examples of Romans setting up colonies in the opposite
>direction (and, thus, effecting ethnic change) is more often talked about in
>Britain; they ought to relocate parliament to the city of Bath, as they're
>so proud of it. The Swiss still have a few towns where a dialect of Latin
>is the official language --and where the local "ethnicity" traces direct
>descent from Rome. Conversely, there are not a few Swiss towns where the
>ethnic legacy of the brief Mongol invasion can also be traced ... but nobody
>wants to talk about it.
>
>E.M.

You still don't seem to understand that difference of language is not 
evidence of historical difference of race. By the evidence of 
language the vast majority of present-day Americans are English or 
Spanish or Portuguese. That means that a very large number of 
immigrants and aboriginals have now lost their original language. 
'Twas always so.

Lance

1286 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:53am 
Subject: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 

Hi Rett, 

Good to hear from you again. 

>> (1) It actually removes the scholars from the source text by a significant
>>degree of separation/alienation,
> 
> This is a bit vague. [...]

It is --however, the rest of my former message includes many specific 
examples of precisely what I meant. In reducing a primary source to a 
secondary source there is (in my terms) a degree of alienation: in 
transliterating, you're obliterating (e.g.) one set of ambiguities, and 
introducing another. I wish I could say that the PTS system of Romanization 
was less ambiguous than (e.g.) Burmese script (in the latter, e.g., capital 
'o' is identical to 'sra') --but, as my former message stated, I think there 
are some problems with the prevalent standards of Romanization. 

The reduction of a Palm leaf (which is sometimes calligraphic or 
illuminated) to an etext involves the loss of a lot of "information" --not 
to mention aesthetic considerations. Given that photo-duplication / 
digitization is also less labour-intensive than transcription, I think 
there's a lot to be said for putting images of original MS on disc. 

Some of these issues are common to all forms of transcription (e.g. whether 
MS are transcribed useing Roman text or devanagari) --however, there are 
some issues that are specific to Romanization. One thing that all the 
classical Pali scripts have in common is that one glyph = one syllable. A 
complex system of ligatures and combined consonants in classical Sinhalese & 
Burmese (& Khom & others) ensures that you have one glyph representing each 
syllable; and this is radically untrue of Romanized text. If you think this 
is a purely aesthetic question, I would say that for discerning (e.g.) metre 
in poetry, it is quite substantive. 

Fundamentally, if you're going to carry out a comparative reading of primary 
sources you want to use ABSOLUTELY PRIMARY sources. You don't want to rely on someone else's guess as to whether the original had "o" or "sra" (etc.) 
--you want to work with the ambiguities found in the original, and resolve 
them for yourself. Senart's edition of Kacc. is terrible this way --all the 
euphonic combinations are broken up into separate words, etc. (nobody would 
put up with Shakespear's English being "reformed" this way --why do 
Palicists care so little about these kinds of changes in western editions of 
the canon?). 

> As for putting SE Asian readers at a disadvantage, what do you think of the 6th council CD put out by VRI.

I tried to order a copy, they told me that it was no more. I saw it used 
once by a Sinhalese monk (at a monastery). The classical Sinh. font is a 
bit crude --but they made a good effort using a *very* limited Roman 
encoding (i.e., not Unicode at all). 

> There you can choose between Roman, Sinhalese, Burmese etc, so the reader can pick whatever is most comfortable. In a digital resource it ought to be easy to provide these sorts of conversion tools.

Yes, I had a lengthy negotiation with a computer programmer (from Yunnan) 
last week --he promises me that he will create a Unicode solution to 
transcribe from Romanized to "true" S.E.A. scripts. He also said that (in 
order to do this) he would need me to create a table of every possible 
ligature in every possible script ... *sigh* ... However, the question of 
how to resolve the problems that romanization has introduced into the text 
remains; e.g., how do you come up with a program that can interpret and 
correctly remove the apostrophe in PTS-style Pali? 

> ... where the dental nasal has been standardized to an anusvara?

I'm talking about "Romanization" that involves taking (e.g.) a compound word 
or elided-combination of words, and breaking them into two (or more) 
separate words with a space and an anusvara (instead of m, n, .n, or any of 
the other possibilties created by the rules of permutation). This is a 
violence to the source text, and it can obscure the poetics. The use of the 
apostrophe also seems very problematic to me. 

> I agree that this uglifies the text to a certain degree though I'm not sure how it is to be construed as a 'desecration'.

(1) It changes the sound of the text, and poetry consists of sound (not 
meaning), (2) it changes the metre of the text, and poetics make use of 
meter, (3) it obliterates what all classical Pali grammars consider an 
important part of the language --euphony. I'm told that Panini goes on 
about euphony for an enormous length of the opening of his Sk. grammar 
--although I've never read it. 

> Is it less of a 'desecration' when Sinhalese editors do this sort of thing?

No, it can be just as great a problem with some Devanagari editions, as I 
have mentioned (Jim recently discussed this with me off-list). I haven't 
seen the same problem with Sinhalese script; although it seems that Sri 
Lankan typesetters have sometimes replaced the velar n ('n) with the 
anuswara (.m) simply due to the lack of available cut-type combinations 
(e.g., 'nkha) in their presses. This will cease to be an issue with the 
advent of computer typesetting. 

[Re: the apostrophe:] 

> ...This could, however, be a bad thing since if the person resolving an ambiguity has made the wrong decision, his or her intervention could obscure the actual meaning of the text. It would have been better to leave the ambiguity in the edition and allow the reader to decide.

Agreed. 

Thus, a photo duplicate of an original MS is more valuable than an e-text in 
all these ways and more. However, I also agree with your point that for 
rapidly finding a particular passage of text, even a highly flawed e-text is 
much better than none at all; a computer can't sift through images as easily 
as it can through text. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Whoever lives contemplating pleasant things, with senses unrestrained, in 
food immoderate, indolent, inactive, him verily Mara overthrows, as the wind 
(overthrows) a weak tree.
Random Dhammapada Verse 7

1287 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:34am 
Subject: Re: Factual errors, Ashoka, S.E.A. migrations, etc.

> In the absence of our moderator, we should probably exercise 
> self-discipline.

Indeed. 

> I think you need to read more carefully what you actually write. In 
> the guise of criticizing an article of Dr Saddhatissa, you appear to 
> be actually attacking various other views with which you disagree.

I believe I have been quite open about (1) the fact that I am interested in 
deflating widely-held views that are encountered far beyond Saddhatissa's 
article, and are promoted by the current Thai government, etc., and many of 
my comments have been explicitly directed to these misconceptions, rather 
than being directed _ad hominem_ against Saddhatissa; moreover (2) my 
original composition was quite clear as to where Saddhatissa is being 
"intentionally vague" and "misleading" to the reader (rather than directly 
stating X or Y). 

However, Saddhatissa's article does state that (e.g.) there are artefacts 
that prove that Ashoka sent missionaries to Thailand. Let us be 
unambiguous: THAT IS A LIE. If you want to tell me that Saddhatissa's 
article is above reproach because he's very vague about precisely where he's 
leaning on commentarial rather than inscriptional sources, I can only laugh, 
as you're proving my point for me. He is indeed vague, and he is 
intentionally misleading the reader; and his agenda will be familiar to 
anyone who has visited the Thai National Museums. 

Saddhatissa's article *is* misleading --especially as to the relative dates 
of these artefacts, and what they do & don't prove. 

>>The toponym Suva.n.na-giri does appear in the Ashokan edicts ...
>>Thus, there is a sense in which Suvannabhumi does (and doesn't) appear in
>>the edicts --and/or in the eye of the beholder.
> 
> This is a red herring. 

It is not a red herring at all --it was an answer to your politely stated 
question. You asked me if the word appears in the edicts, and I answered 
your question with all due patience. Why are you taking umbridge? To 
answer a stated question in a discussion is not "a red herring"; it is not 
part of my original argument re: Saddhatissa's article, but it is a direct 
and sincere answer to the question that you posed. 

> Much of this is irrelevant. 

It is not "irrelevant" to the points that you yourself have raised: I wrote 
with great patience in reply to issues that you have introduced into the 
conversation (and that I had no prior interest in discussing on this list). 
It was you who claimed that we can assume the ethnicity of Thailand hasn't 
changed in 2,000 years; you have yet to admit of any positive basis for this 
assertion, nor do you regard this assertion as falsifiable by any of the 
very substantive points that I have raised in reply to it. 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability) 

> The point I was making is that the 
> peoples ruled by the ancient Pyu kings, the Mon rulers of Raama~n~na 
> and the Mon (and Khmer) rulers of various parts of present-day 
> Thailand are part of the ancestry of present-day Thai speakers.

L.C., I do not believe that your opinion is based on any kind of demographic 
or archaeological evidence; and I think this sort of assumption is about as 
difficult to maintain as to say (e.g.) that the descedents of the Malla 
dynasty of Newarese Nepal (today) are ethnically identical to the Malla / 
Malloi found in the tipitaka. 

> You still don't seem to understand that difference of language is not 
> evidence of historical difference of race.

It is true that lingual changes are not identical to ethnic change; and I 
think that I've demonstrated my awareness of the complexities of these kinds 
of historical interactions in my earlier postings. 

The caste system in India has retained ethnic distinctions that would have 
dissolved into the genetic and cultural soup of a country like Nepal (or 
England) over a thousand years ago; different customs and attitudes toward 
inter-marriage, and differing socio-linguistic attitudes, can dramatically 
alter the way in which ethnic change relates to lingual language. 

I think it is absurd to under-rate or obliterate the significance of 
ethnicity in the history (ancient or modern) of Asia; your replies to both 
my examples of Han genocidal campaigns in southern China (Miao rebellion, 
etc.) and my examples of ethnic change through forced migration (etc.) seem 
to show a real reluctance on your part to admit that ethnic distinctions 
have played an important part in recent history, and have been subject to 
some substantive change. 

> Viking raids begin around the ninth century; so I am not sure what 
> you mean by the 'Roman Empire'.

Only the holiest of roman empires. 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire) 

As I understand it, Britons were sold into slavery in continental Europe 
from the 6th to 10th centuries --although it is true that Viking involvement 
started earlier in (what is today) Northern Scotland & Ireland than in 
England. This period of European history is hardly my forte. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Victory breeds hatred. The defeated live in pain. Happily the peaceful live, 
giving up victory and defeat.
Random Dhammapada Verse 201

1288 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:02am 
Subject: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space

Hi Eisel,

On Tuesday I was at the installation ceremony of the new Thai Mahaasangiiti Tipi.taka edition in 40 volumes at Uppsala library. It was a moving and impressive event. I haven't had time to peruse the volumes yet, but the organisers passed out some printed materials with extracts. Here's how the edition romanizes a pali verse (using diacritics instead of velthuis, of course):

Baahusaccaca sippaca
Vinayo ca susikkhito;
Subhaasitaa ca yaa vaacaa,
Eta.m ma^ngalamuttama.m.

You'll notice that it does not separate word-boundaries where an indian alphabet would write the words together or convert nasals to anusvaras. Accordingly there won't be a need for apostrophes marking ellision either. So right there you've got a romanization scheme that avoids doing violence to euphony, metre, pronounciation, overall appearance etc. The only remaining objection is that roman characters need some digraphs, such as kh and bh, and I don't really see this as a serious hindrance. We are already accustomed to digraphs in English such as the th in 'this' or the ph in 'phonograph'. Anyone who reads pali in roman characters comes to see bh in bhavati as representing a single sound very rapidly.

When it comes to going directly to manuscripts or regionally produced editions, I really don't see how this would be an improvement. You must have noticed yourself that the manuscripts are far from consistent as to orthography and readings, and that they contain clerical errors. It's also common in Sri Lankan editions that elements of compounds are separated when they should be written together (sometimes, I believe, to adjust the line length to fit in the allotted space).

So I still believe the idea of comparing mss to create editions is a valid one. Your idea of making mss available on DVD-roms is, of course, a wonderful idea, but it would be an additional tool on top of normal editions. Reducing everyone to the status of a pioneering manuscript researcher would set pali studies back 120 years, not advance it.

Ultimately one could raise the same objection you raise against printed editions against the manuscripts you claim are superior. Aren't manuscripts a desecration of the buddhavacana, which should only be preserved through oral recitation? 2000 years ago you could very well have encountered this sort of argument, which seems to recur whenever a new media arises. Even now, the e-version of the Mahaasangiiti text is being delayed, and I suspect one of the reasons is this sort of suspicion about new media somehow 'cheapening' the text. So your idea of using the latest technology, computers, together with manuscripts seems a bit odd as it jumps over the level of the printed book. And yet it still doesn't really go back to the orally recited source. To be truly consistent shouldn't you be demanding that CDs be released with chanted texts and that no-one involve written alphabets in their scholarly work at all?


> how do you come up with a program that can interpret and
>correctly remove the apostrophe in PTS-style Pali?

It's very simple, I believe. The program,

1) deletes the apostrophe
2) deletes any intervening space between the apostrophe and the immediately preceding or following word.

For example: PTS gacchaam' aha.m > gacchaamaha.m

But in any case, you don't have to start with a romanized text using those conventions with which you disagree. They can be avoided altogether as in the above quoted edition, or they can be included (invisibly) so that the user of an e-text can choose to turn them on or off at will.

Thanks for the postcard, by the way. It's hanging on our fridge.

best regards,

/Rett

1289 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Sep 16, 2005 1:22pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 

navako wrote:

> Bhante,
> 
> 
> 
>> Maybe the problem with the links to other editions and manuscripts
>> in other scripts is that very few scholars will know all the Asian
>> scripts ...
>> 
>> 
> 
> The Roman-only approach (for this kind of digital resource) is
> problematic from two different perspectives: (1) It actually removes
> the scholars from the source text by a significant degree of
> separation/alienation,
> 
> 
> (2) Although Romanization can be construed as empowering a very small
> number of PTS-dependent scholars, it is also disempowering to the
> various indigenous Buddhist communities --some of whom are scholars,
> some are monks, and some just laypeople with a moderate degree of
> interest and application.
> 
> 
It was not in my mind to create a Roman only edition. It is easy to
convert a text from one script to the other by conversion programs. The
VRI CSCD system where the same Chattha Sangayana text can be viewed in
different scripts is a good example. The digital Buddhajayanthi can be
viewed both in Sinhala and Roman script.


> On balance, I think that a great deal is lost in Romanization (and
> current methods are problematic; the reduction of euphonic
> elisions/combinations to individuated words separated by nasal sounds
> is a real desecration of the source texts --and this whole business
> of inserting the apostrophe (') creates ambiguities in Romanized Pali
> that simply aren't there in original MS).
> 
I agree. The latest trend in Pali scholarship is not to add apostrophes
and capitals and do as little punctuation as possible.
howevertobecompletelyconsistentonewouldhavetoleaveoutallspacesbetweenwordslikeinasianmanuscriptsIdontthinkyouwouldliketoreadatextlikethisdoyou


> Besides which, why have such low expectations of western scholars? 
> They can learn a few different scripts. I'm 26, and I can Pali in
> read 5 or more different scripts (*not* including Roman); anyone who
> intends to sink more than a few months into study can extend their
> knowledge of one Indic script to include others --but if you become
> reliant on Romanization, it is a big effort to ween yourself off of
> that dependency.
> 
> 
In the Pali suttas the concept of yobbanamada ``the pride/intoxication
of youth'' is mentioned...

>> ... even to learn one or two scripts takes a lot of time and 
>> effort.
>> 
>> 
> 
> I really don't think it takes more than two weeks, if you already
> know one Asian Pali script, to learn a second or a third one.
> Developing excellent penmanship requires more patience --the hand is
> slower than the mind.
> 
> 
> 
Wow! This might be the case for you but it will not be the case for me
(I learnt Sinhala, Devanagiri, and Khom) and most Westerners and Asians.
How many Thais know the old Siamese Khom script? Very few. However, most
will be able to read Roman script. Did you learn the various closely
related scripts of Laos and Northern Thailand. In this case I understand
that it is easier.

>> Could you clarify: ``(3) the ability for participants to "mail in"
>> their suggestions and corrections.''?
>> 
>> 
> 
> I just meant that someone could systematically collect and reply to
> e-mails that have caught/reported errors. Aside from the "e-" in
> "e-mail", this is the same low-tech method that was used to write the
> Oxford English Dictionary.
> 
> 
This seems to contradict what you wrote in your last message: ``(An open
wiki format is likely to reduplicate labour) --and put an undue
editorial stress on a single "system operator".

>> By the way, microfilm scanning machines are very expensive and I
>> wonder if the quality would be good enough.
>> 
>> 
> 
> I picked up a microform reader off the sidewalk in Toronto
> --literally, a free Microform reader. All that it needed was a new
> lightbulb. Some "micro-" formats can be printed onto paper by a
> relatively simple zoom & xerox procedure; the "roll" formats (used
> for archived newspapers, etc.) generally require a specialized reader
> & printer --however, these can be cheaply purchased (second hand)
> from architects and mechanics. Until recently, almost every major
> architecture and machine-tools firm needed this kind of equipment
> --now most of them are selling them off cheaply
> 
> 
I was referring to microfilm scanners, not readers, ie, a machine
to digitally scan in microfilms, somewhat similar to the machines with
which one can scan in slides, but much more expensive (I remember
vaguely something like US $30000,-) as they are custom made.
Do microfilm scanners also end up on the sidewalk in Toronto?

>> The British Museum library has microfilmed very few if any of its
>> huge collection of Pali manuscripts ...
>> 
>> 
> 
> Almost none of the Pali MS in the U.K. have even been catalogued.
> When I contacted the Manchester U. library about the Rhys-Davids
> collection of Pali MS, they were blunt in saying that they had been
> put in a vault for many decades, and not seen by any human eyes
> since. Generally, all Pali MS in Europe are neglected ( ... maybe
> Denmark is an exception) --and the old imperialist arguments that
> they're better off in the west than in the countries where they were
> produced has "worn very thin". I'm the sort of rare Westerner who
> spoils everyone's dinner by saying aloud that the French ought to
> return all the Cambodian art they've stolen --and I've had a few 
> amusing replies from Cambodian museum specialists. For the record:
> *I* was paying for dinner, and a delightful time was had by all.
> 
> Until now, I believe I was the only one on this list ever to complain
> about this history; however, I am accutely aware of the piratical
> methods whereby the British amassed their Indological holdings --most
> museums and libraries are quite vague as to where and when these
> things were "accessioned" --however, if you do the research, you can
> normally trace a specific MS to a specific massacre. The "scorched
> earth policy" of the Uva rebellion doubtless justified the
> "preservation by way of theft" of many of the contents of temples in
> the area. I should also note that the Thai government is now chasing
> up the U.S.A. for Buddhist relics, statues, etc., looted from the
> Issan country during the American presence there --the irony here
> being that the U.S. & Thailand were allies, not enemies, in that 
> conflict.
> 
> 
I can not completely agree with you here.
As far as I know the Uva rebellion was before the time that the British
developed an interest in Pali, so the temple libraries might also have
been scorched.
By the time the Britishers (as they are called in Sri Lanka) invaded
Burma in the 1870s they had an interest and took many manuscripts back
with them.
The collections of Hugh Nevill and Bell, now in the British Museum, were
built up by buying and copying in the late 19th century early twentieth
century. I don't know about manuscripts being systematically looted here.
In any case, some Sinhalese kings also destroyed and looted temples. A
king of Burma in the 12th century apparently even waged war to get hold
of a Tipitaka set. The capital of Siam, Ayodhya, with all its artifacts
and temples was destroyed and looted by the Burmese in the 18th century.
Afterwards special Siamese council had to be convened because the 
remaining Pali
manuscripts apparently were of poor quality.
The conditions in which manuscripts are generally kept in Sri Lanka are
frightening. One of the oldest manuscripts in Sri Lanka, a 13th century
manuscript of the Visuddhimaggatika, kept in the University of
Peradeniya got partly destroyed by mold because it was wrongly preserved
by an amateur and kept in the same moist cellar where the rest of the
2000 or so manuscripts are kept. Likewise in the National Museum Library
in Colombo there is no airconditioning and some manuscripts have been
misplaced or stolen and can not be found. In some of the temples I have
visited manuscripts are eaten by termites, cockroaches, rats and are
kept in cupboards with old newspapers and cutlery... From what I was
told by Dr Filliozat it is impossible to see the manuscripts in the
National Library in Bankok and the situation in monasteries is similar
to Sri Lanka. I have some Pali manuscripts here and I can not think
about any place where I could give them to in Sri Lanka and trust that
they are kept well.
In contrast, the manuscripts in the collections in the Netherlands I
have visited are extremely well kept and accessible if one has a good
reason. The collections in England, etc, will also be well kept I am
sure and accessible if one turns up in person. They are neglected in the
sense that very few scholars have an interest in them, but not in terms
of physical conditions. I don't think that any of the manuscripts in the
West, Taiwan and Japan are unique and can not be found in Asia, so it is
good to have backups in the other places. If some Maoist revolution or
so breaks out here and many temples are destroyed then there will be
some Sinhalese manuscripts savely kept in some other place in the world.
The corruption is so bad here that one never knows for sure what will
happen to artifacts which are returned. Nevertheless, I believe it would
be good that manuscripts should be made more accessible to Asian
scholars by digitalisation and putting them on the internet.

Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

> 
>

1290 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:19am 
Subject: Re: Creating a Pali Tipitaka and Pali Literature Wiki-space 

Hi Rett, 

> On Tuesday I was at the installation ceremony of the new Thai Mahaasangiiti Tipi.taka edition in 40 volumes at Uppsala library. ... Here's how the edition romanizes a pali verse ...

Pardon my ignorance, but I take it this edition is a Romanized version of 
the Thai "9th council" tipitaka? I haven't seen a Romanized version of it 
in Thailand --but, then, why would I? 

> You'll notice that it does not separate word-boundaries where an indian alphabet would write the words together or convert nasals to anusvaras. Accordingly there won't be a need for apostrophes marking ellision either. So right there you've got a romanization scheme that avoids doing violence to euphony, metre, pronounciation ...

Agreed --this would seem to be a maked improvement over previous standards. 

> The only remaining objection is that roman characters need some digraphs, such as kh and bh, and I don't really see this as a serious hindrance.

I agree that it is a problem with many available solutions (even Ben 
Franklin managed to set up a press with ligatures/digraphs for "th" and 
other such combinations) --but it is curious that no edition known to me has 
put forth such a solution. In reading a recent Unicode proposal for the 
Lao-Dhamma script, I noticed a french author using superscript "h" for "bh", 
"ch", etc., to distinguish it from actual combinations of the (separate) 
letter h. Ugly, but it works. If you take a glance at the huge range of 
Phonetic symbols already comprised in Unicode, various possible solutions 
within Romanization will probably present themselves to your imagnation. 

> Your idea of making mss available on DVD-roms is, of course, a wonderful idea, but it would be an additional tool on top of normal editions.

Of course; the MS is not about to replace the printed edition. My point is 
the opposite: let us not neglect MS, or allow them to be replaced by the 
printed edition. Digitization of MS can be a reciprocal part of 
preservation --and the patronage of continuing the discipline of creating 
new MS by hand. 

>Reducing everyone to the status of a pioneering manuscript researcher would set pali studies back 120 years, not advance it.

However, reducing myself to the status of pioneering manuscript researcher, 
I advance myself. Paradoxical, hm? 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
When in two states (insight and concentration) a Brahmana goes to the 
Farther Shore, then all the fetters of that "one who knows" pass away.
Random Dhammapada Verse 384

1291 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:32am 
Subject: The Apostrophe, etc.

Although I agree that this is not an insoluble problem, it is more complex 
than this, Rett: 

>> how do you come up with a program that can interpret and
>>correctly remove the apostrophe in PTS-style Pali?
> 
> It's very simple, I believe. The program, 
> 
> 1) deletes the apostrophe
> 2) deletes any intervening space between the apostrophe and the immediately preceding or following word.

Firstly, you notice that there is already an "or" in your proposed solution. 
You would have to create a program that can judge (based on the context of 
the apostrophe) how to truncate the adjacent words, and how to combine which 
vowel with which consonant. Unicode Indic scripts do not have separate, 
standing vowels (as you know), but involve an annoying sequence of 
codepoints along the line of "+ Hal Akuru + vowel + space" etc. This 
problem can be solved, but it would take a talented programmer to make sure 
that it didn't produce errors in the way that a simple "find + replace" 
certainly would (in parsing the entire tipitaka). 

Changing "... a.m u ..." into "... mu ..." in various unicode scripts would 
be another little challenge. Yes, a talented computer programmer (working 
with a patient Palicist) can come up with a definitive list of "if/then" 
variable to solve the program --however, getting two such people to work 
together is a rare event. Nobody has done it yet; thus, it is not as easy 
as you may suppose. I would encourage you to experiment with the available 
tools for wrangling Romanized text into Unicode Asian scripts --there are 
currently many difficulties. All of these can be solved --but they haven't 
been, yet. 

> For example: PTS gacchaam' aha.m > gacchaamaha.m

You see, in this example the program would actually completely delete the 
vowel "a" in converting to some scripts (e.g. Sinhalese), would leave it in 
place in Roman, and would have other behaviours for other vowels in other 
contexts. 

To use an example of my own: you might consider that the velar 'n is 
sometimes a superscript in Burmese (sometimes not), and so "decoding" PTS 
Roman text into sequences of consonants in which the velar 'n combines with 
the correct consonant "as a vowel" could be tricky. Complex, compounded 
sequences of consonants in different scripts relate to Romanized text in 
different ways (e.g., there is no superscipt velar 'n in Sinhalese). 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
The Bhikkhu who has retired to a lonely abode, who has calmed his mind, who 
perceives the doctrine clearly, experiences a joy transcdending that of men.
Random Dhammapada Verse 373

1292 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:59am 
Subject: Pali Wiki-space / MS conservation

Bhante, 

> It was not in my mind to create a Roman only edition. It is easy to
> convert a text from one script to the other by conversion programs. The
> VRI CSCD system where the same Chattha Sangayana text can be viewed in
> different scripts is a good example. The digital Buddhajayanthi can be
> viewed both in Sinhala and Roman script.

However, I don't believe that either of these projects use proper "classical 
literary sinhalese" fonts --with correct ligatures, combined consonants, 
etc.? The CSCD certainly uses a kind of crude modern Sinhalese for Pali; it 
would be advantageous to produce / convert Roman e-text into correct Unicode 
Sinhalese (it would then be possible to display the text on-screen as either 
"correct" literary Sinhalese, with all the ligatures, or the user could 
choose to display it with the Hal-Akuru breaking up all the combined 
consonants, as in modern Sinhalese). 

>> Besides which, why have such low expectations of western scholars? 
>> They can learn a few different scripts. I'm 26, and I can Pali in
>> read 5 or more different scripts (*not* including Roman) ... 
>> 
> In the Pali suttas the concept of yobbanamada ``the pride/intoxication
> of youth'' is mentioned...

I'm insulted, and without reason. I have no pride in this accomplishment: 
everything stated in my previous message was to give voice to the point that 
it is really quite easy to extend one's understanding of Pali across many 
scripts. It is not much effort, and not much of an accomplishment. I am 
neither proud nor intoxicated in learning additional alphabets; it is a feat 
that many small children can demonstrate with ease. Obversely, you have not 
answered my question: "...why have such low expectations of western 
scholars?" 

> (I learnt Sinhala, Devanagiri, and Khom) and most Westerners and Asians.
> How many Thais know the old Siamese Khom script? ... Did you learn the various closely
> related scripts of Laos and Northern Thailand.

Khom is itself quite closely related to the "Northern Dhamma" scripts. 
There is basically a spectrum of Pali scripts from Sip-Song-Pa-Na (China) to 
Cambodia, with Burmese and Lao-Dhamma as different points on that spectrum. 
I believe the order in which I learned the scripts was (1) Sinhalese, (2) 
Khmer, (3) Burmese, (4) modern Thai / modern Lao, (5) Lao-Dhamma. I'm a bit 
out of practice with Khmer/Khom --but I have a beautiful set of fonts that 
work very well with all the Pali combinations from here:
http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxCambodian.html
The recent re-print of the Cambodian tipitaka seems like a cheap and 
good-quality binding. I have no idea what the quality of the actual text is 
(i.e., frequency of errors); a colleague (who can't read Pali) sent me a 
single volume from the current reprinting project --but there were very few 
(8?) lines in Pali, and the rest of the book was a modern Khmer 
commentary/story. 

> I can not completely agree with you here.
> As far as I know the Uva rebellion was before the time that the British
> developed an interest in Pali ...

Both Buddhist art and MS tended to be looted whenever they burnt the temples 
down; however, because the MS were chosen on the appearance of material 
value, predominantly kammavaca & jataka texts have made their way to the 
west in this way. 

> ...so the temple libraries might also have
> been scorched.

Absolutely. 

> The capital of Siam, Ayodhya, with all its artifacts
> and temples was destroyed and looted by the Burmese in the 18th century.

Precisely 10 years later, the Thais did the same thing to all three cities 
of Laos --they looted the libraries and temples, and took what they wanted 
back to Bangkok (the new capital). It's rarely recognised that the attempt 
of Rama I to re-assemble the Tipitaka was in part related to the "new" MS 
that had just been brought back by the first big predatory incursion into 
Lao (this was the transitional period under "general" Taksin; Rama I wasn't 
in the throne yet, I don't think). 

There was another big blood-letting, MS looting, and burning-down of Laotian 
libraries in 1827. They still have an enormous quantity of Lao MS in the 
Bangkok National Library (and, I suspect, the Bangkok Wat library) as a 
result of these raids. 

> One of the oldest manuscripts in Sri Lanka, a 13th century
> manuscript of the Visuddhimaggatika, kept in the University of
> Peradeniya got partly destroyed by mold because it was wrongly preserved
> by an amateur and kept in the same moist cellar where the rest of the
> 2000 or so manuscripts are kept. Likewise in the National Museum Library
> in Colombo there is no airconditioning and some manuscripts have been
> misplaced or stolen and can not be found.

Although it is not an excuse, I will note that I there have been similar 
horror stories in wealthy countries --both in Asia and in Europe. 99% of 
conservation science is "low tech" stuff; a colleague reported to me about a 
major collection of Chinese MS being preserved/destroyed in a set of 
cabinets made of highly acidic wood. She's a specialist in such things, and 
she observed that if they had simply selected a different kind of wood, or 
instructed the carpented to make a particular lining, it wouldn't be a 
problem; but all that the conservation staff cared about (at this un-named 
institution) was the aesthetic quality of the huge wooden cabinets. 
Resultantly, the MS will become brittle --then fall to pieces-- in a few 
decades at most. 

This is a "low tech" problem, with a "low tech" solution; however, awareness 
of the issues, and having an open-minded attitude toward the advice of 
specialists is a pre-requisite for setting up a sustainable collections 
environment (i.e., both "sustainable" economically for the institution and 
its staff, and "sustaining" the MS). 

> In some of the temples I have
> visited manuscripts are eaten by termites, cockroaches, rats and are
> kept in cupboards with old newspapers and cutlery...

I am duly horrified --however, please don't imagine that this is a problem 
that only exists in Sri Lanka, or even in Asia. To use a European example 
of the same, major work of Karl Marx that was "subject to the editorship of 
the mice", and is now published with various lacunae, as only one (gnawed 
upon) MS survived. 

> From what I was
> told by Dr Filliozat it is impossible to see the manuscripts in the
> National Library in Bankok ...

It is possible for a Thai national; if you're a foreigner it is "nearly 
impossible", due to bureaucratic obstacles. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Better than a thousand verses, comprising useless words, is one beneficial 
single line, by hearing which one is pacified.
Random Dhammapada Verse 101

1293 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:01am 
Subject: SV: Pali Wiki-space / MS conservation

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 19. september 2005 09:00
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Pali Wiki-space / MS conservation


Bhante, 

> It was not in my mind to create a Roman only edition. It is easy to
> convert a text from one script to the other by conversion programs. The
> VRI CSCD system where the same Chattha Sangayana text can be viewed in
> different scripts is a good example. The digital Buddhajayanthi can be
> viewed both in Sinhala and Roman script.

However, I don't believe that either of these projects use proper "classical

literary sinhalese" fonts --with correct ligatures, combined consonants, 
etc.? The CSCD certainly uses a kind of crude modern Sinhalese for Pali; it

would be advantageous to produce / convert Roman e-text into correct Unicode

Sinhalese (it would then be possible to display the text on-screen as either

"correct" literary Sinhalese, with all the ligatures, or the user could 
choose to display it with the Hal-Akuru breaking up all the combined 
consonants, as in modern Sinhalese). 

>> Besides which, why have such low expectations of western scholars? 
>> They can learn a few different scripts. I'm 26, and I can Pali in
>> read 5 or more different scripts (*not* including Roman) ... 
>> 
> In the Pali suttas the concept of yobbanamada ``the pride/intoxication
> of youth'' is mentioned...

I'm insulted, and without reason. I have no pride in this accomplishment: 
everything stated in my previous message was to give voice to the point that

it is really quite easy to extend one's understanding of Pali across many 
scripts. It is not much effort, and not much of an accomplishment. I am 
neither proud nor intoxicated in learning additional alphabets; it is a feat

that many small children can demonstrate with ease. Obversely, you have not

answered my question: "...why have such low expectations of western 
scholars?" 

> (I learnt Sinhala, Devanagiri, and Khom) and most Westerners and Asians.
> How many Thais know the old Siamese Khom script? ... Did you learn the
various closely
> related scripts of Laos and Northern Thailand.

Khom is itself quite closely related to the "Northern Dhamma" scripts. 
There is basically a spectrum of Pali scripts from Sip-Song-Pa-Na (China) to

Cambodia, with Burmese and Lao-Dhamma as different points on that spectrum.

I believe the order in which I learned the scripts was (1) Sinhalese, (2) 
Khmer, (3) Burmese, (4) modern Thai / modern Lao, (5) Lao-Dhamma. I'm a bit

out of practice with Khmer/Khom --but I have a beautiful set of fonts that 
work very well with all the Pali combinations from here:
http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxCambodian.html
The recent re-print of the Cambodian tipitaka seems like a cheap and 
good-quality binding. I have no idea what the quality of the actual text is

(i.e., frequency of errors); a colleague (who can't read Pali) sent me a 
single volume from the current reprinting project --but there were very few 
(8?) lines in Pali, and the rest of the book was a modern Khmer 
commentary/story.

Interesting. I used to have an incomplete Cambodian edition of the canon in
my office, before the demise of the CPD project. If I recall correctly it
was edited sometime in the thirties. Browsing through the volumes one day
many years ago, I found in one of them a comment on the edition written by
my illustrious predecessor on the project, Helmer Smith. It ran like this:
The effort of a royal court-ignoramus!

Ole Pind 


> I can not completely agree with you here.
> As far as I know the Uva rebellion was before the time that the British
> developed an interest in Pali ...

Both Buddhist art and MS tended to be looted whenever they burnt the temples

down; however, because the MS were chosen on the appearance of material 
value, predominantly kammavaca & jataka texts have made their way to the 
west in this way. 

> ...so the temple libraries might also have
> been scorched.

Absolutely. 

> The capital of Siam, Ayodhya, with all its artifacts
> and temples was destroyed and looted by the Burmese in the 18th century.

Precisely 10 years later, the Thais did the same thing to all three cities 
of Laos --they looted the libraries and temples, and took what they wanted 
back to Bangkok (the new capital). It's rarely recognised that the attempt 
of Rama I to re-assemble the Tipitaka was in part related to the "new" MS 
that had just been brought back by the first big predatory incursion into 
Lao (this was the transitional period under "general" Taksin; Rama I wasn't 
in the throne yet, I don't think). 

There was another big blood-letting, MS looting, and burning-down of Laotian

libraries in 1827. They still have an enormous quantity of Lao MS in the 
Bangkok National Library (and, I suspect, the Bangkok Wat library) as a 
result of these raids. 

> One of the oldest manuscripts in Sri Lanka, a 13th century
> manuscript of the Visuddhimaggatika, kept in the University of
> Peradeniya got partly destroyed by mold because it was wrongly preserved
> by an amateur and kept in the same moist cellar where the rest of the
> 2000 or so manuscripts are kept. Likewise in the National Museum Library
> in Colombo there is no airconditioning and some manuscripts have been
> misplaced or stolen and can not be found.

Although it is not an excuse, I will note that I there have been similar 
horror stories in wealthy countries --both in Asia and in Europe. 99% of 
conservation science is "low tech" stuff; a colleague reported to me about a

major collection of Chinese MS being preserved/destroyed in a set of 
cabinets made of highly acidic wood. She's a specialist in such things, and

she observed that if they had simply selected a different kind of wood, or 
instructed the carpented to make a particular lining, it wouldn't be a 
problem; but all that the conservation staff cared about (at this un-named 
institution) was the aesthetic quality of the huge wooden cabinets. 
Resultantly, the MS will become brittle --then fall to pieces-- in a few 
decades at most. 

This is a "low tech" problem, with a "low tech" solution; however, awareness

of the issues, and having an open-minded attitude toward the advice of 
specialists is a pre-requisite for setting up a sustainable collections 
environment (i.e., both "sustainable" economically for the institution and 
its staff, and "sustaining" the MS). 

> In some of the temples I have
> visited manuscripts are eaten by termites, cockroaches, rats and are
> kept in cupboards with old newspapers and cutlery...

I am duly horrified --however, please don't imagine that this is a problem 
that only exists in Sri Lanka, or even in Asia. To use a European example 
of the same, major work of Karl Marx that was "subject to the editorship of 
the mice", and is now published with various lacunae, as only one (gnawed 
upon) MS survived. 

> From what I was
> told by Dr Filliozat it is impossible to see the manuscripts in the
> National Library in Bankok ...

It is possible for a Thai national; if you're a foreigner it is "nearly 
impossible", due to bureaucratic obstacles. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Better than a thousand verses, comprising useless words, is one beneficial 
single line, by hearing which one is pacified.
Random Dhammapada Verse 101 

1294 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:32am 
Subject: RE: The Apostrophe, etc.

Dear Friends,


-----------quote---------------
EM wrote:

Changing "... a.m u ..." into "... mu ..." in various unicode scripts would
be another little challenge. Yes, a talented computer programmer (working
with a patient Palicist) can come up with a definitive list of "if/then" 
variable to solve the program --however, getting two such people to work
together is a rare event. Nobody has done it yet; thus, it is not as easy
as you may suppose. I would encourage you to experiment with the available
tools for wrangling Romanized text into Unicode Asian scripts --there are
currently many difficulties. All of these can be solved --but they haven't
been, yet. 

-----------endquote------------

Please see the following forum topic for an example of how we really can
find Palicists and programmers working together (I suppose I could be
considered both now :) ). 

http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=18767&st=0&p=262122

The kind of thing you are talking about we are already doing in javascript
with an off-line version of the PTS's PED and extra grammatical tools. I
don't see what would be difficult about what you are saying. If i.m and a.m
are single characters in a certain script, all you do is run a search for
i.m and a.m in the manuscripts like this:

var a = 'buddha.m di.t.thi.m'
a = a.replace(/a.m/g, '&#xxxx;');
a = a.replace(/i.m/g, '&#yyyy;');
(etc.)

Where xxxx is the unicode number for a.m in the particular script, and yyyy
is the one for i.m. And do another one for .t and so on. You can look at
my code if you download the PEDShell - I knew nothing about javascript a
month ago.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo



-----Original Message-----
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of navako
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 1:33 PM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [palistudy] The Apostrophe, etc.


Although I agree that this is not an insoluble problem, it is more complex
than this, Rett: 

>> how do you come up with a program that can interpret and correctly 
>>remove the apostrophe in PTS-style Pali?
> 
> It's very simple, I believe. The program,
> 
> 1) deletes the apostrophe
> 2) deletes any intervening space between the apostrophe and the
immediately preceding or following word.

Firstly, you notice that there is already an "or" in your proposed solution.

You would have to create a program that can judge (based on the context of
the apostrophe) how to truncate the adjacent words, and how to combine which
vowel with which consonant. Unicode Indic scripts do not have separate,
standing vowels (as you know), but involve an annoying sequence of
codepoints along the line of "+ Hal Akuru + vowel + space" etc. This
problem can be solved, but it would take a talented programmer to make sure
that it didn't produce errors in the way that a simple "find + replace" 
certainly would (in parsing the entire tipitaka). 

Changing "... a.m u ..." into "... mu ..." in various unicode scripts would
be another little challenge. Yes, a talented computer programmer (working
with a patient Palicist) can come up with a definitive list of "if/then" 
variable to solve the program --however, getting two such people to work
together is a rare event. Nobody has done it yet; thus, it is not as easy
as you may suppose. I would encourage you to experiment with the available
tools for wrangling Romanized text into Unicode Asian scripts --there are
currently many difficulties. All of these can be solved --but they haven't
been, yet. 

> For example: PTS gacchaam' aha.m > gacchaamaha.m

You see, in this example the program would actually completely delete the
vowel "a" in converting to some scripts (e.g. Sinhalese), would leave it in
place in Roman, and would have other behaviours for other vowels in other
contexts. 

To use an example of my own: you might consider that the velar 'n is
sometimes a superscript in Burmese (sometimes not), and so "decoding" PTS
Roman text into sequences of consonants in which the velar 'n combines with
the correct consonant "as a vowel" could be tricky. Complex, compounded
sequences of consonants in different scripts relate to Romanized text in
different ways (e.g., there is no superscipt velar 'n in Sinhalese). 

E.M. 


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ The Bhikkhu who has retired to a lonely abode, who
has calmed his mind, who perceives the doctrine clearly, experiences a joy
transcdending that of men.
Random Dhammapada Verse 373 

1295 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:41am 
Subject: Khmer edition

> Interesting. I used to have an incomplete Cambodian edition of the canon in
> my office, before the demise of the CPD project. If I recall correctly it
> was edited sometime in the thirties. Browsing through the volumes one day
> many years ago, I found in one of them a comment on the edition written by
> my illustrious predecessor on the project, Helmer Smith. It ran like this:
> The effort of a royal court-ignoramus! 
> 
> Ole Pind 

Yes, I imagine the attitudes of the French administrators of the "Institute 
Bouddhique" was not so different from the early editors at the PTS: "This 
may be inadequate, but better this, and better now, than maybe later, and 
maybe nothing at all". 

The current re-production of that edition has no corrections --it is almost 
a "Xerox-copy" of the original, although produced at an impressively low 
price. 

I would expect that the quality of each volume will vary (it is comprised of 
a huge number of fairly small volumes ... not much text per page) --I 
imagine just a few people worked on each section of the tipitaka. 

All this being said, the Institute Bouddhique in Cambodia was much more 
impressive than French colonial scholarship & publications in Laos. The 
French efforts to study the people they conquered were rather like their 
efforts at building railroads: big dreams that came up short. 

The French only built the railway about 40 km from Hanoi to the river; and 
they managed about a 9 km track in all of Lao. Compared to the miles of 
track laid by the British in India... 

E.M.




-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Examining day by day, the wise praise him who is of flawless life, 
intelligent, endowed with knowledge and virtue.
Random Dhammapada Verse 229

1296 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:36am 
Subject: SV: Khmer edition

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 20. september 2005 08:41
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Khmer edition


> Interesting. I used to have an incomplete Cambodian edition of the canon in
> my office, before the demise of the CPD project. If I recall correctly it
> was edited sometime in the thirties. Browsing through the volumes one day
> many years ago, I found in one of them a comment on the edition written by
> my illustrious predecessor on the project, Helmer Smith. It ran like this:
> The effort of a royal court-ignoramus! 
> 
> Ole Pind 

Yes, I imagine the attitudes of the French administrators of the "Institute 
Bouddhique" was not so different from the early editors at the PTS: "This 
may be inadequate, but better this, and better now, than maybe later, and 
maybe nothing at all". 

The current re-production of that edition has no corrections --it is almost 
a "Xerox-copy" of the original, although produced at an impressively low 
price. 

I would expect that the quality of each volume will vary (it is comprised of

a huge number of fairly small volumes ... not much text per page) --I 
imagine just a few people worked on each section of the tipitaka. 

All this being said, the Institute Bouddhique in Cambodia was much more 
impressive than French colonial scholarship & publications in Laos. 

Yes, one gets that impression when visiting the beautifully restored and
enlarged Muse Guimet in Paris. I wonder what the situation is today in
Laos. Presumably better. I am holding in my hands volume three of Textes
Bouddhiques du Laos: La puret par les mots, introduced, edited, and
translated by F. Bizot/F. Lagirarde, published by cole francaise dxtrme
Orient, 1996. I wrote a small paper for this volume on an interesting
historical problem concerning the indigenous interpretation of Kacc 1. You
probably have access to that in Vientiane.

Ole Pind 


The French efforts to study the people they conquered were rather like their 
efforts at building railroads: big dreams that came up short. 

The French only built the railway about 40 km from Hanoi to the river; and 
they managed about a 9 km track in all of Lao. Compared to the miles of 
track laid by the British in India... 

E.M.




-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Examining day by day, the wise praise him who is of flawless life, 
intelligent, endowed with knowledge and virtue.
Random Dhammapada Verse 229 

1297 
From: Alexander Genaud <alexgenaud@yahoo.com> 
Date: Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:01pm 
Subject: The Apostrophe, etc.

Dear Phra Noah Yuttadhammo and E.M.,

> Yes, a talented computer programmer (working
> with a patient Palicist) can come up with a
> definitive list of "if/then" variable to
> solve the program --however, getting two
> such people to work together is a rare event.

I would like to offer my services for any such task.

>
http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=18767&st=0&p=262122

I was unable to access this link. Could you summarize the topic?

Cheers,
Alex


Alexander E Genaud <lx@pobox.com>

PGP: CCC7 D19D D107 F079 2F3D
BF97 8443 DB5A 6DB8 9CE1
6DB89CE1 http://tinyurl.com/5mdmw

1298 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Wed Sep 21, 2005 0:28am 
Subject: Re: SV: Pali Wiki-space / MS conservation

From what I was
> told by Dr Filliozat it is impossible to see the manuscripts in the
> National Library in Bankok ...

>It is possible for a Thai national; if you're a foreigner it
>is "nearly 
>impossible", due to bureaucratic obstacles. 

*Although there are obstacles, they are not that strigent if
you speak Thai and go through the official sequence of forms.
I was allowed to see any ms. I requested in the National
Library and the staff was quite friendly and helpful. It does
require patience though:)

>
>I believe the order in which I learned the scripts was (1) Sinhalese, (2) 
>Khmer, (3) Burmese, (4) modern Thai / modern Lao, (5) Lao-Dhamma. I'm a bit
>
>out of practice with Khmer/Khom --but I have a beautiful set of fonts that 
>work very well with all the Pali combinations from here:
>http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxCambodian.html
>The recent re-print of the Cambodian tipitaka seems like a cheap and 
>good-quality binding. I have no idea what the quality of the actual text is
>
>(i.e., frequency of errors); a colleague (who can't read Pali) sent me a 
>single volume from the current reprinting project --but there were very few 
>(8?) lines in Pali, and the rest of the book was a modern Khmer 
>commentary/story.
>
>Interesting. I used to have an incomplete Cambodian edition of the canon in
>my office, before the demise of the CPD project. If I recall correctly it
>was edited sometime in the thirties. Browsing through the volumes one day
>many years ago, I found in one of them a comment on the edition written by
>my illustrious predecessor on the project, Helmer Smith. It ran like this:
>The effort of a royal court-ignoramus!

I have a short article on the history of French role in Pali
education and tipitaka work in Laos with NIU press coming out
early next year. I mention the some of the history of the
EFEO/Institue bouddhique role in the Cambodian tipitaka
edition in that article. Anne Hansen has a book on the history
of Cambodian Buddhism (1860-1930) coming out next year. She
discusses it fully in that book. Keep your eyes for her book,
its great.

jm
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 12:01:14 +0200
>From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
>Subject: SV: [palistudy] Pali Wiki-space / MS conservation 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>
>
>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
>Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
>af navako
>Sendt: 19. september 2005 09:00
>Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>Emne: [palistudy] Pali Wiki-space / MS conservation
>
>
>Bhante, 
>
>> It was not in my mind to create a Roman only edition. It is easy to
>> convert a text from one script to the other by conversion programs. The
>> VRI CSCD system where the same Chattha Sangayana text can be viewed in
>> different scripts is a good example. The digital Buddhajayanthi can be
>> viewed both in Sinhala and Roman script.
>
>However, I don't believe that either of these projects use proper "classical
>
>literary sinhalese" fonts --with correct ligatures, combined consonants, 
>etc.? The CSCD certainly uses a kind of crude modern Sinhalese for Pali; it
>
>would be advantageous to produce / convert Roman e-text into correct Unicode
>
>Sinhalese (it would then be possible to display the text on-screen as either
>
>"correct" literary Sinhalese, with all the ligatures, or the user could 
>choose to display it with the Hal-Akuru breaking up all the combined 
>consonants, as in modern Sinhalese). 
>
>>> Besides which, why have such low expectations of western scholars? 
>>> They can learn a few different scripts. I'm 26, and I can Pali in
>>> read 5 or more different scripts (*not* including Roman) ... 
>>> 
>> In the Pali suttas the concept of yobbanamada ``the pride/intoxication
>> of youth'' is mentioned...
>
>I'm insulted, and without reason. I have no pride in this accomplishment: 
>everything stated in my previous message was to give voice to the point that
>it is really quite easy to extend one's understanding of Pali across many 
>scripts. It is not much effort, and not much of an accomplishment. I am 
>neither proud nor intoxicated in learning additional alphabets; it is a feat
>that many small children can demonstrate with ease. Obversely, you have not
>answered my question: "...why have such low expectations of western 
>scholars?" 
>
>> (I learnt Sinhala, Devanagiri, and Khom) and most Westerners and Asians.
>> How many Thais know the old Siamese Khom script? ... Did you learn the
>various closely >> related scripts of Laos and Northern Thailand.
>
>Khom is itself quite closely related to the "Northern Dhamma" scripts. 
>There is basically a spectrum of Pali scripts from Sip-Song-Pa-Na (China) to
>Cambodia, with Burmese and Lao-Dhamma as different points on that spectrum.
>
>I believe the order in which I learned the scripts was (1) Sinhalese, (2) 
>Khmer, (3) Burmese, (4) modern Thai / modern Lao, (5) Lao-Dhamma. I'm a bit
>
>out of practice with Khmer/Khom --but I have a beautiful set of fonts that 
>work very well with all the Pali combinations from here:
>http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxCambodian.html
>The recent re-print of the Cambodian tipitaka seems like a cheap and 
>good-quality binding. I have no idea what the quality of the actual text is
>
>(i.e., frequency of errors); a colleague (who can't read Pali) sent me a 
>single volume from the current reprinting project --but there were very few 
>(8?) lines in Pali, and the rest of the book was a modern Khmer 
>commentary/story.
>
>Interesting. I used to have an incomplete Cambodian edition of the canon in
>my office, before the demise of the CPD project. If I recall correctly it
>was edited sometime in the thirties. Browsing through the volumes one day
>many years ago, I found in one of them a comment on the edition written by
>my illustrious predecessor on the project, Helmer Smith. It ran like this:
>The effort of a royal court-ignoramus!
>
>Ole Pind 
> 
>
>> I can not completely agree with you here.
>> As far as I know the Uva rebellion was before the time that
the British
>> developed an interest in Pali ...
>
>Both Buddhist art and MS tended to be looted whenever they burnt the temples
>down; however, because the MS were chosen on the appearance of material 
>value, predominantly kammavaca & jataka texts have made their way to the 
>west in this way. 
>
>> ...so the temple libraries might also have
>> been scorched.
>
>Absolutely. 
>
>> The capital of Siam, Ayodhya, with all its artifacts
>> and temples was destroyed and looted by the Burmese in the 18th century.
>
>Precisely 10 years later, the Thais did the same thing to all three cities 
>of Laos --they looted the libraries and temples, and took what they wanted
>back to Bangkok (the new capital). It's rarely recognised that the attempt 
>of Rama I to re-assemble the Tipitaka was in part related to the "new" MS 
>that had just been brought back by the first big predatory incursion into 
>Lao (this was the transitional period under "general" Taksin; Rama I wasn't 
>in the throne yet, I don't think). 
>
>There was another big blood-letting, MS looting, and burning-down of Laotian
>
>libraries in 1827. They still have an enormous quantity of Lao MS in the 
>Bangkok National Library (and, I suspect, the Bangkok Wat library) as a 
>result of these raids. 
>
>> One of the oldest manuscripts in Sri Lanka, a 13th century
>> manuscript of the Visuddhimaggatika, kept in the University of
>> Peradeniya got partly destroyed by mold because it was wrongly preserved
>> by an amateur and kept in the same moist cellar where the rest of the
>> 2000 or so manuscripts are kept. Likewise in the National Museum Library
>> in Colombo there is no airconditioning and some manuscripts have been
>> misplaced or stolen and can not be found.
>
>Although it is not an excuse, I will note that I there have been similar 
>horror stories in wealthy countries --both in Asia and in Europe. 99% of 
>conservation science is "low tech" stuff; a colleague reported to me about a
>major collection of Chinese MS being preserved/destroyed in a set of 
>cabinets made of highly acidic wood. She's a specialist in such things, and
>she observed that if they had simply selected a different kind of wood, or 
>instructed the carpented to make a particular lining, it wouldn't be a 
>problem; but all that the conservation staff cared about (at this un-named 
>institution) was the aesthetic quality of the huge wooden cabinets. 
>Resultantly, the MS will become brittle --then fall to pieces-- in a few 
>decades at most. 
>
>This is a "low tech" problem, with a "low tech" solution; however, awareness
>of the issues, and having an open-minded attitude toward the advice of 
>specialists is a pre-requisite for setting up a sustainable collections 
>environment (i.e., both "sustainable" economically for the institution and 
>its staff, and "sustaining" the MS). 
>
>> In some of the temples I have
>> visited manuscripts are eaten by termites, cockroaches, rats and are
>> kept in cupboards with old newspapers and cutlery...
>
>I am duly horrified --however, please don't imagine that this is a problem 
>that only exists in Sri Lanka, or even in Asia. To use a European example 
>of the same, major work of Karl Marx that was "subject to the editorship of 
>the mice", and is now published with various lacunae, as only one (gnawed 
>upon) MS survived. 
>
>> From what I was >> told by Dr Filliozat it is impossible to see the manuscripts in the >> National Library in Bankok ...
>
>It is possible for a Thai national; if you're a foreigner it is "nearly 
>impossible", due to bureaucratic obstacles. 
>
>E.M. 
>
>
>-- 
>A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
>View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
>Better than a thousand verses, comprising useless words, is one beneficial 
>single line, by hearing which one is pacified.
>Random Dhammapada Verse 101 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1299 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Wed Sep 21, 2005 7:27am 
Subject: RE: The Apostrophe, etc.

Dear Alex,

The topic has been hidden, to avoid copyright issues that we have run into.
Apparently the PTS and Chicago U are not happy to let us use the PED on our
computers. The topic was just a forum to discuss bugs and updates to the
PEDShell and Pali Grammar Tools project.

Please see here:

http://pali.fivethousandyears.org/PED/ 

for the PEDShell. If you would like to download the PED files that go with
it, I can show you how (just use a batch file and a freeware program from
Germany called download.exe).

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo 

-----Original Message-----
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Alexander Genaud
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 1:01 AM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [palistudy] The Apostrophe, etc.

Dear Phra Noah Yuttadhammo and E.M.,

> Yes, a talented computer programmer (working with a patient Palicist) 
> can come up with a definitive list of "if/then" variable to solve the 
> program --however, getting two such people to work together is a rare 
> event.

I would like to offer my services for any such task.

>
http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=18767&st=0&p=262122

I was unable to access this link. Could you summarize the topic?

Cheers,
Alex


Alexander E Genaud <lx@pobox.com>

PGP: CCC7 D19D D107 F079 2F3D
BF97 8443 DB5A 6DB8 9CE1
6DB89CE1 http://tinyurl.com/5mdmw

1300 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Sep 22, 2005 3:15am 
Subject: RE: The Apostrophe, etc.

Dear Friends,

Here's an example of using javascript to transliterate velthius paa.li to
unicode (at least I think it's unicode) paa.li:

http://pali.fivethousandyears.org/velthius/

it took me all morning to do :)

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1301 
From: Kuen <tzungkuen@yahoo.com.tw> 
Date: Thu Sep 22, 2005 3:55am 
Subject: Why does CSCD keep Mongol script?

Dear friends

Does Pali Buddhism ever exist in the region of
Mongolia ? Why does CSCD keep Mongol script? I am
curious about it. I forwarded this question in the
Pali Group, but it seems that no one knows...

with metta

Tzung Kuen

1302 
From: Alexander Genaud <alexgenaud@yahoo.com> 
Date: Thu Sep 22, 2005 11:33am 
Subject: RE: The Apostrophe, etc.

Phra Noah Yuttadhammo,

Thank you for the link. I suspect I understand what
the script does. Have you modified your version of
the PED? I wonder if it would be skillful to create
a public domain (not GPL/wikipedia, but truly public
domain) dictionary as a community project.

Alex

> Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:27:19 +0700
> From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org>
> Subject: RE: The Apostrophe, etc.
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> The topic has been hidden, to avoid copyright issues that we
> have run into.
> Apparently the PTS and Chicago U are not happy to let us use
> the PED on our
> computers. The topic was just a forum to discuss bugs and
> updates to the
> PEDShell and Pali Grammar Tools project.
> 
> Please see here:
> 
> http://pali.fivethousandyears.org/PED/ 
> 
> for the PEDShell. If you would like to download the PED files
> that go with
> it, I can show you how (just use a batch file and a freeware
> program from
> Germany called download.exe).
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Yuttadhammo 
> 

Alexander E Genaud <lx@pobox.com>

PGP: CCC7 D19D D107 F079 2F3D
BF97 8443 DB5A 6DB8 9CE1
6DB89CE1 http://tinyurl.com/5mdmw

1303 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:30pm 
Subject: RE: RE: The Apostrophe, etc.

Dear Alex,

Thank you for your reply. 

I have modified the files on my computer, but what I put up on the Internet
(and later removed) was originally not modified. At the very end I put up
modified version (only removing the extraneous links and pictures, and
seperating out double entries) and then we got a letter stating that:

"The "Creative Commons" license has been withdrawn on the Univ. of Chicago
Web site while we wait till Dr Nye returns from India. We will then be able
to work out how to continue. It was our understanding that the text was to
only be used on the university Web site and was not for downloading and
distribution."

Your PD dictionary sounds like a great idea. How do we start?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

-----Original Message-----
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Alexander Genaud
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 10:33 PM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [palistudy] RE: The Apostrophe, etc.

Phra Noah Yuttadhammo,

Thank you for the link. I suspect I understand what the script does. Have
you modified your version of the PED? I wonder if it would be skillful to
create a public domain (not GPL/wikipedia, but truly public
domain) dictionary as a community project.

Alex

1304 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Sep 23, 2005 8:03am 
Subject: Khmer edition; Lao libraries

> I am holding in my hands volume three of Textes
> Bouddhiques du Laos: La puret?par les mots, introduced, edited, and
> translated by F. Bizot/F. Lagirarde, published by ?ole francaise 
d?xtr?e
> Orient, 1996. I wrote a small paper for this volume on an interesting
> historical problem concerning the indigenous interpretation of Kacc 1.
You
> probably have access to that in Vientiane.

I do not have access to any
E.F.d'E.O. publications here in Meaung Lao. 

Aside from Manuscripts, the National Library has mostly Russian
and Vietnamese communist materials; there is neither much in Lao
nor English nor French. The French books that are available are
primarily novels, not scholarly materials. 

The only scholarly materials on Pali, etc., that the National Library
has amassed (I believe) the ones that I donated myself. I gave them just 
about
all the books that I owned some time ago --and I haven't seen them since.
They don't have any empty space on the bookshelves, so it may be that
my donations were put on top of the rotting pile of textbooks that the U.S.
consulate gave them not too recently. I think there are a few
scholarly reference books in the desk of the MS librarian --but
not for general use or circulation. 

Library infrastructure in Lao is primarily aimed at providing
support for basic education and literacy. Neither Luang Pabang
nor Vientiane have much in the way of contemporary library
collections; I've just seen the new library in Pakse --it is
very nice, but has relatively few books. I'm writing this from
Champasak --where the availability of books of any kind is
(as in rural Lao beyond) almost nil. 

The NUOL / Dong Dok University library is a nice place to read
--but, again, one has to bring one's own books for the occasion.
There aren't many on the shelves, and I am told by scandalized foreigners 
that
the books are often missing pages that the professors considered
offensive. 

I have spoken to two Lao professors (who happen to speak
german) from NUOL / Dong Dok U, and they assured me that there were
no books or resources pertaining to Pali, etc., anywhere in the
university system since it had been removed from both the high-school
and university the curriculum (in the early 1980s?). Whatever limited
Pali/indological resources exist have been concentrated in the Sangha
College (Vientiane), and in a few odd Wats. This is particularly
unfortunate for women's education, as (1) these areas are difficult or
prohibitive for women to enter, (2) women's education in Pali and
Buddhist doctrine seems to be a growth industry everywhere else in
Asia, and (3) over 80% of the actual sermon attending/active Buddhist
population in Urban Lao is female. The statistics I've seen are
purely for Vientiane, it may be that there's more male participation
in the rural districts; however, in "the big city", actually
practicing Buddhism seems to be a predominantly female passtime. 

Justin McDaniel can describe the collections at the Sangha College;
as I neither wear a robe nor speak much Lao, I would have trouble
insinuating myself into their library. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who delights in subduing (evil) thoughts, who meditates on "the 
loathsomeness" (of the body), who is ever mindful, - it is he who will make 
an end (of craving). He will sever Mara's bond.
Random Dhammapada Verse 350

1305 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:47pm 
Subject: Re: Khmer edition; Lao libraries

Hey E.M. when you are back in Vientiane, the State Run 
Bookstore near Nam Phu sells copies of EFEO editions (real 
copies). They had plenty when I was there about a year ago. 
Maybe they were bought up, but by whom? There I bought: 
Bizot, François et Francois LaGirarde. La pureté par les mots. 
Paris: L’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1996. 

Bizot, F. Le chemin de Lankâ. Paris/Chiang Mai/Phnom Penh: 
L’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1992. 
and 
Bizot, F et O von Hinueber. La guirlande de Joyaux. 
Paris/Chiang Mai/Phnom Penh: L’École Française 
d’Extrême-Orient, 1992. 
Ask if they have any left. They sell them for about 20 USD 
each which is a deep discount. 
Best, 
jm 
P.S. I contacted my friends at Perendiniya and Columbo on your 
behalf. They said they look forward to hearing from you in the 
future if you are in the country. 

---- Original message ---- 
>Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:03:59 +0600 
>From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Khmer edition; Lao libraries 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com 
> 
> 
>> I am holding in my hands volume three of Textes 
>> Bouddhiques du Laos: La puret?par les mots, introduced, 
edited, and 
>> translated by F. Bizot/F. Lagirarde, published by ?ole 
francaise 
>d?xtr?e 
>> Orient, 1996. I wrote a small paper for this volume on an 
interesting 
>> historical problem concerning the indigenous interpretation 
of Kacc 1. 
>You 
>> probably have access to that in Vientiane. 
> 
>I do not have access to any 
>E.F.d'E.O. publications here in Meaung Lao. 
> 
>Aside from Manuscripts, the National Library has mostly Russian 
>and Vietnamese communist materials; there is neither much in Lao 
>nor English nor French. The French books that are available are 
>primarily novels, not scholarly materials. 
> 
>The only scholarly materials on Pali, etc., that the National 
Library 
>has amassed (I believe) the ones that I donated myself. I 
gave them just 
>about 
>all the books that I owned some time ago --and I haven't seen 
them since. 
>They don't have any empty space on the bookshelves, so it may 
be that 
>my donations were put on top of the rotting pile of textbooks 
that the U.S. 
>consulate gave them not too recently. I think there are a few 
>scholarly reference books in the desk of the MS librarian --but 
>not for general use or circulation. 
> 
>Library infrastructure in Lao is primarily aimed at providing 
>support for basic education and literacy. Neither Luang Pabang 
>nor Vientiane have much in the way of contemporary library 
>collections; I've just seen the new library in Pakse --it is 
>very nice, but has relatively few books. I'm writing this from 
>Champasak --where the availability of books of any kind is 
>(as in rural Lao beyond) almost nil. 
> 
>The NUOL / Dong Dok University library is a nice place to read 
> --but, again, one has to bring one's own books for the occasion. 
>There aren't many on the shelves, and I am told by 
scandalized foreigners 
>that 
>the books are often missing pages that the professors considered 
>offensive. 
> 
>I have spoken to two Lao professors (who happen to speak 
>german) from NUOL / Dong Dok U, and they assured me that 
there were 
>no books or resources pertaining to Pali, etc., anywhere in the 
>university system since it had been removed from both the 
high-school 
>and university the curriculum (in the early 1980s?). 
Whatever limited 
>Pali/indological resources exist have been concentrated in 
the Sangha 
>College (Vientiane), and in a few odd Wats. This is particularly 
>unfortunate for women's education, as (1) these areas are 
difficult or 
>prohibitive for women to enter, (2) women's education in Pali and 
>Buddhist doctrine seems to be a growth industry everywhere 
else in 
>Asia, and (3) over 80% of the actual sermon attending/active 
Buddhist 
>population in Urban Lao is female. The statistics I've seen are 
>purely for Vientiane, it may be that there's more male 
participation 
>in the rural districts; however, in "the big city", actually 
>practicing Buddhism seems to be a predominantly female passtime. 
> 
>Justin McDaniel can describe the collections at the Sangha 
College; 
>as I neither wear a robe nor speak much Lao, I would have trouble 
>insinuating myself into their library. 
> 
>E.M. 
> 
> 
>-- 
>A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ 
>View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/ 
>He who delights in subduing (evil) thoughts, who meditates on 
"the 
>loathsomeness" (of the body), who is ever mindful, - it is he 
who will make 
>an end (of craving). He will sever Mara's bond. 
>Random Dhammapada Verse 350 
______________ 
Dr. Justin McDaniel 
Dept. of Religious Studies 
2617 Humanities Building 
University of California, Riverside 
Riverside, CA 92521 
909-827-4530 
justinm@ucr.edu

1306 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Sep 24, 2005 8:03am 
Subject: Lao libraries; Colombo to Kandy

Although I wouldn't have thought of posting my travel plans (i.e., Sri 
Lanka) to the list, as Justin has already done so, I suppose it is for the 
best, as there might be requests for me to search out editions (etc.) in Sri 
Lanka from some of the members. 

> Hey E.M. when you are back in Vientiane, the State Run
> Bookstore near Nam Phu sells copies of EFEO editions ...

I have honestly never seen any such thing --but the state book store has 
been through a series of renovations in the past six months. It may be that 
the EFEO shelf has moved around --or is sequestered in some odd corner. I 
am pleased to say that posters of Ho Chi Minh and K. Phomvihan are still 
available on demand. 

> P.S. I contacted my friends at Perendiniya and Columbo on your
> behalf. They said they look forward to hearing from you in the
> future if you are in the country.

I will likely arrive in Colombo in late December and remain on the sacred 
island for about a month. I've been reviewing various historical sources on 
Lanka in advance of the trip; it is not the most flattering picture of 
Sinhalese Buddhism is found in the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims who 
passed through those parts. 

If it is possible, I will traverse the island by bicycle. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Delightful are the forests where worldlings delight not; the passionless 
will rejoice (therein), (for) they seek no sensual pleasures.
Random Dhammapada Verse 99

1307 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Sep 24, 2005 11:38pm 
Subject: Thai Tipitaka edition

Dear Rett,

Regarding the Mahaasangiiti

Even now, the e-version of the Mahaasangiiti text is being delayed, and I suspect one of the reasons is this sort of suspicion about new media somehow 'cheapening' the text. 

This issue came recently up in the Yahoo Pali Forum too. Basically, this 
project is a Thai royal prestige project and I don't expect it to come 
on the internet in the forseeable future. As far as I understand first 
one thousand sets will have to be distributed to universities and other 
institutions around the world. A Thai delegation will have to go to each 
of these places, stay in 5 star hotels, give glamourous presentations 
and dinners. So far they have only distributed a handful so there will 
still be a while to go... From the presentation I watched in a five star 
hotel in Kandy in November 2003 it seems to me that they regard the 
Tipitaka as a delicate object of worship to be handled carefully with 
silk gloves and stored in a glass case to be worshipped, rather than 
used... This seems to be a common attitude in Thailand I was told.
This edition claims to be the true 6th council edition. I was told that 
the Burmese sixth council edition as published in Burma and given in VRI 
CSCD is almost identical with the Fifth Council edition done in the 
1850s and engraved in the Mandalay slabs. After the Sixth council was 
over and president Nu, who had organised the council, was ousted, the 
`orthodox' and pro-Fifth Council group of Burmese monks participating in 
the council took over as they has more political power and had their 
fifth council version of the sixth council edition printed rather than 
the official version approved in the council... The Thais found out 
about this and decided to publish the real 6th council edition, but it 
has developed into a royal prestige project intending to imitate King 
Chullalonkorns travels around the world distributing Tipititakas.

The Budsir digital edition of the Royal Thai Tipitaka and commentaries 
made and sold by Mahidol University, Bankok is somewhat similarThai 
prestige project. It used to be sold for thousands of dollars but is now 
sold at a ``mere'' US$ 300 to individuals. I recently had the chance to 
use it. The software it was made in is now somewhat outdated and the 
search program does not work in roman script. 

This being said, at least the Thais are capable of producing a good 
quality digital edition. The Sinhalese digital Buddha Jayanthi is full 
of errors.

Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1308 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Sep 24, 2005 11:48pm 
Subject: Bicycling in Sri Lanka

Dear Navako,

Thanks for the comments.
I was out for a couple of days so could not reply earlier.
No personal insult was intended, only an observation that things tend to 
be much easier when one is young without realising it and sometimes 
being proud of it.
Regarding learning scripts: I don't have low expectations of Western 
scholars, but more about myself. The people I know generally don't find 
Sinhala script easy. I think that the remark by Rett in his message of 
the 16th is very appropriate (``Two weeks sounds about right, putting in 
a concentrated hour or two a day. But another reading skill you haven't 
mentioned is developing 'instant recognition' of words in the new script 
(as opposed to spelling your way through words). This requires extensive 
reading to develop. This skill is vital for being able to skim quickly 
through texts looking for certain words or grammatical forms, or for 
quickly taking in a table of contents.'')
I wonder if I will ever be able to get this instant recognition for 
Sinhala as, like Rett writes it is much easier to develop as a child. I 
usually have to read every letter of a word and then often look at it 
again as a whole word. With manuscripts this becomes even more difficult 
as the words are linked. This slows down reading to an inconvenient 
pace. For some Pali texts that I know by heart such as the Patimokkha 
this problem is not so big as I know what word to expect. I might be 
incorrect, but it seems to me that when I read English it seems that I 
don't read all the letters in a word, rather there often seems to be an 
instant recognition of the whole word.

Dr Jacqueline Filliozat is willing to provide her EFEO materials for a 
manuscript super catalogue. She might also be willing to provide her 
editions of texts like the Pathamasambodhi for a new digital Tipititaka.

Although Sri Lanka is a beautiful country, the way the Sinhalese drive 
on the narrow roads (which have hardly changed since the British left 
here) is very reckless and there are many traffic accidents. I would not 
recommend to go bicycling here unless you intend to return to Canada in 
a coffin. In any case you would need a mountain bike if you want to go 
into the hill country. If you like I can send you a digital copy of Ven. 
S. Dhammika's forthcoming book called ``Sacred Island'' which gives a 
lot of useful info about the sacred places, etc. I am living in Kandy 
and you are welcome to drop in.

Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1309 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:39am 
Subject: Re: Thai Tipitaka edition

Hi Bhante,

Thanks for the interesting information on the revised 6th council 
text. I certainly noticed the 'silk gloves' attitude at the 
installation ceremony in Uppsala, but thought at first it was just a 
nice way to create some kusalacitta in the participants.

The highlight of the ceremony was a recitation of the Mangalasutta in 
both Pali and Swedish, and it was a telling example of the official 
attitude you describe. The Swedish translation was done from the 
English version available in the accompanying booklet, rather than 
directly from the Pali, as shown by at least one specific and 
revealing translation error:

sippa.m is translated into English as 'artistry', which is an 
acceptable translation since it can refer to handicrafts or skills.

In the Swedish version it's translated: 'knsla fr sknhet', 'a 
feeling for beauty' which appears to get hung up on the word 'art' in 
the English 'artistry'. There is no way someone who knows Pali would 
translate sippa.m into 'a feeling for beauty'.

So the people at the Swedish end of the project didn't even bother to 
find a Swede able to translate from Pali, or at least check the 
Swedish version for errors, with the result that at this merit-making 
ceremony an erroneous version of the sutta was read aloud and 
represented as the word of the Buddha. This carelessness doesn't fit 
well with the donation of a text which is being billed as correcting 
40,000 errors in the previous version.

And so I wonder, does this error by the Swedish contacts somehow 
reflect Bangkok's priorities? Normally I wouldn't think so. Normally 
I would just smile and have a mind of gratefulness and be moved to 
tears by the beauty of it all. But if the organizers aren't willing 
to release a searchable e-edition, then my answer would have to be: 
yes, sadly their interest is primarily in good publicity not actually 
promoting tipitaka studies, in the magical effects of listening to 
recitations not actually understanding what the Buddha said.

It's a shame if all the effort which has gone into producing this 
edition should remain locked up in the rooms of the old and rare 
books collections of institutions like Uppsala, standing untouched on 
improvised altars surrounded by the rotting remains of flowers from 
the donation ceremonies.

best regards,

/Rett

1310 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Sun Sep 25, 2005 11:29am 
Subject: RE: Thai Tipitaka edition

rett wrote:
> <snip> And so I wonder, does this error by the Swedish contacts somehow
> reflect Bangkok's priorities? Normally I wouldn't think so. Normally
> I would just smile and have a mind of gratefulness and be moved to
> tears by the beauty of it all. But if the organizers aren't willing
> to release a searchable e-edition, then my answer would have to be: 
> yes, sadly their interest is primarily in good publicity not actually
> promoting tipitaka studies, in the magical effects of listening to
> recitations not actually understanding what the Buddha said. 
> 
> It's a shame if all the effort which has gone into producing this
> edition should remain locked up in the rooms of the old and rare
> books collections of institutions like Uppsala, standing untouched on
> improvised altars surrounded by the rotting remains of flowers from
> the donation ceremonies. 

I was following this project some time ago, and even phoned a man in Bangkok
who was very surprised that someone had his number, and kept telling me to
wait just a "paak" (period of time). He wouldn't say how long, so I called
back a month later and asked again. My understanding is that they do indeed
intend to make an .xml (whatever that means) version, after I finally talked
to a foreigner in Chiang Mai who was working directly on the project - he
gave me lots of details, and it seems that the real problem is not desire to
do these things, but resources, people and time to get the job done. He
told me that they wanted to make English and Thai translations, and the
electronic side seemed high on their priority list. I think secrecy is also
high on their list, because there are many hands in Thai Buddhism that might
like to try to take control of such a project. Of course, I haven't
followed it in a while, things may have changed.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1311 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Sun Sep 25, 2005 11:29am 
Subject: RE: Thai Tipitaka edition

rett wrote:
> <snip> And so I wonder, does this error by the Swedish contacts somehow
> reflect Bangkok's priorities? Normally I wouldn't think so. Normally
> I would just smile and have a mind of gratefulness and be moved to
> tears by the beauty of it all. But if the organizers aren't willing
> to release a searchable e-edition, then my answer would have to be: 
> yes, sadly their interest is primarily in good publicity not actually
> promoting tipitaka studies, in the magical effects of listening to
> recitations not actually understanding what the Buddha said. 
> 
> It's a shame if all the effort which has gone into producing this
> edition should remain locked up in the rooms of the old and rare
> books collections of institutions like Uppsala, standing untouched on
> improvised altars surrounded by the rotting remains of flowers from
> the donation ceremonies. 

I was following this project some time ago, and even phoned a man in Bangkok
who was very surprised that someone had his number, and kept telling me to
wait just a "paak" (period of time). He wouldn't say how long, so I called
back a month later and asked again. My understanding is that they do indeed
intend to make an .xml (whatever that means) version, after I finally talked
to a foreigner in Chiang Mai who was working directly on the project - he
gave me lots of details, and it seems that the real problem is not desire to
do these things, but resources, people and time to get the job done. He
told me that they wanted to make English and Thai translations, and the
electronic side seemed high on their priority list. I think secrecy is also
high on their list, because there are many hands in Thai Buddhism that might
like to try to take control of such a project. Of course, I haven't
followed it in a while, things may have changed.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1312 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:08am 
Subject: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat

I am currently in Ubon Ratchathani --and will visit "Wat Nanasat" tomorrow, 
and possibly on the day following as well. 

If anyone on the list knows any of the monks there, you have a very brief 
window of opportunity to pass a message on through myself. 

The Wat has a book-shop, and I will report any interesting finds; the last 
time I visited, nobody could be found to unlock the bookshop. 

I have visited Wat Nanasat (i.e., "the international temple" --one of the 
few in the Issan country with a focus on teaching in Western languages) 
before, but none of the monks were available for comment; my current plan is 
basically to show up and ask if anyone there is studying Pali. 

They're primarily known for meditiation (not Pali scholarship), and outreach 
to western tourists. Their reputation in the latter category is (reputedly) 
much better than "heterodox" international temples such as the Dharma-Kaya 
foundation. 

Again: if anyone has a contact at Wat Nanasat, you might want to e-mail the 
monk in question to mention that I'm on my way (Sept. 27th), or e-mail 
myself (off list) to direct me to the monk, if you'd like me to pass on any 
well wishes (etc.). 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Maghava, the king of gods, attained such great supremacy over the gods 
through heedfulness. Heedfulness is always praised and heedlessness is 
always blamed.
Random Dhammapada Verse 30

1313 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:20am 
Subject: Mahaasangiiti; Thai Tipitaka edition

Many thanks to Nyanatusita for this latest round of messages; all very 
informative. 

Re:
> As far as I understand first 
> one thousand sets will have to be distributed to universities and other 
> institutions around the world. A Thai delegation will have to go to each 
> of these places, stay in 5 star hotels, give glamourous presentations 
> and dinners. So far they have only distributed a handful so there will 
> still be a while to go... 

This is a familiar pattern for Thai Royal editions; one of the sad things is 
that so very few of these editions are ever used after they are installed. 
Despite the true scarcity of Pali books of any kind, the edition installed 
in Lao has remained apparently untouched in its glass "birdhouse" --as have 
several copies that I have seen in temples around the Issan country. Often 
the cases are locked, and it is quite clear from inspecting the books 
(through the glass) that none of the monks have ever used them. One of the 
justifications for using modern Thai script was to make a "secular" edition 
that could be handled as a textbook --whereas Lanna & Khom are still 
regarded as full of potent magic in Thailand (examples: tattoos & magic 
mandalas are still written in these scripts, never modern Thai). 

Although this pattern of projecting both Royal and sacred status onto the 
books is subject to criticism in more respects than one (e.g., the five star 
hotels as mentioned...) there seems to me a fundamental problem in that this 
same sacred/royal status seems to remain behind as a barrier to the books 
ever being used. The monastery puts up a photograph of the proud moment of 
the Royal visit, and the books stay in their "glass birdhouse" display case, 
serving as little more than a reminder of that Royal visit. 

It might be more useful to publish the Titpitaka as a series of newspapers 
--on cheap, A3 broadsheet-- and to encourage monks to use these disposable 
editions without fear of staining them. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who has passed beyong this quagmire, this difficult path, the ocean of 
life (samsara), and delusion, who has crossed and gone beyond, who is 
meditative, free from craving and doubts, who clinging to naught, has 
attained Nibbana, - him I call a Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 414

1314 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:36am 
Subject: One language, many scripts; Sri Lanka

In reply to Bhante Nyanatusita, 

> Regarding learning scripts: I don't have low expectations of Western 
> scholars, but more about myself. The people I know generally don't find 
> Sinhala script easy. I think that the remark by Rett...
> is very appropriate ...
> With manuscripts this becomes even more difficult ...

It is generally true that when one is in the early phases of learning a 
script there are new difficulties in reading (e.g.) an unfamiliar 
typeface/font --and I personally have trouble whenever I first look at a new 
MS, as I adjust to the peculiarities of the handwriting. However, this is 
true even of one's native language to a limited extent (not even my father 
can read my mother's handwriting, but I seem to able to...); I am very much 
opposed to attributing these difficulties to S.E.A. scripts as some kind of 
peculiar or extreme example of such pedagogical hurdles. 

Specifically re: low expectations of western scholars, consider how the 
minimum expectations of a Western specialist in (e.g.) Korean or Japanese 
Buddhism would involve learning three different writing systems, and gaining 
the ability to instantly recognise many thousands of characters (some 
alphabetic, some syllabic, some idiographical). Learning five Pali scripts 
is still far fewer characters than just learning the basic vocabulary for 
modern simplified Chinese! And, of course, Chinese MS and modern Chinese 
penmanship involve all the same difficulties encountered in other languages 
(incl. Pali). 

I do think that expectations of Western scholars of Pali & Sanskrit are 
lower than other disciplines in East Asian Studies; they are also lower than 
scholarly expectations in Eurocentric disciplines of comparative religion. 
That is a subjective impression, but it is based on some degree of 
experience. 

Basically: what is the good of reading Pali if you can't read an inscription 
or a MS? Although Rett's suggestion (that audio recording may allow us to 
return to an illiterate era of a purely oral trasmission of the Tipitaka) is 
amusing, the main business of Western scholarship is wrestling with the 
words left on the palm leaf, on the page, and on the walls of the cave. 
Nobody can pretend that Western scholars have their forte in the oral 
tradition; although I think a few westerners have collected their bronze 
medal in Yangon for memorizing a Nikaya or two. 

> Although Sri Lanka is a beautiful country, the way the Sinhalese drive 
> on the narrow roads (which have hardly changed since the British left 
> here) is very reckless and there are many traffic accidents.

I will take this warning to heart; however, I have been riding my bicycle on 
the streets of the Lao P.D.R. for six months, so I am somewhat accustomed to 
chaotic traffic conditions. 

> If you like I can send you a digital copy of Ven. 
> S. Dhammika's forthcoming book called ``Sacred Island'' which gives a 
> lot of useful info about the sacred places, etc. I am living in Kandy 
> and you are welcome to drop in.

Thank you very much for both invitations --I would appreciate both the book 
and the visit. Although I have studied the history of Sri Lanka, I will be 
quite clueless as to where I should go once I arrive there (and this book 
may help?). Hopefully Dr. McDaniel will also give me some instructions as 
to how to navigate the university campus to find the relevant professors. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Pleasant is virtue (continued) until old age. Pleasant is steadfast 
confidence. Pleasant is the attainment of wisdom. Pleasant is it to do no 
evil.
Random Dhammapada Verse 333

1315 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:59am 
Subject: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat

After bicycling 20 km in the rain, it was determined that nobody at Ubon's 
famous Wat Nanachat is studying Pali; and, apparently, the "Book Store" is 
an error in translation (i.e., the sign reading "Book Store" merely 
indicates a place of storage for some of their books). 

One monk told me that there had been two monks who were "quite keen" on 
learning Pali, but they had left Nanachat at the start of this rains retreat 
(I can't imagine why...) --one was said to be German, the other English. 
They may return to Nanacat after the rains retreat (this is undetermined). 

I appreciate the candour of both the monk and the layperson I spoke to (they 
both affirmed that nothing relating to Pali occurs on the premises, aside 
from ritual chanting in the morning). 

I had to wait for some time to solicit a comment from a monk; about ten 
monks passed me by (two separate groups of about five each), ignoring my 
wish to talk to them, before one seemed to stop out of interest to see what 
I was there for. Frankly, I've been more warmly received at Laotian 
military checkpoints. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
In whom are truth, virtue, harmlessness, restraint and control, that wise 
man who is purged of impurities, is, indeed, called an Elder.
Random Dhammapada Verse 261

1316 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:43am 
Subject: SV: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat

Dear E.M.,

What a travesty of learning! Many monks all over South East Asia are, to the
best of my knowledge, in need of a modern and adequate education in the
language of the early Buddhist canon. I have for some years contemplated
writing a new Paali Grammar, i.e., a real grammar with a comprehensive
section on syntax, followed by a reader with references to the grammar,
somewhat along the lines of Lanman's excellent Sanskrit Reader. As it is,
linguists, who take a look at what MI scholars produce, will inevitably get
the impression from reading modern Paali grammars that Paali is a language
without syntax! As it appears, most of them describe Paali as an assemblage
of phonological peculiarities, generally treated atomistically and ad hoc. I
think that it is absolutely necessary to modernize, i.e., to bring the
description of the language of the early Buddhist canon up to the standards
of modern linguistics. I have, to tell the truth, become wary of confronting
all the avatars of Pischel's catastrophic Prakrit grammar. Something has to
be done for the sake of Pali studies! Anyway, for the purpose I contemplate
something like the recent Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek, Oxford 2001. I
is both adequate and not too complex. It is intended for schools and
universities as well as for the increasing number of people who learn
classical Greek (sic!)in adult education. Why not learn Paali in adult
education?


With best wishes for a safe journey from

Ole Holten Pind



-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 27. september 2005 15:00
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat


After bicycling 20 km in the rain, it was determined that nobody at Ubon's
famous Wat Nanachat is studying Pali; and, apparently, the "Book Store" is
an error in translation (i.e., the sign reading "Book Store" merely
indicates a place of storage for some of their books). 

One monk told me that there had been two monks who were "quite keen" on
learning Pali, but they had left Nanachat at the start of this rains retreat
(I can't imagine why...) --one was said to be German, the other English. 
They may return to Nanacat after the rains retreat (this is undetermined). 

I appreciate the candour of both the monk and the layperson I spoke to (they
both affirmed that nothing relating to Pali occurs on the premises, aside
from ritual chanting in the morning). 

I had to wait for some time to solicit a comment from a monk; about ten
monks passed me by (two separate groups of about five each), ignoring my
wish to talk to them, before one seemed to stop out of interest to see what
I was there for. Frankly, I've been more warmly received at Laotian
military checkpoints. 

E.M. 


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ In whom are truth, virtue, harmlessness, restraint
and control, that wise man who is purged of impurities, is, indeed, called
an Elder.
Random Dhammapada Verse 261 

1317 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Sep 27, 2005 1:06pm 
Subject: Paali Grammar [was: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat]

Dear Ole,

>I have for some years contemplated
>writing a new Paali Grammar, i.e., a real grammar with a comprehensive
>section on syntax,

This is a very good idea. I really hope it sees the light of day. In 
my reading I find myself in the position of having to make all kinds 
of syntactic observations on my own, and often can't find 
confirmation that what I suspect to be the case really is correct. 
Pali word order is anything but free and there are a number of 
features of the case/tense systems, use of pronouns and 
indeclinables, use of infinite verb forms, structure of complex 
sentences etc that could really stand to be reworked and collected in 
one place.

I also like your idea of Pali being taught in adult education 
(evening classes in the community). It sure isn't happening much in 
the universities (at least not here in Sweden). We'd need to develop 
a base of 'hobbyists' who, of course, would mostly be Theravadin 
Buddhists or secular meditators who are interested in Buddhism and 
are curious about the canon. I know there's interest, but people have 
a hard time getting past the introductory hurdles. Lack of modern 
teaching materials is probably one of the worst of those hurdles.

Potential learners want to quickly get past the stage of struggling 
with word by word translations and be able to read for pleasure, 
knowledge and inspiration. Paali literature has plenty to offer in 
those regards, but streamlined learning materials are lacking.

best regards,

/Rett

1318 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Sep 27, 2005 2:24pm 
Subject: SV: Paali Grammar [was: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat] 	

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 27. september 2005 19:07
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Paali Grammar [was: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat]

Dear Ole,

>I have for some years contemplated
>writing a new Paali Grammar, i.e., a real grammar with a comprehensive 
>section on syntax,

This is a very good idea. I really hope it sees the light of day. In my
reading I find myself in the position of having to make all kinds of
syntactic observations on my own, and often can't find confirmation that
what I suspect to be the case really is correct. 
Pali word order is anything but free and there are a number of features of
the case/tense systems, use of pronouns and indeclinables, use of infinite
verb forms, structure of complex sentences etc that could really stand to be
reworked and collected in one place.

Dear Rett,

Yes, you are quite right. Think, for instance, of the use of the genitive
with ta-participles to denote the agent. The same type of construction is
found with participles in tabba. These constructions are mentioned in
Panini's celebrated Sanskrit Grammar. Those in construction with
ta-participles are, needleess to say, well known from the Vedas and similar
constructions in Old Indo Iranian. I could mention many other remarkable
features of syncretism of Paali and Sanskrit syntactical constructions
mentioned by Panini.Paali syntax is evidently in need of a conprehensive
treatment in the light of contemporary sources; and the language described
by Panini was evidently a contemporary vernacular. Tis needs to be explored.

I also like your idea of Pali being taught in adult education (evening
classes in the community). It sure isn't happening much in the universities
(at least not here in Sweden). We'd need to develop a base of 'hobbyists'
who, of course, would mostly be Theravadin Buddhists or secular meditators
who are interested in Buddhism and are curious about the canon. I know
there's interest, but people have a hard time getting past the introductory
hurdles. Lack of modern teaching materials is probably one of the worst of
those hurdles.

Yes, I agree. I consider it an obligation to provide modern contemporary
study materials for this purpose, and I intend to complete a grammar as soon
as possible. I have already made all the necessary research. It is only a
matter of time and resources before I can complete it. However, I do not
have too much of either at the moment.

Potential learners want to quickly get past the stage of struggling with
word by word translations and be able to read for pleasure, knowledge and
inspiration. Paali literature has plenty to offer in those regards, but
streamlined learning materials are lacking.

I fully agree. Paali literature is one of the true wonders of ancient India.
What is more, it has no known precedents in Indian literature as such. It
needs to be studied extensively. I intend to contribute towards that goal.

With kind regards,

Ole Holten Pind

best regards,

/Rett

1319 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:10pm 
Subject: RE: Paali Grammar [was: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat] 

Ole Holten Pind wrote:

> Yes, I agree. I consider it an obligation to provide modern
> contemporary study materials for this purpose, and I intend to
> complete a grammar as soon as possible. I have already made all the
> necessary research. It is only a matter of time and resources before
> I can complete it. However, I do not have too much of either at the
> moment. 
> 

Dear Friends,

What about Duroiselle's grammar? Is it not considered complete, accurate
and useful (I use it all the time)? 

I am happy to hear, anyway of this project. I have been talking privately
with Alexander Genaud about making some kind of public domain PE dictionary,
but we haven't gotten very far yet. It seems like there is a lot of
interest in the area of creating new learning material for Pali; maybe there
are some projects that could become group efforts?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1320 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:52am 
Subject: Re: SV: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat

Dear Ole Pind,

Are you aware that there is a useful work called Syntax of the Cases in 
the Pali Nikayas by O.H. de Wijesekera? It was his Ph.d thesis at the 
University of London, 1936, and was first published in 1993 by the 
Postgraduate Institute of Pali Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri 
Lanka. I have found the book very useful as it gives many examples from 
Pali, comparisons with Sanskrit syntax. There is nothing comparable to 
it as far as I know. I noticed that scholars like Norman were not aware 
of it. You could order a copy from the BPS. I can let you know how to 
order.
It is a good idea to make a new Pali Grammar in the way you suggested. 
Did you have a look at the recent Pali grammar made by Thomas Oberlies? 
It is very expensive.
Do you have any suggestions regarding the Comprehensive Table of Pali 
Literature that I sent you last month? I would appreciate a copy of the 
article on Pali grammarians that you mentioned. What did you think about 
the article by Godakumbara on Chappata Jotipala that I sent you?
Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

Ole Holten Pind wrote:

>
>What a travesty of learning! Many monks all over South East Asia are, to the
>best of my knowledge, in need of a modern and adequate education in the
>language of the early Buddhist canon. I have for some years contemplated
>writing a new Paali Grammar, i.e., a real grammar with a comprehensive
>section on syntax, followed by a reader with references to the grammar,
>somewhat along the lines of Lanman's excellent Sanskrit Reader. As it is,
>linguists, who take a look at what MI scholars produce, will inevitably get
>the impression from reading modern Paali grammars that Paali is a language
>without syntax! 
> 

1321 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:30am 
Subject: Re: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat

Dear Navako,

I agree that learning SE Asian scripts is easier than learning Chinese. 
Devanagiri is a fairly easy script to learn. Clear distinct letters. 
Even for Sinhalese it can be difficult to distinguish some Sinhalese 
letters as they are so similar, e.g. g, bh, h, this is why there are 
typical mix ups resulting in variant readings like anigata and anibhata 
in Sinhalese Pali manuscripts.
If there is an old Lan Na Patimokkha manuscript around I would learn 
that script. Do you know of any?
I feel sorry that I was not able to read your message about visiting WPN 
earlier on. I stayed there a year myself and would have encouraged you 
to write to them first rather than just turning up because this is not 
considered the proper procedure. There are many visitors and the monks 
tend to stay aloof from the laity, especially members of the other sex, 
as it is a meditation monastery of a very strict and renunciant 
tradition similar to a Trappists in the Catholic tradition. In general 
the Thai Sangha is organised in a somewhat militaristic way. There have 
been Pali courses in the past but the monks who did those moved on to 
other places so that stopped. In the anti scholarly Thai Forest 
Tradition studies are generally discouraged, but in the last couple of 
years some western monks in that tradition have been catching up a bit.
I will send you a copy of Sacred Island to your own e-mail address in a 
week or two. You can help proofreading it. The BPS, of which I am the 
editor, is going to publish it. I have made a paper on Meditation 
monasteries in Sri Lanka which would provide a lot of useful information 
for you. Dr Ratnayaka and Dr Migaskumbara at Peradeniya are very 
helpful. Books in the the library can be difficult or impossible to find 
as there is no computer catalogue anymore and even then sometimes 
hundreds of books are under one index number and many books have been 
misplaced, etc.
Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1322 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:18am 
Subject: ordering Wijesekera [was Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat] 	

> You could order a copy from the BPS. I can let you know how to
>order.

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

I'd also be very interested in hearing how to order this book. 
(Syntax of the Cases in the Pali Nikayas, by OH Wijesekera)

I was also wondering if anyone has suggestions about where and how to 
order editions of Pali books in Sinhalese script. The only ones I 
have are bought from used bookstores. Of these I particularly like 
the ones from a publisher called Gu.nasena, and iirc they were 
printed between the 1950s and 1980s. They're clearly and sharply 
printed and seem to be quite reliable as to the text. Are they still 
in business? What editions do people consider to be the best, and 
where do they order them from?

Thanks for any help.

best regards,

/Rett

1323 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:15am 
Subject: Duroiselle; Pali-English / Pali-Pali dictionary

In reply to Bhante Yuttadhammo, 

(1)
> What about Duroiselle's grammar? Is it not considered complete, accurate
> and useful (I use it all the time)? 

I made many comparative readings of Duroiselle's tables (etc.) with other 
textbooks; I would say (in general) that his book is just as [in-]accurate 
as any other of its era. He makes some very useful observations from time 
to time, but (just as often) I find them contradicted by other sources. 
There are also some errors caused by the formatting of the text (e.g., data 
in the wrong column) that could be improved if it were available in .TXT 
instead of .PDF format. 

I have recently carried out a re-formatting (& error correction) of the 
basic Pali grammar written by Narada Thera fifty years ago. I will probably 
release the text once I have written a new answer key & vocabulary for it 
(many of the word definitions are ... flawed). However, Narada's text is 
flawed & inadequate in all of the ways mentioned in the recent discussion 
with Dr. Pind; it is a very basic text --and although it provides very 
little direction to the reader, some of that is nevertheless wrong! 

In any case, I'm sure both Duroiselle & Narada did their best in difficult 
circumstances; I can imagine the difficulty of their work in compiling those 
tables in Rangoon & Kandy (respectively), as I am myself spending so much 
time correcting Pali grammatical tables here in the Lao P.D.R.! 

(2)
> I am happy to hear, anyway of this project. I have been talking privately
> with Alexander Genaud about making some kind of public domain PE dictionary...

I thought Jim had an interesting idea in trying to generate a lexicon from 
existing (commentarial) Pali definitions; I believe the Hewaviratane edition 
of the commentaries is indexed --thus, it wouldn't be too much work to 
generate a Pali-Pali dictionary from existing resources. In the early 
stages, this could exist in some kind of electronic hyperlink format --with 
all commentarial definitions listed vertically. Then the different 
definitions could be compared, merged, revised, etc., into one 
trans-commentarial gloss --either incorporating the material from all of the 
commentaries' comments on the word, or rejecting some as false for footnoted 
reasons. 

I would actually hope that such a lexicon would include some of the really 
hilarious and strange definitions that crop up from time to time. "By means 
of what is it called 'butterfly'? Because it has occasion to 'flutter-by' 
--therefore, 'butterfly'" (--I have invented this as an English equivalent 
to some of the odd wordplay that appears in the role of a definition). 

This sort of methodology could be a good "gradual" project for many persons 
to dabble in. However, if you want to start with a five million dollar 
bursary, I would propose a very different methodology. 

As the cessation of the CPD project shows, fundraising is a serious concern 
for lexical endeavours. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
When in two states (insight and concentration) a Brahmana goes to the 
Farther Shore, then all the fetters of that "one who knows" pass away.
Random Dhammapada Verse 384

1324 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:32am 
Subject: Lao Patimokkha MS; BPS, etc.

Bhante, 

> Even for Sinhalese it can be difficult to distinguish some Sinhalese 
> letters as they are so similar, e.g. g, bh, h, this is why there are 
> typical mix ups resulting in variant readings like anigata and anibhata 
> in Sinhalese Pali manuscripts.

Yes, each script has its own set of ambiguities, as mentioned. I believe 
I've been reading Pali in Sinhalese script almost every day for more than 
three years (?) --and I am *more* comfortable with Sinhalese script than 
Romanized text as a result. However, as already confessed, each MS has its 
own peculiar style of handwriting, and I mostly read printed (type-set) 
Sinhalese text. 

> If there is an old Lan Na Patimokkha manuscript around I would learn 
> that script. Do you know of any?

I will make it a point to ask at the Lao National Library --in part because 
I wonder if anyone in Lao has ever read the Patmokkha. A few weeks ago I 
heard the most peculiar Laotian "explanation" of the rule that monks should 
not touch money: "used money is unclean, and monks are not allowed to defile 
themselves; therefore monks should only be presented with crisp new bills 
from the Bank" --and I am assured that some Laotians make a special trip to 
the bank for new bills before visiting a monastery for this purpose. We 
should do as the Burmese did and get it inscribed in stone! Better still, 
we should stop performing the Ramayana, and act out the drama of Yasa & the 
second council --it might give people pause to think as to what the 
difference is between Theravada and Mahayana in the first place. 

> There are many visitors and the monks 
> tend to stay aloof from the laity, especially members of the other sex...

I suppose I should mention that I am male --and I believe that there are no 
female monks on the premises. *Ahem*, just to avoid confusion re: my name. 

> In the anti scholarly Thai Forest 
> Tradition studies are generally discouraged...

Yes, but then they're all ashamed when one of their (very sincere) monks who 
has supposedly been mastering the "Tudong" practices reveals that he doesn't 
really have the slightest idea of what the "Tudong" practices are. Although 
there is plenty of sincere practice going on, the Pali literacy rate has 
dropped below the critical 1% needed to check innuendo against the primary 
source, and it is increasingly the case that "the blind are leading the 
blind". Vague rumours circulate as to what the monastic rules really are, 
or what the meditation practices really are, and the orthodox monks behave 
as if "proper Buddhism" were self-evident --and then demand that the 
government suppress and outlaw the "heterodox" movements that rise up out of 
the silence of Thai traditional Buddhism. The real hatred that "the 
hierarchy" of Thailand express for "Santi Asoka", etc., is almost without 
peer in the Buddhist world (okay: sect rivalry in Korea...) --and is all the 
more absurd when we consider that their "enemies" become blessed (one by 
one) as authority figures in their own right (Buddhadasa is a prime example 
--Dhammakaya is already headed in the same direction). 

Ah well! Less than 2,500 years to go! 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Some are born in a womb; evildoers (are born) in woeful states; the 
well-conducted go to blissful states; the Undefiled Ones pass away into 
Nibbana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 126

1325 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:36pm 
Subject: SV: SV: Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 28. september 2005 07:53
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: SV: [palistudy] Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat

Dear Ole Pind,

Are you aware that there is a useful work called Syntax of the Cases in the
Pali Nikayas by O.H. de Wijesekera? It was his Ph.d thesis at the University
of London, 1936, and was first published in 1993 by the Postgraduate
Institute of Pali Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. I have found
the book very useful as it gives many examples from Pali, comparisons with
Sanskrit syntax. There is nothing comparable to it as far as I know. I
noticed that scholars like Norman were not aware of it. You could order a
copy from the BPS. 

Thank you so much! However, as I write this reply I am looking at
Wijesekara's book on my bookshelves. It is very good, but oit only deals
with the syntax of the cases; and it is possible to improve her and there on
his description. You are right, it no one kknew about it until recently,
which is a shame.


I can let you know how to order.
It is a good idea to make a new Pali Grammar in the way you suggested. 
Did you have a look at the recent Pali grammar made by Thomas Oberlies? 

Yes. I wrote a review article of it for Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlndischen Gesellschaft.

It is very expensive.

Yes.

Do you have any suggestions regarding the Comprehensive Table of Pali
Literature that I sent you last month? I would appreciate a copy of the
article on Pali grammarians that you mentioned. 

Not yet.I have read through the whole list, but I am desperately trying to
catch up with things left undone because of a broken arm. I have not been
able to work properly for almost three months and I am terribly behind with
everything. SO please forgive me for being slow.


What did you think about the article by Godakumbara on Chappata Jotipala
that I sent you?

It is excellent! I fully agree with his conclusions.

With best wishes,

Yours,

Ole Holten Pind


Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

Ole Holten Pind wrote:

>
>What a travesty of learning! Many monks all over South East Asia are, 
>to the best of my knowledge, in need of a modern and adequate education 
>in the language of the early Buddhist canon. I have for some years 
>contemplated writing a new Paali Grammar, i.e., a real grammar with a 
>comprehensive section on syntax, followed by a reader with references 
>to the grammar, somewhat along the lines of Lanman's excellent Sanskrit 
>Reader. As it is, linguists, who take a look at what MI scholars 
>produce, will inevitably get the impression from reading modern Paali 
>grammars that Paali is a language without syntax!
> 

1326 
From: <ashinpan@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Sep 29, 2005 4:29pm 
Subject: compounds: the Burmese view

Dear Ole and others

I have uploaded my lecture notes on compounds prepared previously at ITBMU
in PDF format. I hope it may be interesting.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1327 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Sep 29, 2005 11:32pm 
Subject: Re: ordering Wijesekera [was Re: Ubon R. Wat Nanasat / Nanachat] 	

Dear Rett,

I shall see what is available at the BPS bookshop. I know that they have 
the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries. If books like the Pali 
texts from Gunasena are not there then I will arrange that they get them 
from other places. I will also ask them to make a list of Sinhala Pali 
texts available at the BPS. Are you interested in any Pali texts or is 
there are particular field that you specialise in? It is easier to order 
from the BPS then from other bookshops. I will inquire about publishers 
of Pali works. The Gunasena editions are quite good. Yes, they are still 
in business. Recently I digitally photographed the English introduction 
of the edition of the /Vesaturu-d-sanne/ by D.E. Hettiarachi published 
by Gunasena in 1950. It is quite informative.
Some very interesting texts like the medieaval Suttanipata-sanne are 
only available in manuscript form. The Sutta-nipata sanne could provide 
important information about (variant) readings existing at that time and 
possibly information from the old Siihala-a.t.thakathaas. There are only 
few manuscripts left of it and I should make some effort to photograph 
one or two.
Many editions of Pali texts were done in the early 20th century and have 
not been reprinted since. There are many old editions of Pali texts 
sitting in dusty (monastery) libraries here which could be digitally 
scanned or photographed and made available on the internet. Even the 
whole Buddhajayanthi and Hevavitarane editions could be scanned in. With 
a bit of funding we could get find some employee to do this.
Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita


>Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
>I'd also be very interested in hearing how to order this book. 
>(Syntax of the Cases in the Pali Nikayas, by OH Wijesekera)
>
>I was also wondering if anyone has suggestions about where and how to 
>order editions of Pali books in Sinhalese script. The only ones I 
>have are bought from used bookstores. Of these I particularly like 
>the ones from a publisher called Gu.nasena, and iirc they were 
>printed between the 1950s and 1980s. They're clearly and sharply 
>printed and seem to be quite reliable as to the text. Are they still 
>in business? What editions do people consider to be the best, and 
>where do they order them from?
>
>Thanks for any help.
>
>best regards,
>
>/Rett

1328 
From: "siteby" <sitalatwo@yahoo.com> 
Date: Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:07pm 
Subject: Concerning Kathavattu and 84000 dhamma

Dear all!
I got a problem with the origin of the number 84000 Dhammakkhandhas. 
It is said in Samantapaasaadikaa, in paragraph 16. 
"Tadetam sabbampi Buddhavacanam rasavasena ekavidham 
dhammavinayavasena duvidham pathamamajjhimpacchimavasena tividham 
tathaa pi.takavasena nikaayavasena pa~ncavidham angavasena navavidham 
dhammakkhandhavasena caturaasiitisahassavidhanti veditabbam".

In here, caturaasiitisahassavidham, gives a problem of accounting, I 
understood it to be 84000 Dhammakkhandhas, and how to count them, I do 
understand, but what I do not understand is - is Katthavattu of 
Mahamoggaliputta Tissa included in this list or does not? While the 
third Council took place, this text was not even in the air, only 
after that it was included the canon on every elders agreement, isn't 
it?
So, since when is it counted as 84000, and should it include this text?
Thank you very much to every one who can give the answer.

1329 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sat Oct 1, 2005 5:32am 
Subject: Re: Concerning Kathavattu and 84000 dhamma

Dear Siteby,
op 01-10-2005 04:07 schreef siteby op sitalatwo@yahoo.com:


> I got a problem with the origin of the number 84000 Dhammakkhandhas.
> It is said in Samantapaasaadikaa, in paragraph 16.
> In here, caturaasiitisahassavidham, gives a problem of accounting, I
> understood it to be 84000 Dhammakkhandhas, and how to count them, I do
> understand, but what I do not understand is - is Katthavattu of
> Mahamoggaliputta Tissa included in this list or does not?
----------
N: This is at the first Council.
The Katthavattu of Mahamoggaliputta Tissa was included in the Tipitaka at
the third Council. The Pacappakara.na atthakathaa states this fact.
Thus, this has been added to the 84000 Dhammakkhandhas.

Nina.

1330 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 4:31am 
Subject: SV: compounds: the Burmese view

Many thanks!

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af ashinpan@gmail.com
Sendt: 29. september 2005 22:29
Til: Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] compounds: the Burmese view

Dear Ole and others

I have uploaded my lecture notes on compounds prepared previously at ITBMU
in PDF format. I hope it may be interesting.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1331 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 11:00am 
Subject: Guide to the Tipitaka; Visit to White Lotus Press

I just returned from visiting the (new) offices of White Lotus Press --a 
Thai publisher with a very long list of publications in the related fields 
of Asian linguistics, cultures, religions, and social history. 

As I must travel by bicycle, I only picked up a few books for myself. Of 
note is the anonymously authored _GUIDE TO THE TIPITAKA_ (a book vague in 
title, and vague in content). This will be of special interest to members 
of the group as it provides short comments on the major texts of the 
Tipitaka (similar in format to Hinuber's _Handbook_) from the orthodox 
perspective of a (modern) Burmese monastic council. 

As with the comparable material to be found (listed under book titles) in 
Malalasekera's _Pali Proper Names_, the summaries of the books are not 
always so well informed by the primary source --but they are always 
indicative of the attitudes of the monks toward the sources in question 
(i.e., one might read it with a sociological rather than philological eye!). 

I cannot say that I was surprised when I found they utterly mis-translated 
the title of the _Bhaddekaratta_ sutta; similarly, I can't say that I'm 
surprised that the entry on the _Dasuttara_ sutta is extremely vague (i.e., 
shows no specific knowledge of the text). However, just as much as Hinuber 
provides a summary of these texts from a western academic perspecitve, this 
book provides a ready reference for orthodox opinion --including opinions as 
to the relative importance of various texts. I will be especially 
interested to see how the Burmese "gloss" the material on the caste system 
(if at all). 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
From craving arises grief, from craving arises fear; for him who is free 
from craving there is no grief, whence fear?
Random Dhammapada Verse 216

1332 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 11:20am 
Subject: SV: Guide to the Tipitaka; Visit to White Lotus Press 	

Dear E.M,

Thank you very much for this eye-opening information. I am not surprised,
though. It would be interesting one day to make a survey of the status of
Pali studies in modern Theravada countries. 

All the best for a safe journey,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 2. oktober 2005 17:00
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Guide to the Tipitaka; Visit to White Lotus Press


I just returned from visiting the (new) offices of White Lotus Press --a
Thai publisher with a very long list of publications in the related fields
of Asian linguistics, cultures, religions, and social history. 

As I must travel by bicycle, I only picked up a few books for myself. Of
note is the anonymously authored _GUIDE TO THE TIPITAKA_ (a book vague in
title, and vague in content). This will be of special interest to members
of the group as it provides short comments on the major texts of the
Tipitaka (similar in format to Hinuber's _Handbook_) from the orthodox
perspective of a (modern) Burmese monastic council. 

As with the comparable material to be found (listed under book titles) in
Malalasekera's _Pali Proper Names_, the summaries of the books are not
always so well informed by the primary source --but they are always
indicative of the attitudes of the monks toward the sources in question
(i.e., one might read it with a sociological rather than philological eye!).


I cannot say that I was surprised when I found they utterly mis-translated
the title of the _Bhaddekaratta_ sutta; similarly, I can't say that I'm
surprised that the entry on the _Dasuttara_ sutta is extremely vague (i.e.,
shows no specific knowledge of the text). However, just as much as Hinuber
provides a summary of these texts from a western academic perspecitve, this
book provides a ready reference for orthodox opinion --including opinions as
to the relative importance of various texts. I will be especially
interested to see how the Burmese "gloss" the material on the caste system
(if at all). 

E.M. 


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ From craving arises grief, from craving arises
fear; for him who is free from craving there is no grief, whence fear?
Random Dhammapada Verse 216 

1333 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 0:08pm 
Subject: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

Thanks for the interesting info and the tip about BPS bookshop. As an 
odd coincidence, just this week I ran across (the first I've seen) a 
used volume of the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries (to the 
Udaana). It's one of Helmer Smith's many old books that are in the 
shops these days in Sweden. I can see why this edition is regarded 
highly.

You asked about what sorts of texts I'm looking for. Well, everything 
really, but for the moment, apart from grammatical literature like 
Saddaniiti etc, I'm interested in titles like:

mahaava.msa
mahaava.msa.tiika
va.msatthakathaa (same as above?)

dhammapadatthaka (I have gunasena's but it's falling apart)

upaasakajanaalankaara

dasa(daana)vatthuppaakara.na
rasavaahinii.tiika (not the basic text)
siiha.lavatthuppakara.na

And of course good editions of the canon, and suttapi.taka in 
particular, are the most central texts. A lot depends on the prices, 
as I'm sure you can imagine.

I'll start of course by contacting BPS directly, but also appreciate 
your offer to help facilitate book purchases if they don't have 
certain titles in stock. It makes sense that they would be easiest to 
order from, as I guess they are used to international orders. Are you 
directly connected with BPS?

>There are many old editions of Pali texts
>sitting in dusty (monastery) libraries here which could be digitally
>scanned or photographed and made available on the internet.

This sounds very interesting, as does the similar idea with 
manuscripts (like suttanipata-sanne). Hosting would also be an issue, 
I suppose, since high quality images would take a lot of space and 
cost in terms of bandwidth for downloads. I suppose they could also 
be put onto CD-roms. I'll ask around to see if any of the (few, 
unfortunately) people I know in a position to donate would be 
interested. Perhaps someone could put together a 'teaser'. A few 
pages of high-res manuscript photos, for example, just enough to show 
people what you had in mind. I'm a firm believer in preserving rare 
manuscripts with photography.

best regards,

/Rett

1334 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 2:32pm 
Subject: SV: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Rett,

I am in possession of quite a few of Helmer Smith's books. I wonder if you
could give me an idea of what is still "in the market" so to speak. When I
took over the CPD office in Copenhagen many years ago, I found in a corner
of the office the dilapidated volumes of Smith's copy of Fausbl's Jaataka
edition. I had them bound immediately. They contain invaluable infomation.
In addition I had access to a select number of Burmese editions of tiikas in
Smith's annotated copies, that were not available in any other edition.
Mysteriously Smith had access to Trenckner's transcriptions. For instance, I
have not yet been able to find out how Trenckner's Anguttara transcription
ended up in the British Library, because Smith must have had access to it.
However, I thought that Trenckner sent his transcript to Morris who edited
Anguttaranikaya for Pali Text Society. This evidently was not the whole
story.

Best regards,

Ole Holten Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 2. oktober 2005 18:09
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita, 

Thanks for the interesting info and the tip about BPS bookshop. As an odd
coincidence, just this week I ran across (the first I've seen) a used volume
of the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries (to the Udaana). It's one of
Helmer Smith's many old books that are in the shops these days in Sweden. I
can see why this edition is regarded highly.

You asked about what sorts of texts I'm looking for. Well, everything
really, but for the moment, apart from grammatical literature like
Saddaniiti etc, I'm interested in titles like:

mahaava.msa
mahaava.msa.tiika
va.msatthakathaa (same as above?)

dhammapadatthaka (I have gunasena's but it's falling apart)

upaasakajanaalankaara

dasa(daana)vatthuppaakara.na
rasavaahinii.tiika (not the basic text)
siiha.lavatthuppakara.na

And of course good editions of the canon, and suttapi.taka in particular,
are the most central texts. A lot depends on the prices, as I'm sure you can
imagine.

I'll start of course by contacting BPS directly, but also appreciate your
offer to help facilitate book purchases if they don't have certain titles in
stock. It makes sense that they would be easiest to order from, as I guess
they are used to international orders. Are you directly connected with BPS?

>There are many old editions of Pali texts sitting in dusty (monastery) 
>libraries here which could be digitally scanned or photographed and 
>made available on the internet.

This sounds very interesting, as does the similar idea with manuscripts
(like suttanipata-sanne). Hosting would also be an issue, I suppose, since
high quality images would take a lot of space and cost in terms of bandwidth
for downloads. I suppose they could also be put onto CD-roms. I'll ask
around to see if any of the (few,
unfortunately) people I know in a position to donate would be interested.
Perhaps someone could put together a 'teaser'. A few pages of high-res
manuscript photos, for example, just enough to show people what you had in
mind. I'm a firm believer in preserving rare manuscripts with photography.

best regards,

/Rett

1335 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 3:45pm 
Subject: Re: SV: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Ole,

I can give you a more proper answer on Friday after scouring the 
shelves of a shop, but for now what I know of that might be of some 
interest to you is Smith's Sinhalese-edition of the 
Kaccaayanasuttanidesa. I'm not 100% sure that the annotations are 
his, since they might be those of a later owner. But that he procured 
the book is certain because of the characterstic green binding he 
gave it when it was incorporated in the UU library collection. Beyond 
providing Senart's numbering, the annotations consist mostly of 
sporadic identifications of quotations, simply marking certain 
passages (presumably as 'interesting'), and beginning a list of 
references to other grammatical works and authors such as Sadd, Rup, 
Mogg, Vimalabuddhi etc. It's not really a lot of material, and 
probably nothing that's invaluable.

I also have a Baalaavataara that he owned, but I suspect this 
abridged edition was too much 'for the baalas' because it doesn't 
appear that he even read it. The only reason I know he ordered it is 
that the invoice slip is preserved from Luzac and Company in London 
who charged him 2 shillings and 6 pence for the book in 1936 (and 
took 4 pence for postage).

I also have a 1 volume 'decorational' raamaayana with his signature 
and a number of note-slips (on metre in particular) but these appear 
to have been put there by a more recent owner (K.H.)

Apart from what might be on the market, there are probably a number 
of his Pali related books remaining uncatalogued in the dept library 
at UU (or rather, in boxes in the dept's new rooms). There might be 
interesting annotations there to be found. I've spoken with G.G-E. 
about possibly going through those boxes and cataloguing them. If 
that turns out to be possible (which I expect it is) I could watch 
out for marginalia that might be helpful.

best regards,

/Rett

1336 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 2, 2005 4:59pm 
Subject: SV: SV: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Ole,

I can give you a more proper answer on Friday after scouring the shelves of
a shop, but for now what I know of that might be of some interest to you is
Smith's Sinhalese-edition of the Kaccaayanasuttanidesa. I'm not 100% sure
that the annotations are his, since they might be those of a later owner.
But that he procured the book is certain because of the characterstic green
binding he gave it when it was incorporated in the UU library collection. 

Dear Rett,

<<Smith's copy of the Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa would be very interesting to
me. My old sinhalese copy is coming apart and some pages are difficult to
read. I guess I have identified most of the quotations - there are quite a
lot from Kacc-v.>>

Beyond providing Senart's numbering, the annotations consist mostly of
sporadic identifications of quotations, simply marking certain passages
(presumably as 'interesting'), and beginning a list of references to other
grammatical works and authors such as Sadd, Rup, Mogg, Vimalabuddhi etc.
It's not really a lot of material, and probably nothing that's invaluable.

I also have a Baalaavataara that he owned, but I suspect this abridged
edition was too much 'for the baalas' because it doesn't appear that he even
read it. The only reason I know he ordered it is that the invoice slip is
preserved from Luzac and Company in London who charged him 2 shillings and 6
pence for the book in 1936 (and took 4 pence for postage).

<<Very amusing. It is not an important work. Nonetheless, indirectly is
provides invaluable information. It is, of course, primarily based upon
Kaccaayana.>>

I also have a 1 volume 'decorational' raamaayana with his signature and a
number of note-slips (on metre in particular) but these appear to have been
put there by a more recent owner (K.H.)

Apart from what might be on the market, there are probably a number of his
Pali related books remaining uncatalogued in the dept library at UU (or
rather, in boxes in the dept's new rooms). There might be interesting
annotations there to be found. I've spoken with G.G-E. 
about possibly going through those boxes and cataloguing them. If that turns
out to be possible (which I expect it is) I could watch out for marginalia
that might be helpful.

best regards,

/Rett

Many thanks for the information. I am looking forward to whatever
information you can provide on Smiths library and the books he owned that
might still be available.

Best regards

Ole Pind

1337 
From: "Phra Noah Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Oct 4, 2005 11:50pm 
Subject: about the "n

Dear Friends,

Sorry for the simple question, but is it true that the "n character (the
gutteral nasal) in the pali language only occurs before a k, kh, g, or gh?
Or can it exist elsewhere on its own?

Thanks for the help,

Yuttadhammo

1338 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Wed Oct 5, 2005 5:43am 
Subject: Re: about the "n

Hi Bhante Yuttadhammo,

>
>
>Sorry for the simple question, but is it true that the "n character (the
>gutteral nasal) in the pali language only occurs before a k, kh, g, or gh?
>Or can it exist elsewhere on its own?
>

I can't give a definitive answer, but one other place it can occur is before the short 'a', though the examples are somewhat artifical and are taken from grammatical literature:

"na-sadda,
"na-kaara,
ka kha ga gha "na,

What all these examples have in common is that they are designating the sound (the gutteral nasal) itself. So we could say these occurences are in the meta-language of Pali (Pali about Pali), even if they aren't in the basic language. Still I don't dare rule out entirely that the sound occurs in a normal word somewhere. I've been surprised before by very odd forms.

best regards,

/Rett

1339 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Oct 5, 2005 7:11am 
Subject: SV: about the "n

The guttural nasal only occurs before gutturals viz. k, kh, g, or gh. You
may find the term n.a-kaara in grammatical literature to denote the guttural
nasal, in which case you find it before a; but a is only to facilitate
articulating n.
Otherwise n. does not occur as the first phoneme of a word neither in Pali
nor in Sanskrit. There is one exception though, the verbal root n.u which
according to the Sanskrit grammarians means "to sound."

Ole Pind 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Phra Noah Yuttadhammo
Sendt: 5. oktober 2005 05:51
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] about the "n

Dear Friends,

Sorry for the simple question, but is it true that the "n character (the
gutteral nasal) in the pali language only occurs before a k, kh, g, or gh?
Or can it exist elsewhere on its own?

Thanks for the help,

Yuttadhammo

1340 
From: nyanatusita bhikkhu <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Oct 6, 2005 1:48pm 
Subject: Re: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

On 02/10/05, rett <rett@telia.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
> Thanks for the interesting info and the tip about BPS bookshop. As an
> odd coincidence, just this week I ran across (the first I've seen) a
> used volume of the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries (to the
> Udaana). It's one of Helmer Smith's many old books that are in the
> shops these days in Sweden. I can see why this edition is regarded
> highly.
>
> How did Helmer's books come on the market? Shouldn't they not be in a
> university library?


You asked about what sorts of texts I'm looking for. Well, everything
> really, but for the moment, apart from grammatical literature like
> Saddaniiti etc, I'm interested in titles like:
>
> mahaava.msa
> mahaava.msa.tiika
> va.msatthakathaa (same as above?)
>
> dhammapadatthaka (I have gunasena's but it's falling apart)
>
> upaasakajanaalankaara
>
> dasa(daana)vatthuppaakara.na
> rasavaahinii.tiika (not the basic text)
> siiha.lavatthuppakara.na <http://siiha.lavatthuppakara.na>
>
> And of course good editions of the canon, and suttapi.taka in
> particular, are the most central texts. A lot depends on the prices,
> as I'm sure you can imagine.
>
> > The BPS is preparing a list for you. They have most of the Hevavitarane
> books at cheap rates, ie, rs. 100-200 (US 1-2) each. I will arrange for some
> other books to be ordered from other publishers.
>
> I'll start of course by contacting BPS directly, but also appreciate
> your offer to help facilitate book purchases if they don't have
> certain titles in stock. It makes sense that they would be easiest to
> order from, as I guess they are used to international orders. Are you
> directly connected with BPS?
>
> > I am the organiser and editor of the English section of the BPS. Better
> contact me directly because contacting the BPS can be very slow and
> complicated in a case like this. They are good at sending international
> orders.
>
>
> >There are many old editions of Pali texts
> >sitting in dusty (monastery) libraries here which could be digitally
> >scanned or photographed and made available on the internet.
>
> This sounds very interesting, as does the similar idea with
> manuscripts (like suttanipata-sanne). Hosting would also be an issue,
> I suppose, since high quality images would take a lot of space and
> cost in terms of bandwidth for downloads. I suppose they could also
> be put onto CD-roms. I'll ask around to see if any of the (few,
> unfortunately) people I know in a position to donate would be
> interested. Perhaps someone could put together a 'teaser'. A few
> pages of high-res manuscript photos, for example, just enough to show
> people what you had in mind. I'm a firm believer in preserving rare
> manuscripts with photography.
>
> > So am I. Rupert Gethin asked me to make a copy of two Abhidhamma books
> recently and this was a good opportunity to bring this up with him. He seems
> to be interested and will bring it up with the PTS council. The problem
> with manuscripts of course is that there are so many, and many of these will
> not be worthwhile to be photographed. It takes an expert to see whether a
> manuscript is worthwhile or not. Where to start? The Colombo Museum or the
> Peradeniya University collections would be good starts. One also has to deal
> with xenophobic and nationalistic sentiments which are common here and be
> careful to get the local authorities interested and on one's side.
>
> I was about to send you my list of Pali literature and an article on Khom
> script MSS in Sri Lanka but then my computer got infected with worms and now
> my email manager is down. I will send them soon.
>
Yours sincerely,
>
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>
Forest Hermitage
Udawattakele
PO Box 61
Kandy
Sri Lanka


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1341
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 4, 2005 7:31am 
Subject: Re: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

rett wrote:

>Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
>Thanks for the interesting info and the tip about BPS bookshop. As an 
>odd coincidence, just this week I ran across (the first I've seen) a 
>used volume of the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries (to the 
>Udaana). It's one of Helmer Smith's many old books that are in the 
>shops these days in Sweden. I can see why this edition is regarded 
>highly.
> 
>
Why did his books end up on the market?

>You asked about what sorts of texts I'm looking for. Well, everything 
>really, but for the moment, apart from grammatical literature like 
>Saddaniiti etc, I'm interested in titles like:
>
>mahaava.msa
>mahaava.msa.tiika
>va.msatthakathaa (same as above?)
>
>dhammapadatthaka (I have gunasena's but it's falling apart)
>
>upaasakajanaalankaara
>
>dasa(daana)vatthuppaakara.na
>rasavaahinii.tiika (not the basic text)
>siiha.lavatthuppakara.na
>
>And of course good editions of the canon, and suttapi.taka in 
>particular, are the most central texts. A lot depends on the prices, 
>as I'm sure you can imagine.
>
> 
>
I see what I can do. Most, if not all, of the Hevavitarane series are 
available at the BPS. Some of the other books I have seen around too. 
They are very reasonably priced. I have asked the BPS manager to get a 
list prepared of what is available at the BPS and then get them to order 
Sinhala Pali books available elsewhere in SL. I will probably have to 
ask for this a few times and then it will eventually get done. Are you 
connected to a university or are you building up a private collection?

>I'll start of course by contacting BPS directly, but also appreciate 
>your offer to help facilitate book purchases if they don't have 
>certain titles in stock. It makes sense that they would be easiest to 
>order from, as I guess they are used to international orders. Are you 
>directly connected with BPS?
> 
>
Recently I became the editor and organiser of the English section of the 
BPS. It is better not contact BPS directly, but rather me as the 
employees there can have difficulties handling these types of things. 
This is not Sweden. They are used to handle international orders.

>>There are many old editions of Pali texts
>>sitting in dusty (monastery) libraries here which could be digitally
>>scanned or photographed and made available on the internet.
>> 
>>
>This sounds very interesting, as does the similar idea with 
>manuscripts (like suttanipata-sanne). Hosting would also be an issue, 
>I suppose, since high quality images would take a lot of space and 
>cost in terms of bandwidth for downloads. I suppose they could also 
>be put onto CD-roms. I'll ask around to see if any of the (few, 
>unfortunately) people I know in a position to donate would be 
>interested. Perhaps someone could put together a 'teaser'. A few 
>pages of high-res manuscript photos, for example, just enough to show 
>people what you had in mind. I'm a firm believer in preserving rare 
>manuscripts with photography.
>
> 
>
So am I. I wrote to Rupert Gethin of the PTS whether the PTS would be 
interested. They will have the funds for it. He recently asked me 
whether I could find the old printed editions of the Sanne and a Tika on 
the Abhidhammatthasangaha for him so this was a good opportunity. The 
problem is that with my cheap digital camera I can make high quality 
pictures of half the length of palm leaves but not of the whole length 
of leaves. So to read the lines one needs to switch pictures and 
scholars don't like this. I could send a few samples if you like. Maybe 
with a Canon EOS, or the like, fit with a broadangle lens one can make 
pictures of whole leaves, but I don't know anyone who has such a camera 
and can photograph a Sinhalese palmleaf manuscript. Recently some 
student send me a few pictures he had made of the whole leaves of a 
Burmese manuscript. They were reasonable but still not satisfactory 
enough for a project. Sinhalese manuscripts can be very densely written. 
He forgot the name of the camera.
Indeed distribution by CDs would be better. However, bandwith becomes 
less and less of a problem. The problem is that there are thousands of 
MSS in Sri Lanka. Which ones to select? However, to start with 
collections like the National Museum or Peradeniya University would be a 
good start. Another problem would be dealing with nationalistic 
sentiments, but this could be overcome if some Sinhalese get involved.

I will send you a copy of the Concise List of Pali Literature that I am 
working on. It might be of use to you.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1342 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 6, 2005 3:58pm 
Subject: SV: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita bhikkhu
Sendt: 6. oktober 2005 19:48
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

On 02/10/05, rett <rett@telia.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
> Thanks for the interesting info and the tip about BPS bookshop. As an 
> odd coincidence, just this week I ran across (the first I've seen) a 
> used volume of the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries (to the 
> Udaana). It's one of Helmer Smith's many old books that are in the 
> shops these days in Sweden. I can see why this edition is regarded 
> highly.

What happened to Helmer Smith's library when he died in the beginning of the
fifties last century, is a mystery to me. I have some of his books in my
personal library. Apparently they were scattered all over the place. To
present you with another shocking report: I have been told that Trenckner's
missing transcripts of Anguttaranikaya have been traced to the British
Library! Apparently Trenckner lent his transcripts to Morris. When Morris
died they became absorbed by the British Library. Today the idea of getting
them back to Denmark requires diplomacy of the kind in which no one wants to
invest his/hers time. Sigh! 

Ole Pind


>
> How did Helmer's books come on the market? Shouldn't they not be in a 
> university library?


You asked about what sorts of texts I'm looking for. Well, everything
> really, but for the moment, apart from grammatical literature like 
> Saddaniiti etc, I'm interested in titles like:
>
> mahaava.msa
> mahaava.msa.tiika
> va.msatthakathaa (same as above?)
>
> dhammapadatthaka (I have gunasena's but it's falling apart)
>
> upaasakajanaalankaara
>
> dasa(daana)vatthuppaakara.na
> rasavaahinii.tiika (not the basic text) siiha.lavatthuppakara.na 
> <http://siiha.lavatthuppakara.na>
>
> And of course good editions of the canon, and suttapi.taka in 
> particular, are the most central texts. A lot depends on the prices, 
> as I'm sure you can imagine.
>
> > The BPS is preparing a list for you. They have most of the 
> > Hevavitarane
> books at cheap rates, ie, rs. 100-200 (US 1-2) each. I will arrange 
> for some other books to be ordered from other publishers.
>
> I'll start of course by contacting BPS directly, but also appreciate 
> your offer to help facilitate book purchases if they don't have 
> certain titles in stock. It makes sense that they would be easiest to 
> order from, as I guess they are used to international orders. Are you 
> directly connected with BPS?
>
> > I am the organiser and editor of the English section of the BPS. 
> > Better
> contact me directly because contacting the BPS can be very slow and 
> complicated in a case like this. They are good at sending 
> international orders.
>
>
> >There are many old editions of Pali texts sitting in dusty 
> >(monastery) libraries here which could be digitally scanned or 
> >photographed and made available on the internet.
>
> This sounds very interesting, as does the similar idea with 
> manuscripts (like suttanipata-sanne). Hosting would also be an issue, 
> I suppose, since high quality images would take a lot of space and 
> cost in terms of bandwidth for downloads. I suppose they could also be 
> put onto CD-roms. I'll ask around to see if any of the (few,
> unfortunately) people I know in a position to donate would be 
> interested. Perhaps someone could put together a 'teaser'. A few pages 
> of high-res manuscript photos, for example, just enough to show people 
> what you had in mind. I'm a firm believer in preserving rare 
> manuscripts with photography.
>
> > So am I. Rupert Gethin asked me to make a copy of two Abhidhamma 
> > books
> recently and this was a good opportunity to bring this up with him. He 
> seems to be interested and will bring it up with the PTS council. The 
> problem with manuscripts of course is that there are so many, and many 
> of these will not be worthwhile to be photographed. It takes an expert 
> to see whether a manuscript is worthwhile or not. Where to start? The 
> Colombo Museum or the Peradeniya University collections would be good 
> starts. One also has to deal with xenophobic and nationalistic 
> sentiments which are common here and be careful to get the local
authorities interested and on one's side.
>
> I was about to send you my list of Pali literature and an article on 
> Khom script MSS in Sri Lanka but then my computer got infected with 
> worms and now my email manager is down. I will send them soon.
>
Yours sincerely,
>
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>
Forest Hermitage
Udawattakele
PO Box 61
Kandy
Sri Lanka


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1343 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 1:30am 
Subject: (New e-text of) Narada Thera's Pali Course

After many hours of editing and re-formatting, I'm pleased to present a new 
electronic edition of Narada's _Elementary Pali Course_: 

http://www.pratyeka.org/narada/ 

Major improvements:
(1) Unicode format, with proper Romanized diacritics (similar to 
Buddhadatta's orthography in the _Concise English-Pali Dictionary_)
(2) The rows of the tables line up properly (even in the printed edition, 
this was not the case!)
(3) Many misc. spelling errors corrected --however, I notice more from day 
to day, and will correct them in the future. (Just today I noticed that one 
of the Pali words for "Milk" is mis-spelled...) 

Please pass on this link to any of your students --the PDF file is free to 
download, and will work on any computer without special fonts. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He whose mind is not soaked (by lust), he who is not affected (by haunt), he 
who has transcended both good and evil - for such a vigilant one there is no 
fear.
Random Dhammapada Verse 39

1344 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 3:14am 
Subject: Smith's books

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

May thanks for putting together a list of titles and looking into ordering some more books for BPS's stock. I'm also looking forward to hearing about the mss project.

You asked:

>
> > How did Helmer's books come on the market? Shouldn't they not be in a
> > university library?

Adding to Ole's comment, I can only speak for those of his books which are in Sinhalese script, of which I've seen books in the languages Pali, Sanskrit and Sinhalese. Often Pali plus Sinhalese commentary/translation of course. These have all been bound (in green) and often have stamps of the Uppsala University library where I believe at least some of them remained after Smith's death. Many of the ones I've seen are stamped has having been 'decommissioned' (or however you call it) from the library in the early-mid seventies. This much I know. As for guesswork, I'd suspect that efter Smith no-one in Uppsala could read the Sinhalese alphabet until Klas Hagren came along. At that point he probably was allowed to take over the books, or bought them cheaply from the library, since they weren't being used anyway.

When Klas passed away in 2000 one would expect the books to revert to the Oriental languages dept collection where a number of Smith's books remain, including the Burmese Saddaniiti with Nissaya which he used in preparing his Saddaniiti edition. However Klas left his books to a used bookstore. I don't want to speculate here as to the reason for that.

I'd personally like to see his books all collected in research libraries in Copenhagen and Uppsala, but it appears to be too late for that. So I think of it like the bones scattering in the dasa asubha bhaavanaa.

I took a look yesterday and found the following titles on the shelves for sale, APOLOGIES FOR TYPOS as I'm in a hurry. The titles should be close enough to give an idea. The best titles have, of course, already been sold. For instance I found Smith's Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa there. Here's the link to their online catalogue: http://www.redins.se/

paali-muttaka-vinaya-vinicchaya-sangaga.tiikaa, 1908, signed H Smith with notes, mostly cross references

Sikkhaapada-velajan, B-2451, Pali

Kokila Sandesaya ('cuckoo messenger') a Sinhalese Kaavya, 1924

Mayuura Sandesya ("The Peacock Messenger") 1910, Sinhalese Kaavya

Yogasatakaya, by 'Naagarjuna', 1898, brown binding, in Sanskrit (sinhalese alphabet) and Sinhalese.

Saangaadhara, 1924, Sanskrit text (sinhalese characters)/Sinhalese commentary. Appears to be on anatomy or surgery.

Cariya-pi.taka 1904 Pali/Sinhalese comm or tr.

Daham Sara.naa, 1929, Sinhalese

Saararttha-diipikaa nanuu jaatakaartthakatthaa-vyaakhyaava, 1926, Pali and Sinhalese comm/tr

Kaayaviratigaathaa, 1915, Pali and Sinhalese

Sidat-sanguraa-vistara-sannaye, 1903, Signed H. Smith, Pali and Sinhalese, extensive penciled marginalia possibly from learning Pali (lots of simple comparisons to Sanskrit forms)

Kaayasekara 1872

Kaayasekhara 1931

Mahaabodhiva.msa 1891 Sinhalese

Guptila Kaavya 192? Signed H. Smith, Sinhalese

Singana Kollaa, ("The Beggar Boy") 1929, Modern Sinhalese Novel

Ruhu.nu.maaga.mpura-var.nanava, 1920, travelogue, Sinhalese with photographs

Ruvanmaala (piyumaalaa) by Paraakrama Baahu VI, 1892

best regards,

/Rett

1345 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 7:35am 
Subject: SV: Smith's books

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 7. oktober 2005 09:15
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Smith's books

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

May thanks for putting together a list of titles and looking into ordering
some more books for BPS's stock. I'm also looking forward to hearing about
the mss project.

You asked:

>
> > How did Helmer's books come on the market? Shouldn't they not be in 
> > a university library?

Adding to Ole's comment, I can only speak for those of his books which are
in Sinhalese script, of which I've seen books in the languages Pali,
Sanskrit and Sinhalese. Often Pali plus Sinhalese commentary/translation of
course. These have all been bound (in green) and often have stamps of the
Uppsala University library where I believe at least some of them remained
after Smith's death. Many of the ones I've seen are stamped has having been
'decommissioned' (or however you call it) from the library in the early-mid
seventies. This much I know. As for guesswork, I'd suspect that efter Smith
no-one in Uppsala could read the Sinhalese alphabet until Klas Hagren came
along. At that point he probably was allowed to take over the books, or
bought them cheaply from the library, since they weren't being used anyway.

<When Klas passed away in 2000 one would expect the books to revert to the
Oriental languages dept collection where a number of Smith's books remain,
including the Burmese Saddaniiti with Nissaya which he used in preparing his
Saddaniiti edition. However Klas left his books to a used bookstore. I don't
want to speculate here as to the reason for that.>

Do you mean to say that he sold his books to a second hand book shop before
he committed suicide?! At one point I started to wonder why he did not
contact me any longer. According to my information, he had a very serious
depression. He had stopped teaching and was on sick leave for quite some
time. This, of course, explains why I did not hear from him. Thinking of his
tragic demise makes me very sad.

<I'd personally like to see his books all collected in research libraries in
Copenhagen and Uppsala, but it appears to be too late for that. So I think
of it like the bones scattering in the dasa asubha bhaavanaa.>

You are right. On the other hand Pali studies are no longer in focus. You
have to address the occult world of modern western Academia to understand
the reason for this general neglect. Ignorance is, I believe, part of the
explanation. So let the scattered books remain with those individuals who
out of interest bought them or otherwise came into possession of them and
found room for them on their book shelves.

Best,

Ole


I took a look yesterday and found the following titles on the shelves for
sale, APOLOGIES FOR TYPOS as I'm in a hurry. The titles should be close
enough to give an idea. The best titles have, of course, already been sold.
For instance I found Smith's Kaccaayanasuttaniddesa there. Here's the link
to their online catalogue: http://www.redins.se/

paali-muttaka-vinaya-vinicchaya-sangaga.tiikaa, 1908, signed H Smith with
notes, mostly cross references

Sikkhaapada-velajan, B-2451, Pali

Kokila Sandesaya ('cuckoo messenger') a Sinhalese Kaavya, 1924

Mayuura Sandesya ("The Peacock Messenger") 1910, Sinhalese Kaavya

Yogasatakaya, by 'Naagarjuna', 1898, brown binding, in Sanskrit (sinhalese
alphabet) and Sinhalese.

Saangaadhara, 1924, Sanskrit text (sinhalese characters)/Sinhalese
commentary. Appears to be on anatomy or surgery.

Cariya-pi.taka 1904 Pali/Sinhalese comm or tr.

Daham Sara.naa, 1929, Sinhalese

Saararttha-diipikaa nanuu jaatakaartthakatthaa-vyaakhyaava, 1926, Pali and
Sinhalese comm/tr

Kaayaviratigaathaa, 1915, Pali and Sinhalese

Sidat-sanguraa-vistara-sannaye, 1903, Signed H. Smith, Pali and Sinhalese,
extensive penciled marginalia possibly from learning Pali (lots of simple
comparisons to Sanskrit forms)

Kaayasekara 1872

Kaayasekhara 1931

Mahaabodhiva.msa 1891 Sinhalese

Guptila Kaavya 192? Signed H. Smith, Sinhalese

Singana Kollaa, ("The Beggar Boy") 1929, Modern Sinhalese Novel

Ruhu.nu.maaga.mpura-var.nanava, 1920, travelogue, Sinhalese with photographs

Ruvanmaala (piyumaalaa) by Paraakrama Baahu VI, 1892

best regards,

/Rett

1346 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 3:37am 
Subject: Scanning MSS

Dear Rett,

Due to some problem with my email manager (a worm disabled it for a few 
days) I sent two messages on the group. They are a different at the end. 
Please read both.
Yours,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1347 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 11:48am 
Subject: Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references 

Greetings,

Would anyone by chance know the precise references for the following two 
statements?

1: When Brahmins said that they could wash away their sins by bathing
in sacred rivers, the Buddha joked that the water might wash away their
good deeds also.

2: There were so many arahants flying through the sky around
Cittalapabbata monastery in the Roha.na kingdom that the farmers' crops
did not grow well due to lack of sunlight.''

I was told that 1 is from the Jaataka- commentary and that 2 might be
from the Mahaava.msa subcommentary.

The statements probably differ from the originals somewhat. I need them
for a book that I am editing.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1348 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 0:33pm 
Subject: SV: Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references 	

Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

The Brahmins' statement about their sole claim to (ritual) purity is
mentioned in a number of suttas in the Pali canon. I have not been able to
trace anything like 1., though. However, compare Assalayanasuttanta about
such claims. In the Jataka-a.t.thakatha one finds references to the fact
that Brahmins are purified (sujjhanti) by performing sacrifices. I have not
been able to trace 2. either. I wish I could because it is hilarious.

With best wishes,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 7. oktober 2005 17:48
Til: Pali Yahoo Group; Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references

Greetings,

Would anyone by chance know the precise references for the following two
statements?

1: When Brahmins said that they could wash away their sins by bathing in
sacred rivers, the Buddha joked that the water might wash away their good
deeds also.

2: There were so many arahants flying through the sky around Cittalapabbata
monastery in the Roha.na kingdom that the farmers' crops did not grow well
due to lack of sunlight.''

I was told that 1 is from the Jaataka- commentary and that 2 might be from
the Mahaava.msa subcommentary.

The statements probably differ from the originals somewhat. I need them for
a book that I am editing.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1349 
From: "Everett Thiele" <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 0:36pm 
Subject: Re: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

Thanks for the heads-up about the two versions of the message. Here
are some quick responses to parts I didn't see until now.

> Are you connected to a university or are you building up a 
> private collection?

It's for my private collection. I'm a student at the University of
Stockholm and am also loosely connected with Uppsala University (as in
taking an evening class there). My long-term goal is to get as good at
Pali as I can and help promote Pali and Tipi.taka studies in Sweden.
This will probably need to take place through informal networks,
since, as Ole mentioned, Pali is not especially 'trendy' in the
universities here at this time.

> So to read the lines one needs to switch pictures and 
> scholars don't like this. 

I have a question about this. In the absence of a better solution,
would it be satisfactory to graft the two halves together in an
image-processing program? I could give it a try if you can put a
couple of 'halves' up for download, though I'm not much of a tecchie.
The halves would need to be straight, and exactly the same size. This
could probably be easily accomplished if the camera is on a tripod and
the mss can be slid laterally along a small shelf or straightedge
fixed on the table-surface.

Just an idea. It might be more of a fiddle than it's worth.

> I will send you a copy of the Concise List of Pali Literature that I
> am working on. It might be of use to you.

Thank you, that sounds interesting.

About trying to decide where to start, I don't have any knowledge
about the mss tradition at all. I would need to do a special study
just to start being able to read handwritten Pali in Sinhalese script.
I'm still spending most of my time trying to improve my reading
ability in the language and printed Sinhalese script.

best regards,

/Rett

1350 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Oct 8, 2005 3:30am 
Subject: Re: Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references

Bhante, 

Regarding the first quote to be traced: 

> 1: When Brahmins said that they could wash away their sins by bathing
> in sacred rivers, the Buddha joked that the water might wash away their
> good deeds also.

I know of a very similar sutta, but it is not the Buddha himself who 
reproves a Brahmin for ritualistic bathing in frigid water (instead, it is 
one of the female monks). I believe there are several suttas on this topic, 
but I do not know one off-hand in which the Buddha is the interlocutor. A 
number of Brahmin forms of ritual ablution are satirized in the the 
Janussoni-vaggo --this is a possibility, but I do not remember this 
specifically. 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
"Sorrowful are all conditioned things": when this, with wisdom, one 
discerns, then is one disgusted with ill; this is the path to purity.
Random Dhammapada Verse 278

1351 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Oct 8, 2005 3:37am 
Subject: MS Digital Camera issue

A bit of a hollow offer of help: 

I will be flying from Bangkok to Sri Lanka in December. Although I am not 
in a financial position to buy a digital camera (note: my total household 
income is currently less than $200 / month --thus, even the cost of travel 
is draining [I'm told that Sri Lankan tea-plantation labourers earn about 
$60 / month, by comparison]) I could arrange to pick-up/buy a camera in 
Bangkok (i.e., a city where these things are quite cheap) and carry it to 
Kandy with me. I don't think I could be much more than a delivery boy in 
this scenario --but I would expect that cameras, computers, etc., are 
cheaper here than in S.L. (I would assume that the lens will be manufactured 
in Japan, the rest of the camera in some combination of China, Malaysia, or 
Taiwan). 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Make haste in doing good; check your mind from evil; for the mind of him who 
is slow in doing meritorious actions delights in evil.
Random Dhammapada Verse 116

1352 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 0:13am 
Subject: Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae??

The Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae?? 

Apparently this was a project started in Oslo in 2002. 

Is it still ongoing? 

http://folk.uio.no/braarvig/tlb/
http://folk.uio.no/braarvig/tlb/DescriptionofTLB.htm 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who is full of confidence and virtue, possessed of fame and wealth, he is 
honoured everywhere, in whatever land he sojourns.
Random Dhammapada Verse 303

1353 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 2:30am 
Subject: SV: Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae??

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 9. oktober 2005 06:13
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae??


The Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae?? 

Apparently this was a project started in Oslo in 2002. 

Is it still ongoing? 

I have no idea. Let me try to find out.

Ole Pind


http://folk.uio.no/braarvig/tlb/
http://folk.uio.no/braarvig/tlb/DescriptionofTLB.htm 

E.M. 

--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ He who is full of confidence and virtue, possessed
of fame and wealth, he is honoured everywhere, in whatever land he sojourns.
Random Dhammapada Verse 303 

1354 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 10:10am 
Subject: Re: SV: Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references 	

Dear Ole,

I just talked to Professor Venerable Dhammavihari and he said that 
people put all sort of interesting things in the Buddha's mouth. 
However, he knew about the flying arahants at Cittalapabbata and said 
that they are even mentioned in the Sri Lanka national anthem! He could 
not give the source though. I strongly suspect that it is from the 
Mahava.msa.tiikaa because it is said in the Mahava.msa that there were 
12000 arahants at Cittalapabbata and the commentator would probably have 
seen the need to elaborate on it, as commentators usually do with these 
kinds of things. It could also be from the Rasavaahini or some other 
late medieaval Sinhalese work. It is not found on the CSCD. I checked 
all references to Cittalapabbata on it.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

>Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,
>
>The Brahmins' statement about their sole claim to (ritual) purity is
>mentioned in a number of suttas in the Pali canon. I have not been able to
>trace anything like 1., though. However, compare Assalayanasuttanta about
>such claims. In the Jataka-a.t.thakatha one finds references to the fact
>that Brahmins are purified (sujjhanti) by performing sacrifices. I have not
>been able to trace 2. either. I wish I could because it is hilarious.
>
>With best wishes,
>
>Ole Pind
>
>-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
>Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
>af nyanatusita
>Sendt: 7. oktober 2005 17:48
>Til: Pali Yahoo Group; Pali Study Group
>Emne: [palistudy] Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references
>
>Greetings,
>
>Would anyone by chance know the precise references for the following two
>statements?
>
>1: When Brahmins said that they could wash away their sins by bathing in
>sacred rivers, the Buddha joked that the water might wash away their good
>deeds also.
>
>2: There were so many arahants flying through the sky around Cittalapabbata
>monastery in the Roha.na kingdom that the farmers' crops did not grow well
>due to lack of sunlight.''
>
>I was told that 1 is from the Jaataka- commentary and that 2 might be from
>the Mahaava.msa subcommentary.
>
>The statements probably differ from the originals somewhat. I need them for
>a book that I am editing.
>
>Best wishes,
>Bh. Nyanatusita

1355 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 9:59am 
Subject: Re: MS Digital Camera issue

navako wrote:

>A bit of a hollow offer of help: 
>
>I will be flying from Bangkok to Sri Lanka in December. Although I am not 
>in a financial position to buy a digital camera (note: my total household 
>income is currently less than $200 / month --thus, even the cost of travel 
>is draining [I'm told that Sri Lankan tea-plantation labourers earn about 
>$60 / month, by comparison]) 
>
Those teapickers do quite well it seems. Rs 6000,- is a fairly good wage 
here. I earn nothing at all.

>I could arrange to pick-up/buy a camera in 
>Bangkok (i.e., a city where these things are quite cheap) and carry it to 
>Kandy with me. I don't think I could be much more than a delivery boy in 
>this scenario --but I would expect that cameras, computers, etc., are 
>cheaper here than in S.L. (I would assume that the lens will be manufactured 
>in Japan, the rest of the camera in some combination of China, Malaysia, or 
>Taiwan). 
> 
>
I think that we first have to find what camera would be suitable. Madam 
Filliozat said that she might bring one when she comes to SL. I don't 
know when she will come though. Are you interested to help photographing 
manuscripts, old printed editions, and organising a proper project? We 
could get UNESCO and/or PTS support and possibly you will be able to 
earn more than you do now. To have a lay westerner organising things 
would be ideal.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

>E.M. 
>
> 
>

1356 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 0:15pm 
Subject: Re: (New e-text of) Narada Thera's Pali Course

Very good. Do you mind if it is put on the Metta Lanka website and other 
Buddhist sites?
Couldn't you do something similar with the Duroiselle grammar? As far as 
I remember the digital edition made some years ago was not properly 
proofread and could be improved. It has some useful parts.
Bh Nyanatusita

>
>After many hours of editing and re-formatting, I'm pleased to present a new 
>electronic edition of Narada's _Elementary Pali Course_: 
>
>
>E.M. 
>
> 
>

1357 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 1:19pm 
Subject: Re: Re: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Everett Thiele wrote:

Dear Rett,

>Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
>Thanks for the heads-up about the two versions of the message. Here
>are some quick responses to parts I didn't see until now.
> 
>
Sorry for the confusion. My internet provider here does not provide any
kind of protection whatsoever against viruses and I was ignorant about
the need of a proper firewall. Now I have three Trojan horse monitoring
programs running, 2 virus scanners, and a new firewall. My new firewall
informed me 80 attempts were made to access my computer, and blocked,
after being about 1 hour on the net!

>>Are you connected to a university or are you building up a 
>>private collection?
>> 
>>
>It's for my private collection. I'm a student at the University of
>Stockholm and am also loosely connected with Uppsala University (as in
>taking an evening class there). My long-term goal is to get as good at
>Pali as I can and help promote Pali and Tipi.taka studies in Sweden.
>This will probably need to take place through informal networks,
>since, as Ole mentioned, Pali is not especially 'trendy' in the
>universities here at this time.
>
> 
>
Even here it is not trendy. Most young Sri Lankan monks prefer to study
social sciences, politics, and other worldly topics, and many find it
strange to see a western monk who is interested in Pali manuscripts.
Some even get suspicious and think that one has ulterior motives and
wants to steal or buy manuscripts to sell as antique in the west.

>>So to read the lines one needs to switch pictures and 
>>scholars don't like this. 
>> 
>>
>
>I have a question about this. In the absence of a better solution,
>would it be satisfactory to graft the two halves together in an
>image-processing program? I could give it a try if you can put a
>couple of 'halves' up for download, though I'm not much of a tecchie.
>The halves would need to be straight, and exactly the same size. This
>could probably be easily accomplished if the camera is on a tripod and
>the mss can be slid laterally along a small shelf or straightedge
>fixed on the table-surface.
>
>Just an idea. It might be more of a fiddle than it's worth.
>
> 
>
I have thought about this too. It is called stitching. I tried to
stitch a few pictures with one or two programs last year but it is quite
a bit of work. Imagine having to stitch together the pictures of a
manuscript of 300 leaves, that is, 1200 pictures... It is definitely
better to use a good camera on which a broad lens can be fitted.

>>I will send you a copy of the Concise List of Pali Literature that I
>>am working on. It might be of use to you.
>> 
>>
> Thank you, that sounds interesting.
>
> 
>
It should be with you now.

>About trying to decide where to start, I don't have any knowledge
>about the mss tradition at all. I would need to do a special study
>just to start being able to read handwritten Pali in Sinhalese script.
>I'm still spending most of my time trying to improve my reading
>ability in the language and printed Sinhalese script.
>
> 
>
The Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts in the Library of the Colombo
Museum by W.A. de Silva, Colombo, 1938, would be a good start. It gives
a lot of detailed information about manufacture, dating-systems, 
writing, etc, of manuscripts in the introduction. Maybe it is available 
in a university library in Sweden. If not let me know and I can try to 
get it scanned in. The Catalogue of Sinhalese Manuscripts in the 
Copenhagen Royal Library by Godakumbara also has a useful introduction.

Generally, depending on the abilities of the scribe, the Sinhala writing
in manuscripts is fine, sometimes even quite beautiful, and the 
characters are as easy or even easier to read than printed books. The 
problem of course is that there are no spaces between words which slows 
down reading, imagine having to read 
namotassabhagavatoarahatosammaasambuddhassa etc in small
Sinhala script.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita


>best regards,
>
>/Rett

1358 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 2:09pm 
Subject: SV: SV: Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references 	

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 9. oktober 2005 16:11
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: SV: [palistudy] Washing away merit & Cittalapabbata references

Dear Ole,

I just talked to Professor Venerable Dhammavihari and he said that people
put all sort of interesting things in the Buddha's mouth. 
However, he knew about the flying arahants at Cittalapabbata and said that
they are even mentioned in the Sri Lanka national anthem! He could not give
the source though. I strongly suspect that it is from the Mahava.msa.tiikaa
because it is said in the Mahava.msa that there were 12000 arahants at
Cittalapabbata and the commentator would probably have seen the need to
elaborate on it, as commentators usually do with these kinds of things. It
could also be from the Rasavaahini or some other late medieaval Sinhalese
work. It is not found on the CSCD. I checked all references to
Cittalapabbata on it.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

Dear Bh. Nyanatusitia,

I think that Venerable Dhammavihari is absolutely right. Often such claims
are based upon elaborations on canonical text. The reference to Majjhima I
39 that I proposed yesterday might be a possible candidate for such
elaborations. It is very close to the scenario that your quotation
presupposes. As for the flying arahants, which is hilarious, I shall look
very carefully into my ed. of the Mvh tiikaa. Hopefully, I shall dig out
something interesting. If not I will look into Rasavahini or
Sihalavatthuppakarana.

Best wishes,

Ole 

1359 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:52am 
Subject: Re: MS Digital Camera issue

Bhante, 

>> [I'm told that Sri Lankan tea-plantation labourers earn about 
>>$60 / month, by comparison]) 
>>
> Those teapickers do quite well it seems. Rs 6000,- is a fairly good wage 
> here. I earn nothing at all.

The main complaint (from the tea-planters) is the cost of educating their 
children. As I've mentioned before, a public school teacher in rural Lao 
earns only $15 / month. However, the solution here is probably not to 
import Laotian teachers ... 

> Are you interested to help photographing 
> manuscripts, old printed editions, and organising a proper project? We 
> could get UNESCO and/or PTS support and possibly you will be able to 
> earn more than you do now. To have a lay westerner organising things 
> would be ideal.

And, given my current (limited) abilities in Pali, this would probably be an 
ideal job for myself as well (in other words: I could more quickly become 
competent in taking photographs than translating colophons). I am currently 
engaged in (what I might call) semi-humanitarian work in Lao --and it is 
expected that I will return here in January (i.e., after a month in Sri 
Lanka) to continue teaching the English language. However, I can break off 
my engagements here at any time; and, as Mme Filliozat has just informed me 
that there aren't any Kaccayana MS worth reading in Laos, I have even fewer 
ties to this place as each day goes by. 

We could discuss the matter further when I arrive in Sri Lanka; if I decide 
to relocate to the island "permanently" (and, I'm told, all is impermanent) 
I would then stop learning Laotian and resume learning modern Sinhala. If 
you'd like to see my CV/rsum, etc., let me know. In other words: I don't 
know if I'm qualified for the job, but then, unless Lance Cousins is going 
to volunteer for the position, I might not have much competition. 

Incidentally: U.N. agencies (including UNESCO) have a very interesting 
definition of "Volunteer". A U.N. "Volunteer" teaching English in Lao earns 
US$2000 / $3000 per month (whereas a Laotian paid by the government to do 
the same job earns $15 per month, as mentioned); this truly elevates the UN 
staff to "millionaire" status in one of the poorest countries in the word. 
All U.N. wages are indexed against the cost of living in New York City. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/ 

Random Dhammapada Verse 139

1360 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:59am 
Subject: (New e-text of) Narada; & Duroiselle?

Bhante, 

> Very good. Do you mind if it is put on the Metta Lanka website...

I would be delighted to see it on the Metta website. 

> Couldn't you do something similar with the Duroiselle grammar?
> As far as 
> I remember the digital edition made some years ago was not properly 
> proofread and could be improved.

Indeed, it could be improved, and I am already quite familiar with the book 
from comparative reading that I carried out in composing my own tables. 

I currently do not have a source text of Duroiselle (i.e., I have only .PDF, 
and I would need a .TXT, .DOC, or .HTML file to begin revising the text); if 
Metta.lk kept a copy of the source text, please do send it to me. 

One of the problems with Duroiselle (in my opinion) is the non-traditional 
order that he gives to ... everything. Declensions, conjugations, etc., are 
not in their "ordinal" sequence --and this makes the Pali names for the 
cases (etc.) nonsensical. I'm a "traditionalist" in that I assume 
"Pa~ncami" sould be the fifth case. 

Thus, while I would be happy to revise Duroiselle, there would be a question 
as to what extent it is proper to transform the tables. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Make an island unto yourself. Strive without delay; become wise. Purged of 
strain and passionless, you will not come again to birth and old age.
Random Dhammapada Verse 238

1361 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:07am 
Subject: Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics

I have often wondered what standard the Japanese use for Pali (presumably 
they have a set of standard Indic phonetics used also for Sanskrit --perhaps 
also for modern Indian languages?) --but I have been unable to find anything 
about this subject. 

I rather hope they are not using the ancient Chinese method of transcribing 
Sanskrit, given that Japanese has both alpabetic and syllabic ranges. 

Does anyone have a concise table of Japanese transliterations for Indic 
languages? If such a thing has been published, perhaps someone could scan 
it and send it to me, and I could make up a proper table to post to the 
internet? 

It does indeed seem a bit odd that Pali has been made available in 
Mongolian, but not Japanese, on the various CD-ROM projects. I do not find 
that the old Chinese transliteration has much currency; but I have had the 
short-comings of that system explained to me by a Sinologist. 

The Taiwanese have a syllabary (Bopomofo) that could be used for 
transliterating foreign words into any of the Sinic-group languages --but, 
alas, because it was invented by a Taiwanese, there are political obstacles 
to its use in the rest of China. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Any loose act, any corrupt practice, a life of dubious holiness - none of 
these is of much fruit.
Random Dhammapada Verse 312

1362 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Oct 10, 2005 9:52am 
Subject: SV: Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics

<Does anyone have a concise table of Japanese transliterations for Indic
languages? If such a thing has been published, perhaps someone could scan
it and send it to me, and I could make up a proper table to post to the
internet?> 

I have never seen a concise table of Japanese transliterations, which, of
course, does not preclude that it exists. I used to have a Japanese Pali
grammar in my office. I have to admit that I never looked into it, in spite
of the fact that I read Japanese. There is one structural obstacle, though.
In Japan I am called Ore Pindo, and with good reason: The phoneme /l/ does
not exist in Japanese and is therefore not included in the two traditional
syllabic writing systems katakana and hiragana. They would have to invent
it. They probably won't.

Best,

Ole Pind


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ Any loose act, any corrupt practice, a life of
dubious holiness - none of these is of much fruit.
Random Dhammapada Verse 312 

1363 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:57pm 
Subject: the moderator is back!

Dear members,

My old desktop computer is now repaired (hopefully) but I won't know for
sure until later in the week when I return to the cottage and reconnect it
to the peripherals (monitor, etc.). I will also be taking back my laptop
just in case there are further problems. The computer's power supply unit
with its on/off switch needed to be replaced and since the computer is now 9
years old it may be time to start thinking about a new computer.

I'm quite amazed at the messages that have been posted by group members
since I went off-line Sept. 9. The topics have been and continue to be very
interesting and even exciting!

On Sept. 13, as mentioned before, I received a parcel of books (which I
wasn't expecting) from Ven. Dhammanando in Thailand. I was delighted to find
4 Pali grammatical texts in the Thai script. The Pali titles are:

1) Kaccaayanatthadiipanii (a 650 page mahaa.tiikaa on Kaccaayana)
2) Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa (473 pp.)
3) Saddatthabhedacintaa with the Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii
4) Padasa"ngaho

Later on, I will provide more information. The first book is totally new to
me as I have not seen it listed in bibliographies. It seems to be a 20th
century work based on old material and similar to Kacc-va.n.n. but more
expanded. Ven. Dhammanando included a note saying that the costs and postage
were paid for by his sponsors. He also said that he is spending his vassa in
a cave and that he will not have Internet access until November.

I've been thinking that it might be worth setting up an online catalogue of
Pali grammatical literature which could include, for each title (wherever
possible), the introductory verses, the colophon, a table of contents, data
on known publications and MSS, and links to reliable etexts, studies,
translations and even page images especially if Eisel gets around to
photographing manuscripts and rare books in Sri Lanka. I think such a
catalogue would be useful to students and scholars interested in the
literature.

I have transcribed the colophon (see below) at the end of
Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa which we can study in more detail later after I get
through the introductory verses of the same text. The colophon gives the
date, place, and authorship but it's not clear what the date '988'
(sakkaraaja) corresponds to in the A.D. calendar. Dates I have seen in
catalogues are in the early 17th cent. A.D. range. It appears that the
text was completed in a city called Pa.myaa in Sri Lanka but I'm not sure
how it relates to Abhayagiri.

Anyway, here's the colophon (I have not separated the 8-syllabic quarters
into columns as in the Thai):

navasate sakkaraaje a.t.thahisiitiyaapi ca
patte kattikamaasassa sukkapakkha.t.thaane dine
naatisa"nkhepavitthaaraa siddhaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.

pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho
la"nkato nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca.

nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito
nato abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu paaka.to.

ha.msaavatiipurindassa pa~ncasetibhasaamino
nattaa yo suuruccanaati naamenaasi supaaka.to.

akaasi so etthaavaasa.m ramma.m devasabhopama.m
vasatii ettha yo thero saasanassa hitaavaho.

mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino
racitaa tena therena esaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.

saddhammo sucira.m .thaatu bhuupo paatu mahiitala.m
vassatumbadharo kaale dhamme ti.t.thantu paa.ninoti.
(--Kacc-va.n.n, p. 473, Thai ed. Phra Dhammamolii, BE 2531)

Best wishes,
Jim

1364 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Oct 10, 2005 7:14pm 
Subject: SV: the moderator is back!

Dear Jim,

Congratulations! I am curious about the Kaccaayanatthadiipanii plus the
other diipaniis.

Best wishes,

Ole Pind


Dear members,

My old desktop computer is now repaired (hopefully) but I won't know for
sure until later in the week when I return to the cottage and reconnect it
to the peripherals (monitor, etc.). I will also be taking back my laptop
just in case there are further problems. The computer's power supply unit
with its on/off switch needed to be replaced and since the computer is now 9
years old it may be time to start thinking about a new computer.

I'm quite amazed at the messages that have been posted by group members
since I went off-line Sept. 9. The topics have been and continue to be very
interesting and even exciting!

On Sept. 13, as mentioned before, I received a parcel of books (which I
wasn't expecting) from Ven. Dhammanando in Thailand. I was delighted to find
4 Pali grammatical texts in the Thai script. The Pali titles are:

1) Kaccaayanatthadiipanii (a 650 page mahaa.tiikaa on Kaccaayana)
2) Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa (473 pp.)
3) Saddatthabhedacintaa with the Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii
4) Padasa"ngaho

Later on, I will provide more information. The first book is totally new to
me as I have not seen it listed in bibliographies. It seems to be a 20th
century work based on old material and similar to Kacc-va.n.n. but more
expanded. Ven. Dhammanando included a note saying that the costs and postage
were paid for by his sponsors. He also said that he is spending his vassa in
a cave and that he will not have Internet access until November.

I've been thinking that it might be worth setting up an online catalogue of
Pali grammatical literature which could include, for each title (wherever
possible), the introductory verses, the colophon, a table of contents, data
on known publications and MSS, and links to reliable etexts, studies,
translations and even page images especially if Eisel gets around to
photographing manuscripts and rare books in Sri Lanka. I think such a
catalogue would be useful to students and scholars interested in the
literature.

I have transcribed the colophon (see below) at the end of
Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa which we can study in more detail later after I get
through the introductory verses of the same text. The colophon gives the
date, place, and authorship but it's not clear what the date '988'
(sakkaraaja) corresponds to in the A.D. calendar. Dates I have seen in
catalogues are in the early 17th cent. A.D. range. It appears that the text
was completed in a city called Pa.myaa in Sri Lanka but I'm not sure how it
relates to Abhayagiri.

Anyway, here's the colophon (I have not separated the 8-syllabic quarters
into columns as in the Thai):

navasate sakkaraaje a.t.thahisiitiyaapi ca patte kattikamaasassa
sukkapakkha.t.thaane dine naatisa"nkhepavitthaaraa siddhaa
kaccaanava.n.nanaa.

pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho la"nkato
nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca.

nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito nato abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu
paaka.to.

ha.msaavatiipurindassa pa~ncasetibhasaamino nattaa yo suuruccanaati
naamenaasi supaaka.to.

akaasi so etthaavaasa.m ramma.m devasabhopama.m vasatii ettha yo thero
saasanassa hitaavaho.

mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino
racitaa tena therena esaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.

saddhammo sucira.m .thaatu bhuupo paatu mahiitala.m vassatumbadharo kaale
dhamme ti.t.thantu paa.ninoti.
(--Kacc-va.n.n, p. 473, Thai ed. Phra Dhammamolii, BE 2531)

Best wishes,
Jim

1365 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:58am 
Subject: Re: the moderator is back!

Welcome back Jim,

I think the below is a great idea. I'd be happy to contribute info from my collection in case I have anything that might fill a gap (unlikely, but just in case).

best regards,

/Rett

>
>I've been thinking that it might be worth setting up an online catalogue of
>Pali grammatical literature which could include, for each title (wherever
>possible), the introductory verses, the colophon, a table of contents, data
>on known publications and MSS, and links to reliable etexts, studies,
>translations and even page images especially if Eisel gets around to
>photographing manuscripts and rare books in Sri Lanka. I think such a
>catalogue would be useful to students and scholars interested in the
>literature.

1366 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:33am 
Subject: Re: Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics

navako wrote:

>I have often wondered what standard the Japanese use for Pali (presumably 
>they have a set of standard Indic phonetics used also for Sanskrit --perhaps 
>also for modern Indian languages?) --but I have been unable to find anything 
>about this subject. 
> 
>
The Japanese monk staying here told me that the Japanese put a dash 
after the vowel character to denote long vowels, he did not know how 
cerebrals, etc, are transcribed and whether they are transcribed.

How are the Sanskrit s accent, r macron, r dot below & macron 
transcribed according to the Velthuis scheme? ''s, ''r, ''.r?

Bh. Nyanatusita

1367 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:00am 
Subject: Re: Re: MS Digital Camera issue

>The main complaint (from the tea-planters) is the cost of educating their 
>children. As I've mentioned before, a public school teacher in rural Lao 
>earns only $15 / month. However, the solution here is probably not to 
>import Laotian teachers ... 
>
> 
>
If they would wish their children to be tea pickers too then there would 
be no complaints, but obviously, like everyone here they have different 
plans for their children. The Sinhalese also complain about the costs of 
education. There is fierce competition for jobs and good CVs are very 
important. Government education is insufficient and almost every child 
in towns and even villages takes private tuition classes after school 
and in the weekends. This all has to be paid for by the parents.

>>Are you interested to help photographing 
>>manuscripts, old printed editions, and organising a proper project? We 
>>could get UNESCO and/or PTS support and possibly you will be able to 
>>earn more than you do now. To have a lay westerner organising things 
>>would be ideal.
>> 
>>
>
>We could discuss the matter further when I arrive in Sri Lanka; if I decide 
>to relocate to the island "permanently" (and, I'm told, all is impermanent) 
>I would then stop learning Laotian and resume learning modern Sinhala. If 
>you'd like to see my CV/rsum, etc., let me know. In other words: I don't 
>know if I'm qualified for the job, but then, unless Lance Cousins is going 
>to volunteer for the position, I might not have much competition. 
>
> 
>
Yes, it is better to discuss this when you are here. I personally think 
that official qualifications are of lesser importance than enthusiasm 
and communication and organisational skills. There is a demand for 
English teachers here too by the way and I suppose that one could earn 
more than in Laos. Application for UNESCO support for projects takes at 
least a year I was told, but we could find other ways to start. Ven. 
Mettavihari could help too.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1368 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:40am 
Subject: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Jim,

Below is a quick and tentative rendering I made of the verses.
Re. Pa.mya: Because it is said that the town of Pam.ya belongs to the 
Lord of Ha.msavatii, ie, Pegu, it is the Burmese Pa.mya.
It seems to be referring to a monastery made by the King for Ven. Vijita.
I am wondering whether La''nkato is connected to dhaja or to 
Vijitaavii. In any case there is some connection to Sri Lanka. Maybe it 
is a monk from Sri Lanka, a monk who had visited Sri Lanka, or a 
disciple of one of the Sinhalese monks who came to Pegu in the middle ages.
DPPN gives the following info on Vijitaavii: ``*Vijitv.* A Burmese 
author of Vijitapura (Pany); he wrote a Kaccyanavannan on the 
Sandhikappa and the Vcakopadesa. Ss. p. 90; Bode, op. cit., 46.''
This seems to be the one referred to in the colophon.
If it is the Burmese Sakka era (starting at 638 CE) then it is 1626 CE. 
If it is the Sinhalese Sakka era (543 BCE) then it is 455. The latter of 
course does not make sense.
I hope that this is of use.

>navasate sakkaraaje a.t.thahisiitiyaapi ca
>patte kattikamaasassa sukkapakkha.t.thaane dine
>naatisa"nkhepavitthaaraa siddhaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
> 
>
In 988 of the Era of Sakka
On a day of the bright moon face of the Kattika month,

the elucidation, Not to abbreviated nor too extensive, of the Kaccaana succeeded. 

>pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho
>la"nkato nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca. 
>
In a town (called) Pa.myaa, resembling a hoisted banner
from La''nkaa, with delightful roots (of trees), caves, boundaries, etc.

>nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito
>nato abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu paaka.to.
> 
>
Surrounded by beautiful rivers, mountains, and irrigation tanks,
bowed/inclined (?) ``Abhayagiri (Fearless Mountain)'', famous in all 
directions.

>ha.msaavatiipurindassa pa~ncasetibhasaamino
>nattaa yo suuruccanaati naamenaasi supaaka.to.
> 
>
Belonging to the Lord of the town of Ha.msavatii, the master of 65 
elephants,
who has danced a very pleasing dance, you are are very famous by name.

>akaasi so etthaavaasa.m ramma.m devasabhopama.m
>vasatii ettha yo thero saasanassa hitaavaho.
> 
>
He made a residence here, delightful, like an assembly hall of the gods,
The senior monk who dwells here is a bringer of benefit to the dispensation.

>mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino
>racitaa tena therena esaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
> 
>
With a great sound (?), having the name of Sahita-vijitaavii (''endowed 
with the beneficial conquest''),
composed by that senior monk, is this elucidation of the Kaccaana.

>saddhammo sucira.m .thaatu bhuupo paatu mahiitala.m
>vassatumbadharo kaale dhamme ti.t.thantu paa.ninoti.
>(--Kacc-va.n.n, p. 473, Thai ed. Phra Dhammamolii, BE 2531)
>
> 
>
May the True Dhamma remain for a very long time, etc...

1369 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:24am 
Subject: Re: (New e-text of) Narada; & Duroiselle?

Couldn't you do something similar with the Duroiselle grammar? As far as

>>I remember the digital edition made some years ago was not properly 
>>proofread and could be improved.
>> 
>>
>Indeed, it could be improved, and I am already quite familiar with the book 
>from comparative reading that I carried out in composing my own tables. 
>
>I currently do not have a source text of Duroiselle (i.e., I have only .PDF, 
>and I would need a .TXT, .DOC, or .HTML file to begin revising the text); if 
>Metta.lk kept a copy of the source text, please do send it to me. 
> 
>
I have a PDF to Word converter which neatly converts any PDFs to Word 
documents keeping intact the formatting, even encrypted PDFs. I will 
convert it and send it to you. Do you have a copy of the original book 
to compare it with? I have two editions here: A cyclostyled 1906 
edition originally belonging to Nyanavira thera, this probably is the 
first edition, and a photocopy of the 1921 3d edition. The latter seems 
to be the appropriate one to use.

>One of the problems with Duroiselle (in my opinion) is the non-traditional 
>order that he gives to ... everything. Declensions, conjugations, etc., are 
>not in their "ordinal" sequence --and this makes the Pali names for the 
>cases (etc.) nonsensical. I'm a "traditionalist" in that I assume 
>"Pa~ncami" should be the fifth case. 
>
>Thus, while I would be happy to revise Duroiselle, there would be a question 
>as to what extent it is proper to transform the tables.
>
I agree with you. The order is strange. To me it would be fine to 
change it back to the traditional order if you mention it in the 
preface. It does not appear to me to be changing the contents in a 
major way. Maybe other members of the group have can give their opinions 
about what is proper and not in this case.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

> 
>
>E.M. 
>
> 
>

1370 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:44am 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

nyanatusita wrote:

> Dear Jim,
>
> Below is a quick and tentative rendering I made of the verses.
> Re. Pa.mya: Because it is said that the town of Pam.ya belongs to the 
> Lord of Ha.msavatii, ie, Pegu, it is the Burmese Pa.mya.
> It seems to be referring to a monastery made by the King for Ven. Vijita.
> I am wondering whether La''nkato is connected to dhaja or to 
> Vijitaavii. In any case there is some connection to Sri Lanka. Maybe 
> it is a monk from Sri Lanka, a monk who had visited Sri Lanka, or a 
> disciple of one of the Sinhalese monks who came to Pegu in the middle 
> ages.
> DPPN gives the following info on Vijitaavii: ``*Vijitv.* A Burmese 
> author of Vijitapura (Pany); he wrote a Kaccyanavannan on the 
> Sandhikappa and the Vcakopadesa. Ss. p. 90; Bode, op. cit., 46.''
> This seems to be the one referred to in the colophon.
> If it is the Burmese Sakka era (starting at 638 CE) then it is 1626 
> CE. If it is the Sinhalese Sakka era (543 BCE) then it is 455. The 
> latter of course does not make sense.
> I hope that this is of use.
>
>> navasate sakkaraaje a.t.thahisiitiyaapi ca
>> patte kattikamaasassa sukkapakkha.t.thaane dine
>> naatisa"nkhepavitthaaraa siddhaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
>> 
>>
> In 988 of the Era of Sakka
> On a day of the bright moon face of the Kattika month,
>
> the elucidation, Not to abbreviated nor too extensive, of the Kaccaana 
> succeeded.
>
>> pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho
>> la"nkato nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca. 
>
> In a town (called) Pa.myaa, resembling a hoisted banner
> from La''nkaa, with delightful roots (of trees), caves, boundaries, 
> etc.
>
>> nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito
>> nato abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu paaka.to.
>> 
>>
> Surrounded by beautiful rivers, mountains, and irrigation tanks,
> bowed/inclined (?) ``Abhayagiri (Fearless Mountain)'', famous in all 
> directions.
>
>> ha.msaavatiipurindassa pa~ncasetibhasaamino
>> nattaa yo suuruccanaati naamenaasi supaaka.to.
>> 
>>
> Belonging to the Lord of the town of Ha.msavatii, the master of 65 
> elephants,
> who has danced a very pleasing dance, you are are very famous by name.
>
>> akaasi so etthaavaasa.m ramma.m devasabhopama.m
>> vasatii ettha yo thero saasanassa hitaavaho.
>> 
>>
> He made a residence here, delightful, like an assembly hall of the gods,
> The senior monk who dwells here is a bringer of benefit to the 
> dispensation.
>
>> mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino
>> racitaa tena therena esaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
>> 
>>
> With a great sound (?), having the name of Sahita-vijitaavii 
> (''endowed with the beneficial conquest''),
> composed by that senior monk, is this elucidation of the Kaccaana.
>
>> saddhammo sucira.m .thaatu bhuupo paatu mahiitala.m
>> vassatumbadharo kaale dhamme ti.t.thantu paa.ninoti.
>> (--Kacc-va.n.n, p. 473, Thai ed. Phra Dhammamolii, BE 2531)
>>
>> 
>>
> May the True Dhamma remain for a very long time, etc...
>
>
>

1371 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:43am 
Subject: Re: Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics]

navako wrote:

>I have often wondered what standard the Japanese use for Pali (presumably 
>they have a set of standard Indic phonetics used also for Sanskrit --perhaps 
>also for modern Indian languages?) --but I have been unable to find anything 
>about this subject. 
> 
>
The Japanese monk staying here told me that the Japanese put a dash 
after the vowel character to denote long vowels, he did not know how 
cerebrals, etc, are transcribed and whether they are transcribed.

How are the Sanskrit s accent, r macron, r dot below & macron 
transcribed according to the Velthuis scheme? ''s, ''r, ''.r?

Bh. Nyanatusita

1372 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:45am 
Subject: Re: Re: MS Digital Camera issue

nyanatusita wrote:

> Dear E.M.
>
>> The main complaint (from the tea-planters) is the cost of educating 
>> their children. As I've mentioned before, a public school teacher in 
>> rural Lao earns only $15 / month. However, the solution here is 
>> probably not to import Laotian teachers ...
>> 
>>
> If they would wish their children to be tea pickers too then there 
> would be no complaints, but obviously, like everyone here they have 
> different plans for their children. The Sinhalese also complain about 
> the costs of education. There is fierce competition for jobs and good 
> CVs are very important. Government education is insufficient and 
> almost every child in towns and even villages takes private tuition 
> classes after school and in the weekends. This all has to be paid for 
> by the parents.
>
>>> Are you interested to help photographing manuscripts, old printed 
>>> editions, and organising a proper project? We could get UNESCO 
>>> and/or PTS support and possibly you will be able to earn more than 
>>> you do now. To have a lay westerner organising things would be ideal.
>>> 
>>
>>
>> We could discuss the matter further when I arrive in Sri Lanka; if I 
>> decide to relocate to the island "permanently" (and, I'm told, all is 
>> impermanent) I would then stop learning Laotian and resume learning 
>> modern Sinhala. If you'd like to see my CV/rsum, etc., let me 
>> know. In other words: I don't know if I'm qualified for the job, but 
>> then, unless Lance Cousins is going to volunteer for the position, I 
>> might not have much competition.
>> 
>>
> Yes, it is better to discuss this when you are here. I personally 
> think that official qualifications are of lesser importance than 
> enthusiasm and communication and organisational skills. There is a 
> demand for English teachers here too by the way and I suppose that one 
> could earn more than in Laos. Application for UNESCO support for 
> projects takes at least a year I was told, but we could find other 
> ways to start. Ven. Mettavihari could help too.
>
> Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>
>
>
>

1373 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:44am 
Subject: Re: (New e-text of) Narada; & Duroiselle?

nyanatusita wrote:

> Couldn't you do something similar with the Duroiselle grammar? As far as
>
>>> I remember the digital edition made some years ago was not properly 
>>> proofread and could be improved.
>>> 
>>
>> Indeed, it could be improved, and I am already quite familiar with 
>> the book from comparative reading that I carried out in composing my 
>> own tables.
>> I currently do not have a source text of Duroiselle (i.e., I have 
>> only .PDF, and I would need a .TXT, .DOC, or .HTML file to begin 
>> revising the text); if Metta.lk kept a copy of the source text, 
>> please do send it to me. 
>>
> I have a PDF to Word converter which neatly converts any PDFs to Word 
> documents keeping intact the formatting, even encrypted PDFs. I will 
> convert it and send it to you. Do you have a copy of the original book 
> to compare it with? I have two editions here: A cyclostyled 1906 
> edition originally belonging to Nyanavira thera, this probably is the 
> first edition, and a photocopy of the 1921 3d edition. The latter 
> seems to be the appropriate one to use.
>
>> One of the problems with Duroiselle (in my opinion) is the 
>> non-traditional order that he gives to ... everything. Declensions, 
>> conjugations, etc., are not in their "ordinal" sequence --and this 
>> makes the Pali names for the cases (etc.) nonsensical. I'm a 
>> "traditionalist" in that I assume "Pa~ncami" should be the fifth case.
>> Thus, while I would be happy to revise Duroiselle, there would be a 
>> question as to what extent it is proper to transform the tables.
>>
> I agree with you. The order is strange. To me it would be fine to 
> change it back to the traditional order if you mention it in the 
> preface. It does not appear to me to be changing the contents in a 
> major way. Maybe other members of the group have can give their 
> opinions about what is proper and not in this case.
>
> Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>
>>
>>
>> E.M.

1374 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:00pm 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

Thanks for your translation attempt and observations. I'm open to the
possibility that the Pa.myaa here may refer to a town in Burma. I won't try
to respond fully as I still find some of the verses hard to understand. Just
a few comments.

> Below is a quick and tentative rendering I made of the verses.
> Re. Pa.mya: Because it is said that the town of Pam.ya belongs to the
> Lord of Ha.msavatii, ie, Pegu, it is the Burmese Pa.mya.
> It seems to be referring to a monastery made by the King for Ven. Vijita.
> I am wondering whether La''nkato is connected to dhaja or to
> Vijitaavii. In any case there is some connection to Sri Lanka. Maybe it
> is a monk from Sri Lanka, a monk who had visited Sri Lanka, or a
> disciple of one of the Sinhalese monks who came to Pegu in the middle
ages.
> DPPN gives the following info on Vijitaavii: ``*Vijitv.* A Burmese
> author of Vijitapura (Pany); he wrote a Kaccyanavannan on the
> Sandhikappa and the Vcakopadesa. Ss. p. 90; Bode, op. cit., 46.''
> This seems to be the one referred to in the colophon.

I agree it's the same author. However, if you read the entry for
Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa, there is a contradiction in stating that the author is
Sinhalese, if I recall correctly. Also, consider the following entry (from
metta.lk):

"Vijita-pura, Vijta nagara. A city founded by Vijita, minister to Vijaya.
Near by was Khandhvrapitthi, where Dutthagman pitched his camp during
his campaign against the Damilas, and also the village of Hatthipora (q.v.).
The city was a stronghold of the Damilas, and was captured by Dutthagtman
after a four months' siege. For details of the siege see Mhv.xxv.19ff."

Isn't this in SL?

> If it is the Burmese Sakka era (starting at 638 CE) then it is 1626 CE.
> If it is the Sinhalese Sakka era (543 BCE) then it is 455. The latter of
> course does not make sense.
> I hope that this is of use.

Yes, this helps. As the author mentions the Saddaniiti in his introductory
verses, it is obvious that his work must have been written later. So the 988
Sakka era date lends support to a Burmese origin for the work.

> >navasate sakkaraaje a.t.thahisiitiyaapi ca
> >patte kattikamaasassa sukkapakkha.t.thaane dine
> >naatisa"nkhepavitthaaraa siddhaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
> >
> >
> In 988 of the Era of Sakka
> On a day of the bright moon face of the Kattika month,
>
> the elucidation, Not to abbreviated nor too extensive, of the Kaccaana
succeeded.

For 'siddhaa' I would prefer 'was completed/finished' instead of
'succeeded'.

> >pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho
> >la"nkato nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca.
> >
> In a town (called) Pa.myaa, resembling a hoisted banner
> from La''nkaa, with delightful roots (of trees), caves, boundaries,
etc.

I think 'resembling a hoisted banner' qualifies the mountain 'abhayagiri'.
Is this a prominent mountain in SL? It just occurred to me that 'la"nkato'
might be 'ala"nkato' (adorned) with elision of the first 'a'. But I'm not
sure if an elision can occur there. I wonder if 'nandamuula' could be the
name of a particular cave as I recall an entry for such (somewhere in the
Himalayas?) in DPPN.

> >nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito
> >nato abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu paaka.to.

'nato' should be 'nago' (mountain). I mistook the Thai 'g' for a 't'.

> Surrounded by beautiful rivers, mountains, and irrigation tanks,
> bowed/inclined (?) ``Abhayagiri (Fearless Mountain)'', famous in all
> directions.

> >ha.msaavatiipurindassa pa~ncasetibhasaamino
> >nattaa yo suuruccanaati naamenaasi supaaka.to.
> >
> >
> Belonging to the Lord of the town of Ha.msavatii, the master of 65
> elephants,
> who has danced a very pleasing dance, you are are very famous by name.

I'm thinking that 'ha.msaavatiipurindassa' are the proper names of the
nephew's (nattaa) aunt and uncle i.e. Ha.msaavatii and Purinda. Could you
explain how you got '65 elephants' out of 'pa~ncasetibha-'. 'setibha' still
has me puzzled. The same goes for 'suuruccanaati'. This verse is the most
difficult one for me.

> >akaasi so etthaavaasa.m ramma.m devasabhopama.m
> >vasatii ettha yo thero saasanassa hitaavaho.
> >
> >
> He made a residence here, delightful, like an assembly hall of the gods,
> The senior monk who dwells here is a bringer of benefit to the
dispensation.
>
> >mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino
> >racitaa tena therena esaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
> >
> >
> With a great sound (?), having the name of Sahita-vijitaavii (''endowed
> with the beneficial conquest''),
> composed by that senior monk, is this elucidation of the Kaccaana.

I think it is more likely that 'mahaasaddena' means ('Vijitaavii'
accompanied) by the word 'Mahaa' i.e. Mahaavijitaavii.

Best wishes,
Jim

1375 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:47am 
Subject: setibha = white elephant ?

Hi Jim and group,

A quick note, just something that caught my eye:

> 'setibha' still has me puzzled. 

Could setibha be 'white elephant'? seta + ibha ?

best regards,

/Rett

1376 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:33am 
Subject: SV: setibha = white elephant ?

I agree. Seta + ibha (= Sanskrit ibha). This is the only possible analysis.
As far as I know it only occurs in the late Saasanava.msa.

Best,

Ole Pind


-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 12. oktober 2005 09:47
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] setibha = white elephant ?

Hi Jim and group,

A quick note, just something that caught my eye:

> 'setibha' still has me puzzled. 

Could setibha be 'white elephant'? seta + ibha ?

best regards,

/Rett

1377 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:40am 
Subject: SV: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

> DPPN gives the following info on Vijitaavii: ``*Vijitv.* A Burmese 
> author of Vijitapura (Pany); he wrote a Kaccyanavannan on the 
> Sandhikappa and the Vcakopadesa. Ss. p. 90; 

NB! Sandhikappa denotes Kacc as a whole.

Ole Pind

> If it is the Burmese Sakka era (starting at 638 CE) then it is 1626 CE.
> If it is the Sinhalese Sakka era (543 BCE) then it is 455. The latter 
> of course does not make sense.
> I hope that this is of use.


Yes, this helps. As the author mentions the Saddaniiti in his introductory
verses, it is obvious that his work must have been written later. So the 988
Sakka era date lends support to a Burmese origin for the work.

Saasanavam.sa calculates the date of composition of Kacc-va.n.n in
Vijayapure as 1351 sic! (Saasanavam.sa p. 88). This seems to be very
unlikely, though.

Ole Pind


> >navasate sakkaraaje a.t.thahisiitiyaapi ca patte kattikamaasassa 
> >sukkapakkha.t.thaane dine naatisa"nkhepavitthaaraa siddhaa 
> >kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
> >
> >
> In 988 of the Era of Sakka
> On a day of the bright moon face of the Kattika month,
>
> the elucidation, Not to abbreviated nor too extensive, of the Kaccaana
succeeded.

For 'siddhaa' I would prefer 'was completed/finished' instead of
'succeeded'.

> >pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho la"nkato 
> >nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca.
> >
> In a town (called) Pa.myaa, resembling a hoisted banner from 
> La''nkaa, with delightful roots (of trees), caves, boundaries,
etc.

I think 'resembling a hoisted banner' qualifies the mountain 'abhayagiri'.
Is this a prominent mountain in SL? It just occurred to me that 'la"nkato'
might be 'ala"nkato' (adorned) with elision of the first 'a'. But I'm not
sure if an elision can occur there. I wonder if 'nandamuula' could be the
name of a particular cave as I recall an entry for such (somewhere in the
Himalayas?) in DPPN.

> >nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito nato abhayagiriiti 
> >sabbadisaasu paaka.to.

'nato' should be 'nago' (mountain). I mistook the Thai 'g' for a 't'.

> Surrounded by beautiful rivers, mountains, and irrigation tanks, 
> bowed/inclined (?) ``Abhayagiri (Fearless Mountain)'', famous in all 
> directions.

> >ha.msaavatiipurindassa pa~ncasetibhasaamino nattaa yo suuruccanaati 
> >naamenaasi supaaka.to.
> >
> >
> Belonging to the Lord of the town of Ha.msavatii, the master of 65 
> elephants, who has danced a very pleasing dance, you are are very 
> famous by name.

I'm thinking that 'ha.msaavatiipurindassa' are the proper names of the
nephew's (nattaa) aunt and uncle i.e. Ha.msaavatii and Purinda. Could you
explain how you got '65 elephants' out of 'pa~ncasetibha-'. 'setibha' still
has me puzzled. The same goes for 'suuruccanaati'. This verse is the most
difficult one for me.

> >akaasi so etthaavaasa.m ramma.m devasabhopama.m vasatii ettha yo 
> >thero saasanassa hitaavaho.
> >
> >
> He made a residence here, delightful, like an assembly hall of the 
> gods, The senior monk who dwells here is a bringer of benefit to the
dispensation.
>
> >mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino racitaa tena therena esaa 
> >kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
> >
> >
> With a great sound (?), having the name of Sahita-vijitaavii 
> (''endowed with the beneficial conquest''), composed by that senior 
> monk, is this elucidation of the Kaccaana.

I think it is more likely that 'mahaasaddena' means ('Vijitaavii'
accompanied) by the word 'Mahaa' i.e. Mahaavijitaavii.

Best wishes,
Jim

1378 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:53am 
Subject: SV: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Jim,

Regarding the authorship and time of Vijitavin, I came to think of the
introductory stanzas where he refers to Suttaniddesa as one of his main
sources. Since Suttaniddesa which according to the colophon was composed by
Chapada at the ten times 99th and one thousandth year af the Buddha's
nibbana, i.e. 1447 C.E., the colophon of Kacc-va.n.n makes perfect sense: It
is a fairly late commentary.


Best wishes,

Ole Pind

1379 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:40pm 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Ole,

> Regarding the authorship and time of Vijitavin, I came to think of the
> introductory stanzas where he refers to Suttaniddesa as one of his main
> sources. Since Suttaniddesa which according to the colophon was composed
> by Chapada at the ten times 99th and one thousandth year af the Buddha's
> nibbana, i.e. 1447 C.E., the colophon of Kacc-va.n.n makes perfect sense:
> It is a fairly late commentary.

I agree that "niddesakaarakampi" in Vijtavin's introductory stanzas most
likely refers to the author of the Suttaniddesa. Until very recently I had
thought the author was the earlier of the two Chapadas discussed in
Godakumbara's article. I have not yet read the colophon to Chap and your
noting a 1990 B.E. date there confirms the later Chapada. I'll be checking
my Thai edition in a few days. Do you also have an edition of Kacc-va.n.n? I
ask because I think I only posted the first stanza.

Thanks for your other messages which I intend to respond to after I return
to the cottage on Friday. Looking back through the group messages, I noticed
that Lance posed a couple of Kaccaayana questions to you on Sept. 13 but I
don't see your response. Did you see that message? I thought that you may
have missed it as you mentioned you'd be away on holidays. If you missed it,
I can forward it to you if you like.

Best wishes,
Jim

1380 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:35pm 
Subject: Re: the moderator is back!

Hi Rett,

> Welcome back Jim,

Thank-you. Glad to see you back too!

> I think the below is a great idea. I'd be happy to contribute info from my
> collection in case I have anything that might fill a gap (unlikely, but
just in case).

I really appreciate your offer to contribute info. I'm sure you have a
number of works in your collection that I don't have and information from
them would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks for your interpretation of 'setibha' (white elephant) which makes
good sense in the context of the verse -- 'owner of five white elephants'.

Best wishes,
Jim

> >I've been thinking that it might be worth setting up an online catalogue
of
> >Pali grammatical literature which could include, for each title (wherever
> >possible), the introductory verses, the colophon, a table of contents,
data
> >on known publications and MSS, and links to reliable etexts, studies,
> >translations and even page images especially if Eisel gets around to
> >photographing manuscripts and rare books in Sri Lanka. I think such a
> >catalogue would be useful to students and scholars interested in the
> >literature.

1381 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:18am 
Subject: SV: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Jim,

My edition of Kacc-va.n.n is a 1905 very fine Sinhalese edition. I may have
overlooked Lance's questions because when I came from holiday back my mail
box was "overflowing." If you could please forward it I shall be glad to
answer his questions.

Best wishes,

Ole

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 13. oktober 2005 03:41
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Ole,

> Regarding the authorship and time of Vijitavin, I came to think of the 
> introductory stanzas where he refers to Suttaniddesa as one of his 
> main sources. Since Suttaniddesa which according to the colophon was 
> composed by Chapada at the ten times 99th and one thousandth year af 
> the Buddha's nibbana, i.e. 1447 C.E., the colophon of Kacc-va.n.n makes
perfect sense:
> It is a fairly late commentary.

I agree that "niddesakaarakampi" in Vijtavin's introductory stanzas most
likely refers to the author of the Suttaniddesa. Until very recently I had
thought the author was the earlier of the two Chapadas discussed in
Godakumbara's article. I have not yet read the colophon to Chap and your
noting a 1990 B.E. date there confirms the later Chapada. I'll be checking
my Thai edition in a few days. Do you also have an edition of Kacc-va.n.n? I
ask because I think I only posted the first stanza.

Thanks for your other messages which I intend to respond to after I return
to the cottage on Friday. Looking back through the group messages, I noticed
that Lance posed a couple of Kaccaayana questions to you on Sept. 13 but I
don't see your response. Did you see that message? I thought that you may
have missed it as you mentioned you'd be away on holidays. If you missed it,
I can forward it to you if you like.

Best wishes,
Jim

1382 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:13am 
Subject: Unesco; MS Digital Camera issue

Hello, 

I've been very ill for several days (a tropical fever). Thus the delay in 
replying. 

>> Yes, it is better to discuss this when you are here. I personally 
>> think that official qualifications are of lesser importance than 
>> enthusiasm and communication and organisational skills.

My "official qualifications" would actually look pretty convincing on paper: 
although I am not a conservation scientist, my experience working in 
Museology, museum planning, museum collections (and, by a short leap of the 
imagination: museum conservation) would probably qualify me to operate the 
camera, and handle the objects with white gloves. I have (hilariously 
enough) handled a few priceless MS & artefacts at the National Palace Museum 
(although I have no expertise in Chinese materials); and this may be 
experience enough to slip by Unesco 

>> There is a 
>> demand for English teachers here too ...

That I could certainly do (part time) to support my Pali work in general 
--*HOWEVR* Sri Lanka has the worst work-visa situation on earth. Like many 
other island nations (technically) in a state of civil war, it is very 
difficult to arrange a work visa --and even with the co-operation of the 
BPS, this might take a year. 

>> Application for UNESCO support for 
>> projects takes at least a year I was told, but we could find other 
>> ways to start. Ven. Mettavihari could help too.

Sounds wonderful; I'll see you in December. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who has cut the strap (hatred), the thong (craving), and the rope 
(heresies), together with the appendages (latent tendencies), who has thrown 
up the cross-bar (ignorance), who is enlightened (Buddha), - him I call a 
Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 398

1383 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:23am 
Subject: Re: SV: Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics

Dr. Pind, 

> There is one structural obstacle, though.
> In Japan I am called Ore Pindo, and with good reason: The phoneme /l/ does
> not exist in Japanese ...

In Lao (& Northern Thailand) it's the reverse: "R" is omitted for "L". 
Thus, if you would prefer to be called "Ol' Piin'", you could relocate to 
Vientiane. The phonetics are terrible, but the food is great. 

> ... and is therefore not included in the two traditional
> syllabic writing systems katakana and hiragana. They would have to invent
> it. They probably won't.

As with the "Bopomofo extended" range, it seems to me that a few extra 
curves of the brush could easily solve these problems for Japanese; and I 
would be interested to hear if anyone has gone ahead and attempted this. By 
comparison, the situation in Lao & Thai phonetics is hopeless. Frankly, if 
the Japanese took an interest in Pali, the Laotians would follow; given that 
the Japanese burnt down the library here (& looted & raped, etc.) it's 
surprising how much positive feeling modern Laotians have for the Japanese. 
Certainly, they look to Japan more than to India (and they are barely aware 
that Sri Lanka exists). A scholarship to study in Japan is much-wished-for 
fantasy among both Laotians and rural Thais; my wife and I have met several 
who have attained this dream (through the notoriously corrupt Japanese 
NGOs). In any case, it seems that the "Asian co-prosperity sphere" still 
exists on an emotional level here; and many look to Japan as a positive 
example of industrialized Asia. I don't think this judgement is well 
informed, but (truly) my opinion doesn't matter. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Though a fool, through all his life, associates with a wise man, he no more 
understands the Dhamma than a spoon (tastes) the flavour of soup.
Random Dhammapada Verse 64

1384 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:18am 
Subject: SV: SV: Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 13. oktober 2005 09:23
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: SV: [palistudy] Japanese Pali Orthography / Phonetics


Dear E.M. 

As with the "Bopomofo extended" range, it seems to me that a few extra
curves of the brush could easily solve these problems for Japanese; and I
would be interested to hear if anyone has gone ahead and attempted this. By
comparison, the situation in Lao & Thai phonetics is hopeless. Frankly, if
the Japanese took an interest in Pali, the Laotians would follow; given that
the Japanese burnt down the library here (& looted & raped, etc.) it's
surprising how much positive feeling modern Laotians have for the Japanese.

Certainly, they look to Japan more than to India (and they are barely aware
that Sri Lanka exists). A scholarship to study in Japan is much-wished-for
fantasy among both Laotians and rural Thais; my wife and I have met several
who have attained this dream (through the notoriously corrupt Japanese
NGOs). In any case, it seems that the "Asian co-prosperity sphere" still
exists on an emotional level here; and many look to Japan as a positive
example of industrialized Asia. I don't think this judgement is well
informed, but (truly) my opinion doesn't matter. 

Well, I guess you are right. In Danish we say "skindet bedrager" i.e.
appearences are deceptive. The Japanese seem to spend an inordinate amount
of time on keeping them up.

E.M. 

--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ Though a fool, through all his life, associates with
a wise man, he no more understands the Dhamma than a spoon (tastes) the
flavour of soup.
Random Dhammapada Verse 64 

1385 
From: nyanatusita bhikkhu <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Oct 13, 2005 8:51am 
Subject: Re: setibha = white elephant ?

Dear Ole and Rett,

Yesterday I was looking at Bode's History of Pali Literature in Burma and it
was said somewhere in relation to Hamsavati that the king of Hamsavati was
called ``lord of white elephants''. This accords with our colophon.
I had to go on a journey and am now in Colombo and can not give the
reference, but will do so tomorrow when back in Kandy.
I hope that this is of use.
If anyone can scan in the book by Bode in then I could try to get it
republised by the BPS.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita


On 12/10/05, Ole Holten Pind <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> wrote:
>
>
> I agree. Seta + ibha (= Sanskrit ibha). This is the only possible
> analysis.
> As far as I know it only occurs in the late Saasanava.msa.
>
> Best,
>
> Ole Pind
>
>
> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
> af rett
> Sendt: 12. oktober 2005 09:47
> Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
> Emne: [palistudy] setibha = white elephant ?
>
> Hi Jim and group,
>
> A quick note, just something that caught my eye:
>
> > 'setibha' still has me puzzled.
>
> Could setibha be 'white elephant'? seta + ibha ?
>
> best regards,
>
> /Rett
>

--
Bhikkhu Nyanatusita
Forest Hermitage
Udawattakele
PO Box 61
Kandy
Sri Lanka


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1386 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:14am 
Subject: Pali alphabets (table)

Even if you have no intention of learning Sinhalese, Burmese, or Khmer 
script, this is a pretty neat one-page reference file I've made up for 
purposes of edification & amusement: 

http://pratyeka.org/narada/pali_alphabets.pdf 

It presents about six Pali alphabets in a neat table, with some notes on 
Unicode romanization. 

The table on the left explains "my" system of Romanization (used to encode 
the new version of Narada's textbook, etc.) --generally approximating to 
Buddhadatta's orthography (but *not* to the PTS!) except that (1) it uses 
proper Unicode, and (2) a new glyph is used for the velar 'n --one that is 
more phonetically correct, and graphically reflects its close relationship 
to the niggahita. 

This file is a recent addition below the new version of Narada's textbook. 
Just a note to Nyanatusita: I will be adding the glossary & answer key (as 
mentioned) to the same page in future months, and (eventually) a new version 
of the main file --as I correct a new error every other day. Thus, I don't 
know if you want to wait to put the finished "set" of files on www.Metta.LK 
--or, perhaps, metta should just provide a link to the website 
(pratyeka.org/narada) instead of re-posting the file (i.e., so that I can 
update the files on offer without pestering Metta.LK to keep up to date). 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
He who realizes here in this world the destruction of his sorrow, who has 
laid the burden aside and is emancipated, - him I call a Brahmana.
Random Dhammapada Verse 402

1387 
From: Ong Yong Peng <ypong001@yahoo.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 14, 2005 10:51am 
Subject: Re: Pali alphabets (table)

Dear Navako and friends,

that's amazing. Sadhu.

A quick question. Can I take the letters A, U, D, Dh and B from the six
scripts (Sinhalese, Burma, Khmer, Lao, Devanagari and Brahmi), put them
together, rearrange and get BUDDhA in these scripts?

Thanks and metta,
Yong Peng.


--- navako <navako@metta.lk> wrote:

Even if you have no intention of learning Sinhalese, Burmese, or Khmer
script, this is a pretty neat one-page reference file I've made up for
purposes of edification & amusement: 

http://pratyeka.org/narada/pali_alphabets.pdf

1388 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 14, 2005 0:29pm 
Subject: White elephants

Dear Jim and Rett,
I found some more info about the Lord of 5 Elephants in the Saasanava.msa:
Saasanava.msa Myanmar p. 95 (in the Vijayapure Saasanava.msa chapter)
Kaliyuge catuvassaadhike sattasate ujanassa ran~n~no dharamaanasseva
kani.t.thabhaatiko kyecvaa naama raajaa kumaaro rajja.m ga.nhi.
``After the 4th rains/year in the 700th year of the Dark Era (kaliyuga),
Kani.t.tha (also) called Prince Kyecvaa, the brother of King Ujana, even
though (the king) was alive, grasped the Kingship.''
(The King got scared because his younger brother had obtained 5 white
elephants and left the palace.)
Saasanava.msa Myanmar p. 97
Pan~canna pana setibhaana laddhattaa pan~casetibhindoti
paaka.to. Muulanaama.m panassa siihasuuroti da.t.thabba.
``Because of the gaining of 5 white elephants he became famous as the
'Lord of 5 white elephants', but his original name is to be shown as
siihasuuro (`Lion's Strength').''
His son had four white elephants and was called catusetibhindo.
The Saasanava.msa concludes the chapter with
``Kaccaayanava.n.nana.m pana vijayapureyeva abhayagiripabbate
nisinno mahaavijitaapii (sic.) naama thero akaasi. Vaacako
padesampi soyeva akaasi. Saddavutti.m pana Saddhammagurutthero akaasi.''
``The Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa was made by the Great Vijitaavii thera
sitting on the mount Abhayagiri in Vijayapura itself. He also made the
Vaacakapadesa. The Saddavutti was made by Saddhammaguru thera. ''
Thus, the king who is mentioned in the colophon is likely to be
Kani.t.tha/Siihasuura. The Abhayagiri appears to be a hill or mountain 
in or near the town of Pegu.
I need to do some more research on the Kaliyuga to calculate the year.
The king mentioned in Bode p. 47 is King Baying Naung, the
anekasetibhinda, and he is someone else.
White elephants were
and are very important royal emblems in Southeast Asia, but not at all
so in Sri Lanka.
I hope that this is of use.
Best Wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1389 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:13pm 
Subject: Re: White elephants

>
>I hope that this is of use.


Dear Bhante,

Thanks, for the quotations. Yes it's great stuff. My printer's a'churnin as I write. It's much easier to take in all this encyclopedic material in the context of a concrete question, like Jim's colophon and the white elephants. Thanks too for the concise list of Pali titles.

Here's the paragraph from Bode (p 47) for those who might not have it handy:

"Bayin Nang, one of the most striking figures in the history of Burma, the sometime general and vice-regent of Ta-bi-shwe-hti and successor to the throne, united Burma and Pegu into one empire and carried his conquests into the Northern Shaan States, Laos and Siam. He was a zealous Buddhist, zealous, indeed, to intolerance, and forced an outward profession of Buddhism on all his subjects, native or foreign. Nevertheless, all we hear of him in the Saasanava.msa is that in 1578 'the Lord of many white elephants', then at the height of his power but near his end, appointed his son regent of Laos and sent the thera Saddhammacakkasaami with him to 'purify religion' in the conquered province. A few names of scholarly monks and their works are associated with Laos in this period. aa.navilaasa wrote the Sa"nkhyaapakaasaka, and Sirima"ngala a .tiikaa on that work and the commentary Ma"ngaladiipanii. A thera whose name is not mentioned wrote the Uppaatasanti."

best regards,

/Rett

1390 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:21pm 
Subject: SV: White elephants

Many thanks for the note on the white elephants. Saasanavamsa Ee p. 88
appears to date Mahhaavijitaavin to 713 in Kaliyuga. According to my
calculation (638 + 713) this would place the author of Kacc-van.n. in 1351
which is difficult to reconcile with the colophon of that work.

Best regards,

Ole Pind


-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 14. oktober 2005 18:29
Til: Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] White elephants

Dear Jim and Rett,
I found some more info about the Lord of 5 Elephants in the Saasanava.msa:
Saasanava.msa Myanmar p. 95 (in the Vijayapure Saasanava.msa chapter)
Kaliyuge catuvassaadhike sattasate ujanassa ran~n~no dharamaanasseva
kani.t.thabhaatiko kyecvaa naama raajaa kumaaro rajja.m ga.nhi.
``After the 4th rains/year in the 700th year of the Dark Era (kaliyuga),
Kani.t.tha (also) called Prince Kyecvaa, the brother of King Ujana, even
though (the king) was alive, grasped the Kingship.''
(The King got scared because his younger brother had obtained 5 white
elephants and left the palace.) Saasanava.msa Myanmar p. 97 Pan~canna pana
setibhaana laddhattaa pan~casetibhindoti paaka.to. Muulanaama.m panassa
siihasuuroti da.t.thabba.
``Because of the gaining of 5 white elephants he became famous as the 'Lord
of 5 white elephants', but his original name is to be shown as siihasuuro
(`Lion's Strength').''
His son had four white elephants and was called catusetibhindo.
The Saasanava.msa concludes the chapter with ``Kaccaayanava.n.nana.m pana
vijayapureyeva abhayagiripabbate nisinno mahaavijitaapii (sic.) naama
thero akaasi. Vaacako padesampi soyeva akaasi. Saddavutti.m pana
Saddhammagurutthero akaasi.''
``The Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa was made by the Great Vijitaavii thera sitting on
the mount Abhayagiri in Vijayapura itself. He also made the Vaacakapadesa.
The Saddavutti was made by Saddhammaguru thera. ''
Thus, the king who is mentioned in the colophon is likely to be
Kani.t.tha/Siihasuura. The Abhayagiri appears to be a hill or mountain in or
near the town of Pegu.
I need to do some more research on the Kaliyuga to calculate the year.
The king mentioned in Bode p. 47 is King Baying Naung, the anekasetibhinda,
and he is someone else.
White elephants were
and are very important royal emblems in Southeast Asia, but not at all so in
Sri Lanka.
I hope that this is of use.
Best Wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1391 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Oct 15, 2005 5:53am 
Subject: White elephants; Lampang at last

> The Abhayagiri appears to be a hill or mountain 
> in or near the town of Pegu.

The one thought that has come to my mind in the course of this:
"Why assume that 'Abhayagiri' is a literal mountain?" Given that it is the 
name of an orthodox lineage, etc., it seems to me more likely that the 
references are simply to a place (such as a temple or sima-ground) 
associated with the "Abhayagiri" orthodoxy. Again, the business about the 
banner/flag from the mountain, etc., seemed to me to make more sense as an 
abstract (rathern than literal) description. 

I've read a few confusing Pali statements about "the banner" of Buddhist 
orthodoxy, being a figurative term for the robe, and suggesting the religion 
in general. 

This is a very shallow reply --I'm too busy with other nonsense, and I admit 
that I did not stare at the Pali very carefully. 

If my health recovers, I will depart for Lampang (i.e., Wat _Ta Ma O_) in a 
few days. I will probably spend fully two days in transit before arriving 
there (crossing the Loei mountain range ... again). If anyone has any 
current contacts there, I should perhaps send a note warning them before my 
arrival? I will probably just write a note that says "Kaccayana" in Thai 
script, and hold it in front of my face until the monks take pity on me. 

E.M. 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
And this becomes the beginning here for a wise Bhikkhu: sense-control, 
contentment, restraint with regard to the Fundamental Code (patimokkha), 
association with beneficent and energetic friends whose livelihood is pure.
Random Dhammapada Verse 375

1392 
From: "rjkjp1" <rjkjp1@yahoo.com> 
Date: Sat Oct 15, 2005 5:58am 
Subject: Re: White elephants; Lampang at last

--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, "navako" <navako@m...> wrote:
>
> 
> > The Abhayagiri appears to be a hill or mountain 
> > in or near the town of Pegu.
> 
> The one thought that has come to my mind in the course of this:
> "Why assume that 'Abhayagiri' is a literal mountain?" Given that it 
is the 
> name of an orthodox lineage, etc., it seems to me more likely that 
the 
> references are simply to a place (such as a temple or sima-ground) 
> associated with the "Abhayagiri" orthodoxy. 
______
Dear E.M.
In the Pali texts the word Abhayagiri is usually used for a NON-
orthodox sect in Sri lanka.
Robertk

1393 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:32am 
Subject: Yavana; a peculiar Pali toponym

A short and interesting article as to how various forms of the Pali term 
"Yavana" seems to have been applied to Greece, Northern Thailand, and also 
Northern Vietnam: 

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/TXT/letters/L1214-2.htm 

As always, Vickery manages to insinuate his political detestation for his 
sources into the argument: "Headley, working in a reactionary American 
environment (The Catholic University of America, Washington DC) in the 
1970s, apparently decided to adopt a late and minor usage of yavana to favor 
the Cambodian chauvinist usage of yuon." Even Etymology is a politically 
charged phenomenon! 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Just as a merchant, with a small escort and great wealth, avoids a perilous 
route, just as one desiring to live avoids poison, even so should one shun 
evil things.
Random Dhammapada Verse 123

1394 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:50am 
Subject: Abhayagiri = dhammaruciya?

In reply to RobertK, 

> In the Pali texts the word Abhayagiri is usually used for a NON-
> orthodox sect in Sri lanka.

Right you are --I can only note that I described them as "an orthodox 
lineage", not "the orthodox lineage". I'm sure they considered themselves 
orthodox --and the actual differences of doctrine and Vinaya between the 
Abhayagiri and the Mahavihara may have been quite slight (the arguments to 
the contrary seem to rest on identifying the Abhayagiri as "Mahayana", then 
assuming everything we know about the Mahayana from later periods applied to 
them...). 

I'm pretty sure that from the perspective of the distant Burmese, the 
Dhammaruciya monks of Abhayagiri were not so heterodox compared to the 
Mahavihara; as I recall, almost no specific doctrinal issues about the 
Dhammaruciya are recorded? 

About the only thing I know about the Dhammaruciya is that they took the 
Vinaya rules about putting a blue ink blot (or other discolouration) on 
every robe very seriously --and as a result their robes were prominently 
stained blue (apparently a distinction from other monks in the region). I 
may be embellishing this in my memory a bit; but they were known for 
blue-coloured robes, and the supposed reason related to the rules of 
discolouration. Sorry. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
As from a heap of flowers many a garland is made even so many a good deed 
should be done by one born as a human being.
Random Dhammapada Verse 53

1395 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Oct 15, 2005 0:27pm 
Subject: SV: White elephants; Lampang at last

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 15. oktober 2005 11:54
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] White elephants; Lampang at last


> The Abhayagiri appears to be a hill or mountain in or near the town of 
> Pegu.

The one thought that has come to my mind in the course of this:
"Why assume that 'Abhayagiri' is a literal mountain?" Given that it is the
name of an orthodox lineage, etc., it seems to me more likely that the
references are simply to a place (such as a temple or sima-ground)
associated with the "Abhayagiri" orthodoxy. Again, the business about the
banner/flag from the mountain, etc., seemed to me to make more sense as an
abstract (rathern than literal) description. 

I've read a few confusing Pali statements about "the banner" of Buddhist
orthodoxy, being a figurative term for the robe, and suggesting the religion
in general. 

This is a very shallow reply --I'm too busy with other nonsense, and I admit
that I did not stare at the Pali very carefully. 

If my health recovers, I will depart for Lampang (i.e., Wat _Ta Ma O_) in a
few days. I will probably spend fully two days in transit before arriving
there (crossing the Loei mountain range ... again). If anyone has any
current contacts there, I should perhaps send a note warning them before my
arrival? I will probably just write a note that says "Kaccayana" in Thai
script, and hold it in front of my face until the monks take pity on me. 

E.M. 

For the past couple of days I have been sanding and painting my kitchen
together with my wife to make it look nice, and I am consequently slightly
dizzy from the noice of the sanding machine, so all my posts to the group
bear the mark of distraught remarks from the backstage, some of which may
prove to be just silly on closer inspection. Anyway, E.M. I hope you'll
recover soon so that you don't have to humiliate youself in front of the
monks.

Best,

Ole Pind



--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ And this becomes the beginning here for a wise
Bhikkhu: sense-control, contentment, restraint with regard to the
Fundamental Code (patimokkha), association with beneficent and energetic
friends whose livelihood is pure.
Random Dhammapada Verse 375 

1396 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Oct 15, 2005 0:50pm 
Subject: SV: Yavana; a peculiar Pali toponym

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af navako
Sendt: 15. oktober 2005 12:33
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Yavana; a peculiar Pali toponym


A short and interesting article as to how various forms of the Pali term
"Yavana" seems to have been applied to Greece, Northern Thailand, and also
Northern Vietnam: 

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/TXT/letters/L1214-2.htm 

As always, Vickery manages to insinuate his political detestation for his
sources into the argument: "Headley, working in a reactionary American
environment (The Catholic University of America, Washington DC) in the
1970s, apparently decided to adopt a late and minor usage of yavana to favor
the Cambodian chauvinist usage of yuon." Even Etymology is a politically
charged phenomenon! 

E.M. 

Even! Think of the current "war" about Indoeuropean origins that is going on
in India. The Indian nationalists would like to have all Indoeuropean
languages originate in India, and hate the idea that India was invaded by
Indo-Iranian speaking tribes via Afghanistan etc. And speakers of Dravidian
languages hate the idea that Indian culture is not in every single aspect
Dravidian. The debate is beyond rational discourse. Every one is in denial,
and even the most obvious facts to comparative linguists, such as the simple
fact that more than just a handful of Sanskrit words, like their cognates in
other Indoeuropean languages, are Semitic loanwords like the word seven (I
shall not go into details), causes such furor, even among educated people,
that one gets quite frightened. Yes, etymology is a politically charged
phenomenon.

Ole Pind

--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/ View Streaming Dhamma Video
http://dharmavahini.tv/ Just as a merchant, with a small escort and great
wealth, avoids a perilous route, just as one desiring to live avoids poison,
even so should one shun evil things.
Random Dhammapada Verse 123 

1397 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:06am 
Subject: Abhayagiri and Lampang

navako wrote:

>>The Abhayagiri appears to be a hill or mountain 
>>in or near the town of Pegu.
>> 
>>
>
>The one thought that has come to my mind in the course of this:
>"Why assume that 'Abhayagiri' is a literal mountain?" Given that it is the 
>name of an orthodox lineage, etc., it seems to me more likely that the 
>references are simply to a place (such as a temple or sima-ground) 
>associated with the "Abhayagiri" orthodoxy. Again, the business about the 
>banner/flag from the mountain, etc., seemed to me to make more sense as an 
>abstract (rathern than literal) description. 
>
> 
>
I am not sure that the monastery would be connected to the Sinhala
Abhayagiri monastery because, as far as I know, the Abhayagiri tradition
had disappeared by the time Theravaada was (re)introduced from Sri Lanka to
Burma. It seems to me to be referring to some kind of hill, maybe very
small in Pegu. Jim pointed out that the reading in pada c should be nago
, mountain, not nato.

The colophon states:
nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito
nago abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu paaka.to.
Surrounded by beautiful rivers, mountains, and irrigation tanks,
the mountain (called) ``Abhayagiri (Fearless Mountain)'', famous in all
directions.



>I've read a few confusing Pali statements about "the banner" of Buddhist 
>orthodoxy, being a figurative term for the robe, and suggesting the religion 
>in general. 
> 
>
As Jim pointed out: Lan''kato in pada c probably is an abbreviated form
of alan''kato. This makes much better sense: ``adorned with ...''

>This is a very shallow reply --I'm too busy with other nonsense, and I admit 
>that I did not stare at the Pali very carefully. 
>
>If my health recovers, I will depart for Lampang (i.e., Wat _Ta Ma O_) in a 
>few days. I will probably spend fully two days in transit before arriving 
>there (crossing the Loei mountain range ... again). If anyone has any 
>current contacts there, I should perhaps send a note warning them before my 
>arrival? I will probably just write a note that says "Kaccayana" in Thai 
>script, and hold it in front of my face until the monks take pity on me. 
> 
>
Are you going to look at manuscripts? If so, put also Paatimokkha on the
note. Is this one of the monasteries Hinueber found old Lan Na manuscripts?

I am working on a digital file of Duroiselle's Pali Grammar for you.

>E.M. 
>

1398 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:14am 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

Dear Jim,

>I agree it's the same author. However, if you read the entry for
>Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa, there is a contradiction in stating that the author is
>Sinhalese, if I recall correctly. Also, consider the following entry (from
>metta.lk):
>
>"Vijita-pura, Vijta nagara. A city founded by Vijita, minister to Vijaya.
>Near by was Khandhvrapitthi, where Dutthagman pitched his camp during
>his campaign against the Damilas, and also the village of Hatthipora (q.v.).
>The city was a stronghold of the Damilas, and was captured by Dutthagtman
>after a four months' siege. For details of the siege see Mhv.xxv.19ff."
>
>Isn't this in SL?
>
This was quite early in the history of Sinhalese Buddhism. 
Du.t.thagaamini lived in the first century BCE. I don't think that it is 
this place.

>>If it is the Burmese Sakka era (starting at 638 CE) then it is 1626 CE.
>>If it is the Sinhalese Sakka era (543 BCE) then it is 455. The latter of
>>course does not make sense.
>>I hope that this is of use.
>> 
>>
>
>Yes, this helps. As the author mentions the Saddaniiti in his introductory
>verses, it is obvious that his work must have been written later. So the 988
>Sakka era date lends support to a Burmese origin for the work.
>
> 
>
I agree.

>
>For 'siddhaa' I would prefer 'was completed/finished' instead of
>'succeeded'.
> 
>

I agree.

> 
>
>>>pa.myaabhikhyaatapuurimhi ussitaddhajasannibho
>>>la"nkato nandamuulaadile.nasiimaadikehi ca.
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>In a town (called) Pa.myaa, resembling a hoisted banner
>>from La''nkaa, with delightful roots (of trees), caves, boundaries,
>> 
>>
>etc.
>
>I think 'resembling a hoisted banner' qualifies the mountain 'abhayagiri'.
>Is this a prominent mountain in SL? It just occurred to me that 'la"nkato'
>might be 'ala"nkato' (adorned) with elision of the first 'a'. But I'm not
>sure if an elision can occur there. I wonder if 'nandamuula' could be the
>name of a particular cave as I recall an entry for such (somewhere in the
>Himalayas?) in DPPN.
>
> 
>
There is, as far as I know, no hill at all in or near the Abhayagiri
vihaara in Anuraadhapura in Sri Lanka. At least I have not seen anything
there. It is completely flat. According to the Sinhala chronicles it was
named after a jain ascetic called Giri who insulted King Va.t.tagaamini
Abhaya. The king later destroyed the Jain hermitage and built the
Abhayagiri vihaara on the spot. However, it might also be the case that
there was a big granite hillock there at some stage which would have
been used up for building the monastery or other buildings in
Anuradhapura. There are very few natural rocks left in Anuradhapura
because they would have been used for making the great amount of pillars
and slabs, etc, used for building.

I was thinking yesterday whether lan''kato could be alan''kato. Yes,
this makes much better sense.

>>>nadiipabbatavaapiihi cittehi parivaarito
>>>nato abhayagiriiti sabbadisaasu paaka.to.
>>> 
>>>
>
>'nato' should be 'nago' (mountain). I mistook the Thai 'g' for a 't'.
> 
>
This clarifies things. It means: ``The mount (named) `Abhayagiri'.''

>>Belonging to the Lord of the town of Ha.msavatii, the master of 65
>>elephants,
>>who has danced a very pleasing dance, you are are very famous by name.

>I'm thinking that 'ha.msaavatiipurindassa' are the proper names of the
>nephew's (nattaa) aunt and uncle i.e. Ha.msaavatii and Purinda. Could you
>explain how you got '65 elephants' out of 'pa~ncasetibha-'. 'setibha' still
>has me puzzled. The same goes for 'suuruccanaati'. This verse is the most
>difficult one for me.
> 

I thought that there was a misspelling of sa.t.thi, 60, but of
course, as Rett and Ole pointed out it is a ``white elephant''.
As I wrote in my message of yesterday: The king of Pa.myaa was called
the lord of 5 white elephants according to Saas. I don't have time now 
to research which king had conquered which town in Burma during the 
middles ages, there was certainly a lot of fighting going on, but the 
colophon seems to me to indicate that Pa.myaa at this stage belonged to 
the king of Ha.msavatii. In Sri Lanka there has never been a cult of 
white elephants as far as I know.

>
>>>mahaasaddena sahitavijitaaviiti naamino
>>>racitaa tena therena esaa kaccaanava.n.nanaa.
>>> 
>>>
>>With a great sound (?), having the name of Sahita-vijitaavii (''endowed
>>with the beneficial conquest''),
>>composed by that senior monk, is this elucidation of the Kaccaana.>> 
>>>
>I think it is more likely that 'mahaasaddena' means ('Vijitaavii'
>accompanied) by the word 'Mahaa' i.e. Mahaavijitaavii.
> 
I agree.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1399 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:57am 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

I'm truly sorry to intrude with my opinion, but... re: 

>>I think 'resembling a hoisted banner' qualifies the mountain 'abhayagiri'.
...
>>'nato' should be 'nago' (mountain). I mistook the Thai 'g' for a 't'.
...
> This clarifies things. It means: ``The mount (named) `Abhayagiri'.''
...
>There is, as far as I know, no hill at all in or near the Abhayagiri
>vihaara in Anuraadhapura in Sri Lanka. At least I have not seen anything
>there. It is completely flat.

Abhayagiri may nevertheless indicate the temple (not a mountain): "Nago" 
could here be used in the sense of "nagara" (fortress, etc.) --a very apt 
description for the temple in question (i.e., if it is the one in Sri Lanka 
--a tall brick tower, with a fortified appearance). The epithet "like a 
hoisted banner" would also describe this tower itself fairly well --in any 
case, it seems to apply more naturally to the tower than to a (literal) 
mountain. Obversely, we could simply take "nago" as an exaggeration for the 
stupa/mound situated underneath the tower. 

Jim, take a look: it really does have a fortress-like quality (and the mound 
is fairly impressive, if not quite a mountain in scale):
http://www.mysrilanka.com/travel/history/abayagiri.htm 



-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Likewise, his good deeds will receive the well-doer who has done from this 
world to the next, as kinsmen will receive a dear one on his return.
Random Dhammapada Verse 220

1400 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Oct 17, 2005 4:48am 
Subject: Re: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

>Abhayagiri may nevertheless indicate the temple (not a mountain): "Nago" 
>could here be used in the sense of "nagara" (fortress, etc.) --a very apt 
>description for the temple in question (i.e., if it is the one in Sri Lanka 
> --a tall brick tower, with a fortified appearance). The epithet "like a 
>hoisted banner" would also describe this tower itself fairly well --in any 
>case, it seems to apply more naturally to the tower than to a (literal) 
>mountain. Obversely, we could simply take "nago" as an exaggeration for the 
>stupa/mound situated underneath the tower. 
>
>Jim, take a look: it really does have a fortress-like quality (and the mound 
>is fairly impressive, if not quite a mountain in scale):
>http://www.mysrilanka.com/travel/history/abayagiri.htm 
>EM
> 
>
Dear Eisel,

This is a picture of the ruins of the Abhayagiri Cetiya. The tower you
are referring to is the spire of the Cetiya. The Stupa and Spire used to
be completely white, like the Ruvanvaelisa Cetiya is nowadays. It is not
possible to mistake an intact Cetiya and spire for a fortress. I did a
bit more research and if my source, Anuradha Seneviratna, is correct
then Abhayagiri is the name of the stuupa that King Va.t.tagama.ni
Abhaya built on the place of the hermitage of the Jain ascetic named
Giri, i.e., the monastery is named after the Abhayagiri Cetiya.There are 
more big Cetiyas around Anuradhapura and elsewhere in Sri Lanka but none 
are called giri as far as I know.
In the Saasanava.msa it is also said that Vijitaavii was sitting on the
Abhayagiri and one can not sit on cetiyas...
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1401
 From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:06pm 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

    Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

Thank-you for all the contributions regarding the colophon which I'm
still going over. I'm afraid I don't know much about the geography and
history of South Asia or elsewhere to be able to offer much help in
these matters.

> >I agree it's the same author. However, if you read the entry for
> >Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa, there is a contradiction in stating that the
author is
> >Sinhalese, if I recall correctly. Also, consider the following
entry (from
> >metta.lk):
> >
> >"Vijita-pura, Vijta nagara. A city founded by Vijita, minister to
Vijaya.
> >Near by was Khandhvrapitthi, where Dutthagman pitched his camp
during
> >his campaign against the Damilas, and also the village of
Hatthipora (q.v.).
> >The city was a stronghold of the Damilas, and was captured by
Dutthagtman
> >after a four months' siege. For details of the siege see
Mhv.xxv.19ff."
> >
> >Isn't this in SL?
> >
> This was quite early in the history of Sinhalese Buddhism.
> Du.t.thagaamini lived in the first century BCE. I don't think that
it is
> this place.

I think Malalasekera made a mistake in stating that Vijitaavii was a
"Burmese author of Vijitapura (Panyaa)". Vijitapura should read
Vijayapura. There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies in DPPN. I
don't see Panya, Burma in my atlas but from an Internet search there
is a place of that name at 21 degrees 48' latitude, 95 degrees 58'
longitude, southwest of Mandalay. Also worth noting is Ananda Pagoda,
Pagan which is a cave-temple built in the 12th cent. A.D. which is
supposedly a replica of the Nandamula Cave in the Himalayas. I don't
think Pagan and Panya are that far apart. Could it be that this
temple-cave is what is being referred to in the colophon? I don't know
if Ananda Pagoda is on a mountain though.

Best wishes,
Jim

1402
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:10pm 
Subject: Re: Kaccaayanava.n.naa colophon

>
>I think Malalasekera made a mistake in stating that Vijitaavii was a
>"Burmese author of Vijitapura (Panyaa)". Vijitapura should read
>Vijayapura. There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies in DPPN. I
>don't see Panya, Burma in my atlas but from an Internet search there
>is a place of that name at 21 degrees 48' latitude, 95 degrees 58'
>longitude, southwest of Mandalay. Also worth noting is Ananda Pagoda,
>Pagan which is a cave-temple built in the 12th cent. A.D. which is
>supposedly a replica of the Nandamula Cave in the Himalayas. I don't
>think Pagan and Panya are that far apart. Could it be that this
>temple-cave is what is being referred to in the colophon? I don't know
>if Ananda Pagoda is on a mountain though.
>
> 
>
Dear Jim,
Yes, Malalasekera is not always that reliable.

Cave monasteries/temples are always on the sides of hills or 
rock-outcrops in Sri Lanka. They are never found in holes in the ground. 
However, the cave where the 6th council was held in Burma was 
artificially made, so maybe the Nandamula cave is some sort of 
artificial cave in the Ananda pagoda.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1403
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:51am 
Subject: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    After a journey that spanned from 9:00 AM to 5:30 AM the next day, I arrived 
in Lampang,. My train ticket from Phitsanulok read "Standee, 3rd class", 
and I seriously considered bartering to get an upgrade to "Palicist, 4th 
class", but lacked the time to dispute my case with the ticketing agent. 

Initial confusion about my presence at Wat Ta-Ma-Oh was cleared up by my 
presentation of a card on which I had written "Kaccayana" in several 
different scripts --I was then ushered into the company of Bhante G. The 
latter presented me with a copy of the Ruupasiddhi, and (after my urging and 
some searching) also the 1997 edition of Kacc.; they tried to burden me with 
a massive translation of the Ruupasiddhi into modern Thai, but this 
generosity I refused (both because it would be of no use to me, and because 
it might have broken my back). 

I note first of all that the edition of Kacc. is titled (both in Thai & 
Roman script) Kaccaayana-Byaakara.na.m. I notice that they use the "b" 
figure in the one Burmese statement of the title as well --thus, it is not 
"a pure error". 

I have no idea what the reason for "byaa-" being used in place of "vyaa-" 
might be; when I drew attention to it, I was briefly ridiculed for my 
(supposed) inability to read the Thai. I was reading the Thai fine, but 
wondering why "v" had been replaced with the Thai "b"/"ph" sound. Is this 
a "standard variation"? It certainly isn't euphonic variation (e.g., the 
variable double-"p" in various Pali titles). 

Bhante G. affirmed that the edition is simply a Thai transliteration of an 
earlier, Burmese one --and, thus, does not represent Thai variations in the 
transmission of the text. 

Both editions have done a very good (or very bad) job of padding the text. 
My Sinhalese edition of Kacc. looks like a pamphlet next to this massive 
tome (of the same limited material). I don't know if this is an intentional 
ploy to magnify the merit produced by the book (more pages = better kamma? 
It certainly raises production costs...) but this is one of the least 
space-efficient typesetting jobs I've seen outside of a PhD thesis. Of 
course, the modern Thai orthography doesn't help matters; I pine for the 
relative efficiency of Burmese or Sinhalese script (or even Khom) when I 
look at (e.g.) the repeated Thai retroflex .n character, with the dot 
beneath it. Ugh. 

I am sorry to say that I'm too tired to provide impressions of the city or 
the temple (my journey was exhausting). However, one distinctive feature of 
the library at Wat Ta-Ma-Oh is that it is ACTUALLY USED. Unlike other 
monastic or academic collections that I have looked at, nearly every book on 
the shelf had a few folded notes inserted into it, a photograph used as a 
bookmark, or other signs of being recently (or: repeatedly) read by the 
monks. Their books are a mix of Burmese & Thai-script editions --with more 
Devanagari than I expected to find. Bhante G. himself reads Panini, and 
other monks who have studied in Burma have some comparative knowledge of 
Sanskrit, so apparently Devanagari editions (of both Sk. & Pali) are of some 
use here. 

I was advised to study the Ruupasiddhi rather than Kacc.; if one studies R. 
twice (I was told) one will know the whole of the Pali language, whereas one 
can study K. three times without learning the whole language. Sage advice, 
but I note that the man telling it to me studied K. before the R. --and so 
shall I. Of course R. is more thorough --but, for that very reason, why 
would one study it before K.? 

I showed the monks some pages from the MS for my book; Bhante G. decided to 
show off his prowess by pointing out "an error" he noticed on one of the 
pages. It was not an error, it was an adjective that he had (incorrectly) 
supposed to be the object of the sentence (i.e., thus it would/should have 
been in the accusative). I saw the problem instantly, and, although I 
considered correcting his correction, I decided to "graciously" note down an 
"X" beside the word he had pointed out, and humbly accept his suggestion. 
As I was in the act of accepting his books, I decided not to dispute the 
syntax of this random sentence that happened to catch his attention. 
Besides: what do I know? 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Though one should live a thousand years, immoral and uncontrolled, yet 
better, indeed, is a single day's life of one who is moral and meditative.
Random Dhammapada Verse 110
 
1404
From: "Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:07am 
Subject: RE: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    > I have no idea what the reason for "byaa-" being used in place of
> "vyaa-" 
> might be; when I drew attention to it, I was briefly ridiculed for my
> (supposed) inability to read the Thai. I was reading the Thai fine,
> but 
> wondering why "v" had been replaced with the Thai "b"/"ph" sound. 
> Is this 
> a "standard variation"? It certainly isn't euphonic variation (e.g.,
> the variable double-"p" in various Pali titles). 

I don't know much, but I thought that changing 'vy' to 'by' was indeed
common sandhi, e.g. "byaapaada" = "vyaapaada".

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo
Doi Suthep
Chiang Mai
Thailand
 
1405
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:42am 
Subject: RE: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

Dear Bhante Yuttadhammo and Eisel,

> > I have no idea what the reason for "byaa-" being used in place of
> > "vyaa-" might be; ....Is this a "standard variation"?

>I don't know much, but I thought that changing 'vy' to 'by' was indeed
>common sandhi, e.g. "byaapaada" = "vyaapaada".
>

In Senart's Kaccaayana edition, in the vutti text, vya~njana is 
consistently written bya~njana (at least in the Sandhikappa, which is 
where I looked). I've seen it a number of other places as well. The 
PED even has entries for bya- initials, usually referring to the 
corresponding vya- entries. I've just accepted it without knowing the 
reason behind it.

best regards,

/Rett
 
 
 
1406
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:18am 
Subject: RE: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    it is quite common in thai spellings to change vy to by.
best,
jm

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 13:07:41 +0700
>From: "Yuttadhammo" <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
>Subject: RE: [palistudy] Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>> I have no idea what the reason for "byaa-" being used in
place of
>> "vyaa-" 
>> might be; when I drew attention to it, I was briefly
ridiculed for my
>> (supposed) inability to read the Thai. I was reading the
Thai fine,
>> but 
>> wondering why "v" had been replaced with the Thai "b"/"ph"
sound. 
>> Is this 
>> a "standard variation"? It certainly isn't euphonic
variation (e.g.,
>> the variable double-"p" in various Pali titles). 
>
>I don't know much, but I thought that changing 'vy' to 'by'
was indeed
>common sandhi, e.g. "byaapaada" = "vyaapaada".
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Yuttadhammo
>Doi Suthep
>Chiang Mai
>Thailand
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu
 
1407
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:07am 
Subject: Re: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    justinm@ucr.edu wrote:
> it is quite common in thai spellings to change vy to by.
> best,
> jm

I'm not sure what you mean, and I can't think of where this is true - 
could you give an example? Do you mean Thai Pali, or Thai Thai?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo
 
1408
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 0:49pm 
Subject: Re: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    i just meant for vyanjana to byanjana, it is quite common to
see those two used interchangeably. not for thai thai
spellings, just for that Pali vy-by in thai script. i don't
know why, i just have seen it many times. i do not think its a
standard change for other words that start with vy, but there
are not many anyway (that are used in thailand). it is also in
the PED and in most northern thai dictionaries. i wasn't
making a universal statement, just responding to EMs
question/comment/observation.
jm

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 18:07:25 +0700
>From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>justinm@ucr.edu wrote:
>> it is quite common in thai spellings to change vy to by.
>> best,
>> jm
>
>I'm not sure what you mean, and I can't think of where this
is true - 
>could you give an example? Do you mean Thai Pali, or Thai Thai?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Yuttadhammo
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu
 
1409
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:01pm 
Subject: Vya-/ Bya- alternation

    Dear Yuttadhammo,

The by- form could be considered the more authentic Pali /Prakrit 
version while the vy- form has arisen in Pali under later Sanskrit 
influence. Both forms occur in manuscripts. There has been a constant 
trend during transmission of Pali texts to change Pali/Prakrit forms 
(back) to Sanskrit forms.
According to Geiger the Sanskrit consonant combination -vy- has usually 
been changed to -bb- via -vv- in Paali, but sometimes it has been 
retained or re-introduced by editors; see Pali Grammar para 54,6. A good 
example is udayabbaya/udayavaya. Geiger discusses changes from Sanskrit 
to Pali when the Pali language originally arose.
The v > y alternation, like in aavudha > aayudhya is a related example. 
See PG para 46,1.
For more information read one of K.R. Norman's studies of the history of 
the Pali language.
I hope that this is of use,
Bh. Nyanatusita

Yuttadhammo wrote:

>>I have no idea what the reason for "byaa-" being used in place of
>>"vyaa-" 
>>might be; when I drew attention to it, I was briefly ridiculed for my
>>(supposed) inability to read the Thai. I was reading the Thai fine,
>>but 
>>wondering why "v" had been replaced with the Thai "b"/"ph" sound. 
>>Is this 
>>a "standard variation"? It certainly isn't euphonic variation (e.g.,
>>the variable double-"p" in various Pali titles). 
>> 
>>
>
>I don't know much, but I thought that changing 'vy' to 'by' was indeed
>common sandhi, e.g. "byaapaada" = "vyaapaada".
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Yuttadhammo
>Doi Suthep
>Chiang Mai
>Thailand

1410
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 0:02pm 
Subject: Re: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    Dear Rett, Eisel, Phra Yuttadhammo, and Justin,

Rett wrote:
> In Senart's Kaccaayana edition, in the vutti text, vya~njana is
> consistently written bya~njana (at least in the Sandhikappa, which
> is where I looked). I've seen it a number of other places as well.
> The PED even has entries for bya- initials, usually referring to the
> corresponding vya- entries. I've just accepted it without knowing
> the reason behind it.

Perhaps the reason for the by- spelling of vy- is that the 'v' is
commonly pronounced 'w' by native speakers in South Asia. Since it
does not seem possible to pronounce a 'w' and a 'y' at the same time,
the 'w' sound became a 'b' (v => w => b) before 'y'. I believe the
classical description of Pali 'v' as a labio-dental (danto.t.thaja) is
the familiar 'v' in English but less aspirated. Unless a rule in
Kaccaayana or elsewhere can be found that allows for the alternative
'by-', it would seem that 'by-' cannot be considered pure Pali.

There is also a related problem in whether to pronounce 'tv-' (as in
'tva.m') as 'tw-' or 'tv-'. I think most speakers, as I do myself,
pronounce it as 'tw-' as in 'twin'.

Best wishes,
Jim

1411
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:16pm 
Subject: Re: Lampang acquisitions: Kaccaayana

    justinm@ucr.edu wrote:
> i just meant for vyanjana to byanjana, it is quite common to
> see those two used interchangeably. not for thai thai
> spellings, just for that Pali vy-by in thai script. i don't
> know why, i just have seen it many times. i do not think its a
> standard change for other words that start with vy, but there
> are not many anyway (that are used in thailand). it is also in
> the PED and in most northern thai dictionaries. i wasn't
> making a universal statement, just responding to EMs
> question/comment/observation.
> jm

Saadhu, avuso. Na me te byaapaado ahosi. Attham'pi paaka.ta.m hoti.

Sotthi,

Yuttadhammo
  
1412
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sat Oct 22, 2005 2:03am 
Subject: Jeyya vs. Je.t.tha vs. Jeti

    Firstly: many thanks to all who contributed on the "bya-" vs. "vya-" 
controversy. The account reported from K.R. Norman seems to me quite 
appealing; conversely, I *DO NOT* accept that the transformation of an 
initial consonant cluster (i.e., vya- into bya-) is comparable to the 
permutation of a medial consonant (i.e., -va- into -bba-). This is not 
"normal sandhi", and it is more likely that there is some kind of 
etymological/developmental explanation --i.e., without further information, 
I would tend to favour the account reported from Norman. For myself: I 
think I have ignored this when I have seen it in the Burmese script, as the 
Burmese "b" does resemble the "v" enough that I may have simply assumed I 
was reading an error whenever I passed over "byakara.na". 

A new question:
I noticed today that Narada Thera explains "Jeyya" as related to "Je.t.tha", 
whereas my dicionary (and: innate sense) would instead explain Jeyya as a 
form of Jeti (either a present participle of Jeti, or a passive 
construction). 

Specifically, Narada claims that "Jeyya" is the comparative (meaning 
"Elder") whereas "Je.t.tha" is the superlative (i.e., praising someone as 
very old). It would seem to me that the meaning of Jeyya is instead rooted 
in Jeti, and can figuratively suggest someone who is an accomplished elder 
--as with all the passive-voice constructions meaning "conquered", "fit to 
be conquered", etc. 

I would appreciate any opinions on this matter --as I would not take 
revising Narada's text lightly (indeed, I may only insert a footnote, 
without chaning the text). 

E.M. 


-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Riches ruin the foolish, but not those in quest of the Beyond (Nibbana). 
Through craving for riches the ignorant man ruins himself as (if he were 
ruining) others.
Random Dhammapada Verse 355
 
1413
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:30pm 
Subject: Re: Jeyya vs. Je.t.tha vs. Jeti

    Hi Eisel,

> Firstly: many thanks to all who contributed on the "bya-" vs. "vya-"
> controversy. The account reported from K.R. Norman seems to me
quite
> appealing; conversely, I *DO NOT* accept that the transformation of
an
> initial consonant cluster (i.e., vya- into bya-) is comparable to
the
> permutation of a medial consonant (i.e., -va- into -bba-). This is
not
> "normal sandhi", and it is more likely that there is some kind of
> etymological/developmental explanation --i.e., without further
information,
> I would tend to favour the account reported from Norman. For
myself: I
> think I have ignored this when I have seen it in the Burmese script,
as the
> Burmese "b" does resemble the "v" enough that I may have simply
assumed I
> was reading an error whenever I passed over "byakara.na".

Interestingly too, the "b" and "v" in the Devanagari script bear some
resemblance.

> A new question:
> I noticed today that Narada Thera explains "Jeyya" as related to
"Je.t.tha",
> whereas my dicionary (and: innate sense) would instead explain Jeyya
as a
> form of Jeti (either a present participle of Jeti, or a passive
> construction).

I'm assuming you're using Buddhadatta's dictionary. His entry for
"jeyya" which also includes "jetabba" accounts for the derivation from
the root "ji" only. These are potential passive participles (pt. p's).
The "jeyya" that Narada explains is derived differently and therefore
a different word (a homonym). It is derived from the substitute
"ja" plus the comparative suffix "iya". Kaccaayana explains this in
the following two suttas:

262, 391. vu.d.dhassa jo iyi.t.thesu.
sabbasseva vu.d.dhasaddassa joaadeso hoti iya i.t.thaiccetesu
paccayesu.
jeyyo , je.t.tho.

263, 392. pasatthassa so ca.
sabbasseva pasatthasaddassa soaadeso hoti, jaadeso ca
iyai.t.thaiccetesu
paccayesu.
seyyo, se.t.tho, jeyyo, je.t.tho.

You can see here that "ja" is the substitute (aadesa) of "vu.d.dha"
(aged) or "pasattha" (praised) before the following taddhita suffixes
of comparison: iya & i.t.tha. In Sanskrit, the substitute is "jya" to
form "jyaayas" (Pa.n V.3.61-2). It doesn't seem to me that this
substitute "ja" has any connection to the root "ji" (to conquer or
subdue) but the Sanskrit "jya" seems to be related to the Sanskrit
root "jyaa" (to overpower or grow old). I do not see a Pali equivalent
of this root.

Incidentally, I have noticed that the "v" of "vu.d.dha" is sometimes a
"b" i.e. bu.d.dha.

Jim

> Specifically, Narada claims that "Jeyya" is the comparative (meaning
> "Elder") whereas "Je.t.tha" is the superlative (i.e., praising
someone as
> very old). It would seem to me that the meaning of Jeyya is instead
rooted
> in Jeti, and can figuratively suggest someone who is an accomplished
elder
> --as with all the passive-voice constructions meaning "conquered",
"fit to
> be conquered", etc.

1414
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:47pm 
Subject: SV: Jeyya vs. Je.t.tha vs. Jeti

    Hi Eisel and Jim,

Whereas je.t.tha has a nice Vedic parallel je.s.tha as opposed to Sanskrit
jaayi.s.tha jeyya has none except Sanskrit jyaayas as Jim points out below.
Jeyya that is only recorded in Kaccaayanam and very late Paali lit. - it
does not occur in the canon and is totally absent from post-canonical lit. -
is, I believe, a fictitious backformation from jyaayas. Jeyya as an optative
from ji occurs a few times, cf. Dhp 103 jeyya-m-attaana.m.

Best wishes,

Ole Pind 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 22. oktober 2005 19:30
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] Jeyya vs. Je.t.tha vs. Jeti

Hi Eisel,

> Firstly: many thanks to all who contributed on the "bya-" vs. "vya-"
> controversy. The account reported from K.R. Norman seems to me
quite
> appealing; conversely, I *DO NOT* accept that the transformation of
an
> initial consonant cluster (i.e., vya- into bya-) is comparable to
the
> permutation of a medial consonant (i.e., -va- into -bba-). This is
not
> "normal sandhi", and it is more likely that there is some kind of 
> etymological/developmental explanation --i.e., without further
information,
> I would tend to favour the account reported from Norman. For
myself: I
> think I have ignored this when I have seen it in the Burmese script,
as the
> Burmese "b" does resemble the "v" enough that I may have simply
assumed I
> was reading an error whenever I passed over "byakara.na".

Interestingly too, the "b" and "v" in the Devanagari script bear some
resemblance.

> A new question:
> I noticed today that Narada Thera explains "Jeyya" as related to
"Je.t.tha",
> whereas my dicionary (and: innate sense) would instead explain Jeyya
as a
> form of Jeti (either a present participle of Jeti, or a passive 
> construction).

I'm assuming you're using Buddhadatta's dictionary. His entry for "jeyya"
which also includes "jetabba" accounts for the derivation from the root "ji"
only. These are potential passive participles (pt. p's).
The "jeyya" that Narada explains is derived differently and therefore a
different word (a homonym). It is derived from the substitute "ja" plus the
comparative suffix "iya". Kaccaayana explains this in the following two
suttas:

262, 391. vu.d.dhassa jo iyi.t.thesu.
sabbasseva vu.d.dhasaddassa joaadeso hoti iya i.t.thaiccetesu paccayesu.
jeyyo , je.t.tho.

263, 392. pasatthassa so ca.
sabbasseva pasatthasaddassa soaadeso hoti, jaadeso ca iyai.t.thaiccetesu
paccayesu.
seyyo, se.t.tho, jeyyo, je.t.tho.

You can see here that "ja" is the substitute (aadesa) of "vu.d.dha"
(aged) or "pasattha" (praised) before the following taddhita suffixes of
comparison: iya & i.t.tha. In Sanskrit, the substitute is "jya" to form
"jyaayas" (Pa.n V.3.61-2). It doesn't seem to me that this substitute "ja"
has any connection to the root "ji" (to conquer or
subdue) but the Sanskrit "jya" seems to be related to the Sanskrit root
"jyaa" (to overpower or grow old). I do not see a Pali equivalent of this
root.

Incidentally, I have noticed that the "v" of "vu.d.dha" is sometimes a "b"
i.e. bu.d.dha.

Jim

> Specifically, Narada claims that "Jeyya" is the comparative (meaning
> "Elder") whereas "Je.t.tha" is the superlative (i.e., praising
someone as
> very old). It would seem to me that the meaning of Jeyya is instead
rooted
> in Jeti, and can figuratively suggest someone who is an accomplished
elder
> --as with all the passive-voice constructions meaning "conquered",
"fit to
> be conquered", etc.

1415
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:28am 
Subject: Jeyya vs. Je.t.tha vs. Jeti

    Thanks very much to Jim & Ole --this is (in sum) a very thorough answer to 
my question. 

I have absolutely nothing more to say on the issue --again I believe it can 
be considered "fully illuminated". 

The question of "back formations" in Kacc. is a very interesting one; a list 
could be made of the examples in Kacc. that do not appear in the canon 
--some might prove to be "back formations", and some might be Jain 
Prakritisms, etc., reflecting the state of the language at the 
(undetermined) time of its composition. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Those, who are virtuous and who live a life of heedfulness, are set free 
through attaining perfect wisdom and Mara cannot find a way to them.
Random Dhammapada Verse 57
 
1416
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:17am 
Subject: By-/vy alternation in hinter-India

    Dear Jim,


>Perhaps the reason for the by- spelling of vy- is that the 'v' is
>commonly pronounced 'w' by native speakers in South Asia. Since it
>does not seem possible to pronounce a 'w' and a 'y' at the same time,
>the 'w' sound became a 'b' (v => w => b) before 'y'. I believe the
>classical description of Pali 'v' as a labio-dental (danto.t.thaja) is
>the familiar 'v' in English but less aspirated. Unless a rule in
>Kaccaayana or elsewhere can be found that allows for the alternative
>'by-', it would seem that 'by-' cannot be considered pure Pali.
> 
>
It is not clear to me what mean with ``it does not seem possible to
pronounce a 'w' and a 'y' at the same time''? I probably misunderstand
you but as far as I know they are not pronounced at the same time. The
'v' is pronounced in a way in between the English `v' and 'w' and there
is apparently no exactly corresponding sound in English. The 'y' in vy-
and by- is pronounced as in `yes' with a trace of an `i' in between the
v/b and y, like a Svarabhakti vowel.

I had a look at Geiger again and he states (para 53.3) that initially
only `v' appears. I assumed earlier that the medial v/b alternation
could also take place initially but maybe this is not the case.
Geiger (para 54.6) also states that the by- form is written for vy- in
manuscripts from hinter-India. I suppose that he means Burma with
hinter-India, but am not sure. However, I see no clear correlation
between the origin of the Patimokkha MSS and editions I have and the
initial by-/vy- alternation.

Norman (``Dialect form in Paali'') notes an initial v/bh alternation in
Middle Indo-aryan and states that it is dialectical. I could not find
anything in his writings about an initial vy-/by- alternation.
Initial by- is not found in the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
Dictionary, however the MW Sanskrit English Dictionary gives byu.s (as
well as pyu.s) as a reading for vyu.s (in the sense of `dividing'.)

Ignorant English speakers pronounce the Pali -by- or -vy- like in the
English words bye and vying, but this is incorrect.

>There is also a related problem in whether to pronounce 'tv-' (as in
>'tva.m') as 'tw-' or 'tv-'. I think most speakers, as I do myself,
>pronounce it as 'tw-' as in 'twin'.

I think that this is o.k. In the transliteration of proper names in Sri
Lanka one gets the Sinhala v/w character sometimes transliterated into
English as `v' and sometimes as `w', e.g., nuvara and nuwara. This can
be a bit confusing. For the transcription of Pali and Sanskrit texts the
`v' was originally chosen, but the `w' could have been chosen just as well.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita
 
1417
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:29am 
Subject: Sanskrit Grammar Software

    Dear all,

Probably you are already aware of the following interesting grammar 
software but if not then have a look at http://www.taralabalu.org/panini/
I have not been able to download it yet with my Sri Lankan snail speed 
dialup connection. It is 19mb. Hopefully I can do it later sometime.
Maybe someone can design something similar based on the Pali Kaccaayana 
and Saddaniti?
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

**... a unique software on Sanskrit grammar based on the Sutras of 
*Panini*. The software,* Ganakashtadhyayi*, derives its name from the 
original treatise namely, *Ashtadhyayi *. 'Ganaka' means computer and 
'Ganakashtadhyayi', therefore, means computer software on Ashtadhyayi.
...
The present version is having the following features:

* All the Sutras of Panini are given in Roman script using standard
diacritical marks (Complete)
* Pada-Patha: Splitting the words as per Sandhis in the Sutras for
easy comprehension (Incomplete)
* Anuvrittis: Words brought forward from the previous Sutras.
* Vrittis on the Sutras as found in the Siddhanta Kaumudi and Laghu
Siddhanta-Kaumudi (Incomplete).
* Sutras can be sorted either in the order of Ashtadhyayi or
Siddhanta Kaumudi or Laghu Siddhanta-Kaumudi.
* French translation of the Sutras by Prof Renou is given (Complete).
* Provision for English Translation and Explanation is made
(Incomplete).
* The traditional Sanskrit dictionary, Amara Kosha, is incorporated
(Complete but unedited).
* Dhatupatha with meanings in English and Hindi (Incomplete)
* Ganapatha (Complete)
* Shabdarupa: Declension of nouns.
* Rupasiddhi: Step by Step analysis of Panini's Sutras applied for
getting different forms of nominal stems.
* Dhaturupa (Incomplete).
* Display both in Devanagari and Roman scripts
* Printing facility for Sutras, Padapatha, Anuvrittis, Kaumudi,
French translation etc.

**

1418
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sun Oct 23, 2005 1:37pm 
Subject: Re: By-/vy alternation in hinter-India

    Ven. Nyanatusita:

>I had a look at Geiger again and he states (para 53.3) that initially
>only `v' appears. I assumed earlier that the medial v/b alternation
>could also take place initially but maybe this is not the case.
>Geiger (para 54.6) also states that the by- form is written for vy- in
>manuscripts from hinter-India. I suppose that he means Burma with
>hinter-India, but am not sure.

O. v. Hinueber (Ueberblick 255) gives initial vy- as Sinhalese and 
initial by- as South-east Asian. That is also my impression.

> However, I see no clear correlation
>between the origin of the Patimokkha MSS and editions I have and the
>initial by-/vy- alternation.

That is interesting. Can you elaborate ? Obviously since the 18th 
century (at least) there has been introduction of S.E. Asian Mss to 
Sri Lanka which has influenced Pali orthography. Also some recent 
Thai editions at least seem to be influenced by PTS which often 
follows the Sinhalese (?) tradition on this. I think the Burmese 
printed editions at least use almost exclusively initial by-. Do you 
have any Burmese Mss which use vy- ?

>Norman (``Dialect form in Paali'') notes an initial v/bh alternation in
>Middle Indo-aryan and states that it is dialectical. I could not find
>anything in his writings about an initial vy-/by- alternation.

He does however point out (e.g. EV II Introduction 74d) that initial 
vy-/by- does not make position in verse. This might imply an earlier 
form of writing Pali with initial v-/b- for such cases. There are a 
number of very early Ms and inscriptional cases where we have -vv- in 
place of the expected form -bb-.

>Initial by- is not found in the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
>Dictionary, however the MW Sanskrit English Dictionary gives byu.s (as
>well as pyu.s) as a reading for vyu.s (in the sense of `dividing'.)

We should note that in some Indic scribal traditions 'v' and 'b' were 
not distinguished. This means that for some BHS texts we do not know 
for certain whether vy- or by- was written. It is not improbable that 
there were South Asian scribal traditions for Pali too in which 'v' 
and 'b' were not distinguished. If so, we might expect copying of Mss 
backwards and forwards between traditions which differed on this 
point to have sometimes introduced minor confusion.

Lance Cousins
 
1419
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:34pm 
Subject: Re: By-/vy alternation in hinter-India

    Dear Ven. Nyanatusita,

> It is not clear to me what mean with ``it does not seem possible to
> pronounce a 'w' and a 'y' at the same time''? I probably
> misunderstand you but as far as I know they are not pronounced at
> the same time. The 'v' is pronounced in a way in between the
> English `v' and 'w' and there is apparently no exactly corresponding
> sound in English. The 'y' in vy- and by- is pronounced as in `yes'
> with a trace of an `i' in between the v/b and y, like a Svarabhakti
> vowel.

I agree with you that the Pali 'v' lies somewhere between an English
'v' and an English 'w'. I took a look at an IPA chart (rev. 1979) and
it seems to me that the 'labiodental approximant' [italic v] might be
a close match for the Pali 'v'. There is no equivalent in English
where its 'v' is called a 'labiodental fricative' [v] while the
English 'w' is a 'labial velar approximant' [w]. The only labial velar
sound in Pali is 'o' (ka.n.tho.t.thaja).

When I said "it does not seem possible to pronounce a 'w' and a 'y' at
the same time", I meant with an English 'w'. If one tries to, it seems
necessary to insert an 'i' and there are some PED entries of words
beginning with viy- for vy-. I'm now beginning to think that the v/b
alternation may point to the similarity or confusion of these two
sounds in Pali. If the 'v' is pronounced more lightly and softly than
the English 'v', doesn't it sound/feel something like a Pali 'b'? The
only difference seems to be that the 'v' involves the teeth for a
slightly different sound.

I will read up on what Geiger has to say about v/b but unfortunately I
don't have much by Norman (just Vol. I of his Collected Papers). I see
that Lance has followed up with some good observations.

Best wishes,
Jim

1420
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:05am 
Subject: appatissa, disobedient

    Hello all,

I suggest that we leave the mysteries of compound formation for a while and
address an interesting lexicographico-linguistic problem: the term appatisso
(also spelled appa.tisso). There is no doubt about the denotation of the
term. It is an adjective meaning "disobedient," and it usually occurs in a
formula together with agaarava. The problem is the etymology of the term. It
is impossible to find a match for it in Sanskrit except in pratishrava. Pali
disallows the consonant clusters /pr/ and /shr/. Since /p/ and /sh/ stand
higher in the hierarchy of sonoritites than /r/, /r/ is elided. It is
reflected, however, in the geminations /pp/ and /ss/. On the other hand, one
would expect the reading to be patissava, but this hypothetical form is only
found in post canonical lit., although Dhammasangani records the abstract
formation patissavataa. How is this to be explained? The problem is
evidently the phonological representation of the group /ava/. In general
labial /v/ entails lowering of the back vowel /a/ to /o/, and the whole
group becomes /o/. patissava thus develops into patisso. Formally this form
in indistinguishable from any noun or adjective ending in /a/ + the
inflectional ending /s/ of the nominative singular, whose generalized sandhi
form is /o/. patisso was therefore re-interpreted as an adjective ending in
/a/ as can be observed from the m. pl. form appatissaa. Later generations of
Buddhists had difficulties with the term and evidently did not understand
the Pali form as can be observed in Buddhist Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid
Sanskrit. Thus, in the end there is no mystery at all, the term is fully
understandable with the background of the phonology of the canonical
language.

Ole Pind


<http://promos.hotbar.com/promos/promodll.dll?RunPromo&El=&SG=&RAND=61778&pa
rtner=hbtools> Upgrade Your Email - Click here! 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
1421
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:11am 
Subject: Re: appatissa, disobedient

    Hi Ole and group,

Over the years I've pencilled a number of notes and corrections into 
my copy of the PED. This is the first such note I've had the pleasure 
of adding to my copy of Cone's Dictionary of Pali.

The presentation is very clear but I'd just like to ask a beginner's 
question about the reduction ava>o. Of course we've all seen this in 
initial position (avalokesi > olokesi) but at the end of a word 
mightn't the case terminations 'protect' the form somewhat? 
patissavo, patissavena etc.

Assuming this transitional form in pali you wouldn't usually have 
-ava as such in practice at the end there. The final short a is 
usually replaced by the case termination. This might not be an issue 
at all, since I'd expect av is itself enough to change to o, but I 
just wondered about it. (for example might there have been some 
declined prakrit form involved along the way, such as a nom sing 
patissoe or patisso-o?)

best regards,

/Rett

>Hello all,
>
>I suggest that we leave the mysteries of compound formation for a while and
>address an interesting lexicographico-linguistic problem: the term appatisso
>(also spelled appa.tisso). There is no doubt about the denotation of the
>term. It is an adjective meaning "disobedient," and it usually occurs in a
>formula together with agaarava. The problem is the etymology of the term. It
>is impossible to find a match for it in Sanskrit except in pratishrava. Pali
>disallows the consonant clusters /pr/ and /shr/. Since /p/ and /sh/ stand
>higher in the hierarchy of sonoritites than /r/, /r/ is elided. It is
>reflected, however, in the geminations /pp/ and /ss/. On the other hand, one
>would expect the reading to be patissava, but this hypothetical form is only
>found in post canonical lit., although Dhammasangani records the abstract
>formation patissavataa. How is this to be explained? The problem is
>evidently the phonological representation of the group /ava/. In general
>labial /v/ entails lowering of the back vowel /a/ to /o/, and the whole
>group becomes /o/. patissava thus develops into patisso. Formally this form
>in indistinguishable from any noun or adjective ending in /a/ + the
>inflectional ending /s/ of the nominative singular, whose generalized sandhi
>form is /o/. patisso was therefore re-interpreted as an adjective ending in
>/a/ as can be observed from the m. pl. form appatissaa. Later generations of
>Buddhists had difficulties with the term and evidently did not understand
>the Pali form as can be observed in Buddhist Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid
>Sanskrit. Thus, in the end there is no mystery at all, the term is fully
>understandable with the background of the phonology of the canonical
>language.
>
>Ole Pind
>
>
><http://promos.hotbar.com/promos/promodll.dll?RunPromo&El=&SG=&RAND=61778&pa
>rtner=hbtools> Upgrade Your Email - Click here!
>
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1422
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:43am 
Subject: SV: appatissa, disobedient

    The underlying string is originally patissava + nom.sg. morpheme /s/. Since
Pali like Sanskrit disallows voiced friction and /s/ in voiced environments
would become voiced /z/ like other consonants in voiced environments, the
/z/ was elided, and to preserve prosodical length speakers would add an
off-glide /w/ after /a/, which entails lowering of /a/ to /o/. This is
basically the origin of the characteristic /o/ sandhi in Sanskrit. In Pali
it has been generalized more or less universally i.e. in any position.
Phonologically we must posit patisso-o. However, the two /o/s coalesce into
one as neither Sanskrit nor Pali allows such vowel sequence. Interestingly
we find in Pali the form (a)ppatissaya. The meaning is the same, and the
attempt to interpret this form as equivalent to Sanskrit pratishraya is in
my view mistaken. The semantics of the Sanskrit term is far off the mark.
Evidently, the /y/ of patissaya is a dissimilated /v/ to preserve the
original trisyllabic form of patissava that is subject to the phonological
constraints on the group /ava/ in any connection in the canon. I do not
think that there is a single term in which this group occur in canonical
Pali.

Best regards,

Ole Pind 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 25. oktober 2005 12:12
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] appatissa, disobedient

Hi Ole and group,

Over the years I've pencilled a number of notes and corrections into my copy
of the PED. This is the first such note I've had the pleasure of adding to
my copy of Cone's Dictionary of Pali.

The presentation is very clear but I'd just like to ask a beginner's
question about the reduction ava>o. Of course we've all seen this in initial
position (avalokesi > olokesi) but at the end of a word mightn't the case
terminations 'protect' the form somewhat? 
patissavo, patissavena etc.

Assuming this transitional form in pali you wouldn't usually have -ava as
such in practice at the end there. The final short a is usually replaced by
the case termination. This might not be an issue at all, since I'd expect av
is itself enough to change to o, but I just wondered about it. (for example
might there have been some declined prakrit form involved along the way,
such as a nom sing patissoe or patisso-o?)

best regards,

/Rett

>Hello all,
>
>I suggest that we leave the mysteries of compound formation for a while 
>and address an interesting lexicographico-linguistic problem: the term 
>appatisso (also spelled appa.tisso). There is no doubt about the 
>denotation of the term. It is an adjective meaning "disobedient," and 
>it usually occurs in a formula together with agaarava. The problem is 
>the etymology of the term. It is impossible to find a match for it in 
>Sanskrit except in pratishrava. Pali disallows the consonant clusters 
>/pr/ and /shr/. Since /p/ and /sh/ stand higher in the hierarchy of 
>sonoritites than /r/, /r/ is elided. It is reflected, however, in the 
>geminations /pp/ and /ss/. On the other hand, one would expect the 
>reading to be patissava, but this hypothetical form is only found in 
>post canonical lit., although Dhammasangani records the abstract 
>formation patissavataa. How is this to be explained? The problem is 
>evidently the phonological representation of the group /ava/. In 
>general labial /v/ entails lowering of the back vowel /a/ to /o/, and 
>the whole group becomes /o/. patissava thus develops into patisso. 
>Formally this form in indistinguishable from any noun or adjective 
>ending in /a/ + the inflectional ending /s/ of the nominative singular, 
>whose generalized sandhi form is /o/. patisso was therefore 
>re-interpreted as an adjective ending in /a/ as can be observed from 
>the m. pl. form appatissaa. Later generations of Buddhists had 
>difficulties with the term and evidently did not understand the Pali 
>form as can be observed in Buddhist Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid 
>Sanskrit. Thus, in the end there is no mystery at all, the term is fully
understandable with the background of the phonology of the canonical
language.
>
>Ole Pind
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1423
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 7:10am 
Subject: Lampang (more words)

    The onus is upon me to say a bit more about Lampang (partly because of Jim's 
stated interest in the place). 

I arrived in the city shortly after 5:00AM --i.e., before dawn-- and rode my 
bicycle around the city until shortly after 6. 

Thus, I witnessed the early morning pindapata; and the monks who were out 
for alms at that hour were quite an impressive sight. 

Only senior monks were visible; I suppose that younger monks take their 
morning meal in the monastery, or simply sleep until a later hour. All of 
the monks carried out the alms round in both the spirit and the letter of 
the Vinaya --and, to my surprise, each and every one of them walked the 
concrete sidewalks with bare feet. As with any city in Thailand, the 
streets of Lampang have their share of broken glass and excrement; and at 
later hours of the day, all of the monks I saw wore sandals --so I suppose 
this is either an extraordinary austerity for the early morning alms round, 
or that these men on the alms round represent an unusually austere sect. 

Thus, my first impression of Lampang was that it was unusually well-endowed 
with very serious senior monks. 

The traditional (Lanna) architecture of the local temples is hardly worth 
reporting on --what is remarkable is that it exists at all. By contrast, 
Chiang Mai is quite lacking in such (wooden) temples. I recently read an 
article concerning efforts to restore these temples in Lampang; the Bangkok 
post reported that fundraising to restore golden implements on the roof-top 
went well, but that people were reluctant to give money for lower parts of 
the building or the pediment --as it would generate less merit. 

Ta-ma-oh is a modern complex on an odd bend of the river --made somewhat 
easier to find as the major road running past it has been re-named "Thanon 
Ta-ma-o". The buildings resemble those of any other Thai monastic complex 
of the modern era, except that the notice-boards and schedules put up by the 
monks are in Burmese, and two red "triple-lions" stand by the gate (in the 
style of the Ashokan pillar). I was there on one of the official occasions 
to burn things, and the Burmese monks had dutifully complied with local 
custom in setting up metal bowls of burning refuse of some kind along the 
permiter of the property. I believe this custom somehow related to the 
advent of the Naga fireballs on the same full moon --but more than this I 
cannot say. 

The city of Lampang is not beautiful; looking at a map or reading the Lonely 
Planet guidebook's description is misleading. It is less ugly than Chiang 
Mai, but this is "faint praise" indeed. Particularly, I should note, that 
while many hostels/hotels are set up along the river (with names such as 
"River-view") the river itself is little more than a modern (concrete-block) 
storm-drain system. It can hardly be called a river at all; and, as the 
last few months have proven, it is not entirely capable of preventing 
floods. 

The hostel that I slept at was in the process of restoration after the 
recent flood damage --as was most of the downtown area on both river-banks. 
Although there is more than the average residuum of traditional (wood) 
housing mixed in with the usual cinderblock architecture, the city is quite 
ugly (one may call Vientiane beautiful by comparison) --and the relentless 
traffic, paucity of sidewalks, etc., makes any form of transit (including 
pedestrian) reasonably nightmarish. 

Oh yes --I would be remiss if I did not mention that the entire city has an 
intense stench of rot and sewage constantly emerging from grates in the 
concrete-covered earth. This phenomenon is similar to some areas of 
downtown Chiang Mai --although the particular smell is distinctive to each 
city. 

Lampang does not have museums or other cultural institutions (I did not 
notice any libraries) as most of this "capital investment" has gone to 
nearby Lumphun or Chiang Mai. One of the few complements that I can give 
the city is that there are more reminders of recent history left about the 
place, precisely because there has been less economic development and 
government institutional expansion there. I saw, for instance, an 
old-fashioned "typing shop", where you could pay a few Baht to sit at a 
(Thai) typewriter for an hour; nothing had changed in there since the 1970s, 
and one customer was typing up a formal letter, under the bored watch of the 
proprietor. 

In every way, Northern & Northwestern Thailand is "difficult to endorse" in 
comparison to Lao. Although there are many difficulties in living in the 
Lao P.D.R., it seems to me incomparably more meaningful to grapple with 
these difficulties than to live in one of the dystopian modern con-urbations 
of Thailand. I would sooner consider relocating to Pakse, Champasak, Luang 
Pabang, or even the very tiny backwaters of the Lao North before moving to a 
city such as Lampang or Chiang Mai. Indeed, what is universally reported to 
me is that the few inviting areas of far Northern Thailand are precisely the 
remote (and empoverished) areas that more resemble Lao; but they are falling 
(one by one) to the common cycle of deforestation and industrialization. 
Witness Chiang Rai, Nan, and now Pai; I am assured that Pai is being utterly 
transformed by Sino-Thai investment, and will resemble a miniature Chiang 
Mai in a matter of months. 

Well, it all must seem fairly inviting to Burmese refugees. Racist 
oppression and extra-judicial killings by police are ... somewhat less 
frequent than in Burma, I suppose. 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
The streams (craving) flow everywhere. The creeper (craving) sprouts and 
stands. Seeing the creeper that has sprung up, with wisdom cut off the 
roots.
Random Dhammapada Verse 340
 
1424
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:00am 
Subject: Re: Lampang (more words)

    Hi E. M.
Lampang used to be a quiet city when I was studying at Wat Tamaoh, which was almost
30 years ago.
Here is a small piece of information on wearing footwears.
Regardless of the sects they belong to, all the monks in Thailand go for alms-gathering without 
wearing any footwears. During the day time, however, those belonging to Mahaa Nikaai (Maha Nikaya) 
wear sandals. Dhamma-yutta monks wear sandals only inside the compound of a temple.
tadao


--- navako <navako@metta.lk> Υå
> 
> The onus is upon me to say a bit more about Lampang (partly because of Jim's 
> stated interest in the place). 
> 
> I arrived in the city shortly after 5:00AM --i.e., before dawn-- and rode my 
> bicycle around the city until shortly after 6. 
> 
> Thus, I witnessed the early morning pindapata; and the monks who were out 
> for alms at that hour were quite an impressive sight. 
> 
> Only senior monks were visible; I suppose that younger monks take their 
> morning meal in the monastery, or simply sleep until a later hour. All of 
> the monks carried out the alms round in both the spirit and the letter of 
> the Vinaya --and, to my surprise, each and every one of them walked the 
> concrete sidewalks with bare feet. As with any city in Thailand, the 
> streets of Lampang have their share of broken glass and excrement; and at 
> later hours of the day, all of the monks I saw wore sandals --so I suppose 
> this is either an extraordinary austerity for the early morning alms round, 
> or that these men on the alms round represent an unusually austere sect. 
> 
> Thus, my first impression of Lampang was that it was unusually well-endowed 
> with very serious senior monks. 
> 
> The traditional (Lanna) architecture of the local temples is hardly worth 
> reporting on --what is remarkable is that it exists at all. By contrast, 
> Chiang Mai is quite lacking in such (wooden) temples. I recently read an 
> article concerning efforts to restore these temples in Lampang; the Bangkok 
> post reported that fundraising to restore golden implements on the roof-top 
> went well, but that people were reluctant to give money for lower parts of 
> the building or the pediment --as it would generate less merit. 
> 
> Ta-ma-oh is a modern complex on an odd bend of the river --made somewhat 
> easier to find as the major road running past it has been re-named "Thanon 
> Ta-ma-o". The buildings resemble those of any other Thai monastic complex 
> of the modern era, except that the notice-boards and schedules put up by the 
> monks are in Burmese, and two red "triple-lions" stand by the gate (in the 
> style of the Ashokan pillar). I was there on one of the official occasions 
> to burn things, and the Burmese monks had dutifully complied with local 
> custom in setting up metal bowls of burning refuse of some kind along the 
> permiter of the property. I believe this custom somehow related to the 
> advent of the Naga fireballs on the same full moon --but more than this I 
> cannot say. 
> 
> The city of Lampang is not beautiful; looking at a map or reading the Lonely 
> Planet guidebook's description is misleading. It is less ugly than Chiang 
> Mai, but this is "faint praise" indeed. Particularly, I should note, that 
> while many hostels/hotels are set up along the river (with names such as 
> "River-view") the river itself is little more than a modern (concrete-block) 
> storm-drain system. It can hardly be called a river at all; and, as the 
> last few months have proven, it is not entirely capable of preventing 
> floods. 
> 
> The hostel that I slept at was in the process of restoration after the 
> recent flood damage --as was most of the downtown area on both river-banks. 
> Although there is more than the average residuum of traditional (wood) 
> housing mixed in with the usual cinderblock architecture, the city is quite 
> ugly (one may call Vientiane beautiful by comparison) --and the relentless 
> traffic, paucity of sidewalks, etc., makes any form of transit (including 
> pedestrian) reasonably nightmarish. 
> 
> Oh yes --I would be remiss if I did not mention that the entire city has an 
> intense stench of rot and sewage constantly emerging from grates in the 
> concrete-covered earth. This phenomenon is similar to some areas of 
> downtown Chiang Mai --although the particular smell is distinctive to each 
> city. 
> 
> Lampang does not have museums or other cultural institutions (I did not 
> notice any libraries) as most of this "capital investment" has gone to 
> nearby Lumphun or Chiang Mai. One of the few complements that I can give 
> the city is that there are more reminders of recent history left about the 
> place, precisely because there has been less economic development and 
> government institutional expansion there. I saw, for instance, an 
> old-fashioned "typing shop", where you could pay a few Baht to sit at a 
> (Thai) typewriter for an hour; nothing had changed in there since the 1970s, 
> and one customer was typing up a formal letter, under the bored watch of the 
> proprietor. 
> 
> In every way, Northern & Northwestern Thailand is "difficult to endorse" in 
> comparison to Lao. Although there are many difficulties in living in the 
> Lao P.D.R., it seems to me incomparably more meaningful to grapple with 
> these difficulties than to live in one of the dystopian modern con-urbations 
> of Thailand. I would sooner consider relocating to Pakse, Champasak, Luang 
> Pabang, or even the very tiny backwaters of the Lao North before moving to a 
> city such as Lampang or Chiang Mai. Indeed, what is universally reported to 
> me is that the few inviting areas of far Northern Thailand are precisely the 
> remote (and empoverished) areas that more resemble Lao; but they are falling 
> (one by one) to the common cycle of deforestation and industrialization. 
> Witness Chiang Rai, Nan, and now Pai; I am assured that Pai is being utterly 
> transformed by Sino-Thai investment, and will resemble a miniature Chiang 
> Mai in a matter of months. 
> 
> Well, it all must seem fairly inviting to Burmese refugees. Racist 
> oppression and extra-judicial killings by police are ... somewhat less 
> frequent than in Burma, I suppose. 
> 
> E.M. 
> 
> -- 
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
> The streams (craving) flow everywhere. The creeper (craving) sprouts and 
> stands. Seeing the creeper that has sprung up, with wisdom cut off the 
> roots.
> Random Dhammapada Verse 340 

1425
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:48am 
Subject: SV: appatissa, disobedient

    Dear Rett,

I realize that my answer to your query might be a bit unclear. To make the
issue crystal clear I would prefer to analyse /o/ as the coalescense of /av/
> /o/ + /as/ via /az/ > /o/, the two /o/ vowels coalescing into /o/.

Regards,

Ole Pind 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 25. oktober 2005 12:12
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] appatissa, disobedient

Hi Ole and group,

Over the years I've pencilled a number of notes and corrections into my copy
of the PED. This is the first such note I've had the pleasure of adding to
my copy of Cone's Dictionary of Pali.

The presentation is very clear but I'd just like to ask a beginner's
question about the reduction ava>o. Of course we've all seen this in initial
position (avalokesi > olokesi) but at the end of a word mightn't the case
terminations 'protect' the form somewhat? 
patissavo, patissavena etc.

Assuming this transitional form in pali you wouldn't usually have -ava as
such in practice at the end there. The final short a is usually replaced by
the case termination. This might not be an issue at all, since I'd expect av
is itself enough to change to o, but I just wondered about it. (for example
might there have been some declined prakrit form involved along the way,
such as a nom sing patissoe or patisso-o?)

best regards,

/Rett

>Hello all,
>
>I suggest that we leave the mysteries of compound formation for a while 
>and address an interesting lexicographico-linguistic problem: the term 
>appatisso (also spelled appa.tisso). There is no doubt about the 
>denotation of the term. It is an adjective meaning "disobedient," and 
>it usually occurs in a formula together with agaarava. The problem is 
>the etymology of the term. It is impossible to find a match for it in 
>Sanskrit except in pratishrava. Pali disallows the consonant clusters 
>/pr/ and /shr/. Since /p/ and /sh/ stand higher in the hierarchy of 
>sonoritites than /r/, /r/ is elided. It is reflected, however, in the 
>geminations /pp/ and /ss/. On the other hand, one would expect the 
>reading to be patissava, but this hypothetical form is only found in 
>post canonical lit., although Dhammasangani records the abstract 
>formation patissavataa. How is this to be explained? The problem is 
>evidently the phonological representation of the group /ava/. In 
>general labial /v/ entails lowering of the back vowel /a/ to /o/, and 
>the whole group becomes /o/. patissava thus develops into patisso. 
>Formally this form in indistinguishable from any noun or adjective 
>ending in /a/ + the inflectional ending /s/ of the nominative singular, 
>whose generalized sandhi form is /o/. patisso was therefore 
>re-interpreted as an adjective ending in /a/ as can be observed from 
>the m. pl. form appatissaa. Later generations of Buddhists had 
>difficulties with the term and evidently did not understand the Pali 
>form as can be observed in Buddhist Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid 
>Sanskrit. Thus, in the end there is no mystery at all, the term is fully
understandable with the background of the phonology of the canonical
language.
>
>Ole Pind
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1426
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 0:30pm 
Subject: SV: appatissa, disobedient

    PS The case terminations apparently did not influence the re-interpretation
of the term as a regular nominal in /a/, because the plural forms
(a)ppatisaa would most likely > (a)pptisavaa, and the string avaa > /o/ is
phonetically unlikely in canonical Pali.

Regards,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 25. oktober 2005 12:12
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] appatissa, disobedient

Hi Ole and group,

Over the years I've pencilled a number of notes and corrections into my copy
of the PED. This is the first such note I've had the pleasure of adding to
my copy of Cone's Dictionary of Pali.

The presentation is very clear but I'd just like to ask a beginner's
question about the reduction ava>o. Of course we've all seen this in initial
position (avalokesi > olokesi) but at the end of a word mightn't the case
terminations 'protect' the form somewhat? 
patissavo, patissavena etc.

Assuming this transitional form in pali you wouldn't usually have -ava as
such in practice at the end there. The final short a is usually replaced by
the case termination. This might not be an issue at all, since I'd expect av
is itself enough to change to o, but I just wondered about it. (for example
might there have been some declined prakrit form involved along the way,
such as a nom sing patissoe or patisso-o?)

best regards,

/Rett

>Hello all,
>
>I suggest that we leave the mysteries of compound formation for a while 
>and address an interesting lexicographico-linguistic problem: the term 
>appatisso (also spelled appa.tisso). There is no doubt about the 
>denotation of the term. It is an adjective meaning "disobedient," and 
>it usually occurs in a formula together with agaarava. The problem is 
>the etymology of the term. It is impossible to find a match for it in 
>Sanskrit except in pratishrava. Pali disallows the consonant clusters 
>/pr/ and /shr/. Since /p/ and /sh/ stand higher in the hierarchy of 
>sonoritites than /r/, /r/ is elided. It is reflected, however, in the 
>geminations /pp/ and /ss/. On the other hand, one would expect the 
>reading to be patissava, but this hypothetical form is only found in 
>post canonical lit., although Dhammasangani records the abstract 
>formation patissavataa. How is this to be explained? The problem is 
>evidently the phonological representation of the group /ava/. In 
>general labial /v/ entails lowering of the back vowel /a/ to /o/, and 
>the whole group becomes /o/. patissava thus develops into patisso. 
>Formally this form in indistinguishable from any noun or adjective 
>ending in /a/ + the inflectional ending /s/ of the nominative singular, 
>whose generalized sandhi form is /o/. patisso was therefore 
>re-interpreted as an adjective ending in /a/ as can be observed from 
>the m. pl. form appatissaa. Later generations of Buddhists had 
>difficulties with the term and evidently did not understand the Pali 
>form as can be observed in Buddhist Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid 
>Sanskrit. Thus, in the end there is no mystery at all, the term is fully
understandable with the background of the phonology of the canonical
language.
>
>Ole Pind
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1427
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 0:57pm 
Subject: Re: appatissa, disobedient

    Dear Ole,

The commentaries indicate that 'appatisso' is equivalent to
'appatissayo' which tells me that the -ssa is related to the root 'si'
(si sevaaya.m) and that 'appatissa' has 'aprati"sraya' (with the root
"sri) as its Sanskrit counterpart. What convinces you that the /y/ is
a dissimilated /v/?. Couldn't the absence of the /ya/ element be
explained as simple elision as with 'abhi~n~naaya' > 'abhi~n~naa'? The
commentaries give the meaning of 'aniicavutti' for 'appatisso'.

Best wishes,
Jim

<< Interestingly we find in Pali the form (a)ppatissaya. The meaning
is the same, and the attempt to interpret this form as equivalent to
Sanskrit pratishraya is in my view mistaken. The semantics of the
Sanskrit term is far off the mark.
Evidently, the /y/ of patissaya is a dissimilated /v/ to preserve the
original trisyllabic form of patissava that is subject to the
phonological constraints on the group /ava/ in any connection in the
canon. I do not think that there is a single term in which this group
occur in canonical Pali >>.

1428
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 5:33pm 
Subject: Re: appatissa, disobedient

    Jim:

Sp IV 741 has: appatissaa ti appatissavaa. upaasakaa ti vutte vacanam 
pi na sotukaamaa; anaadaraa ti attho. appatissayaa vaa aniicavuttino 
ti attho.

So both the explanation with 'v' and one with 'y' are known, although 
the second must be the preferred one - it seems to be the only one 
given in Buddhaghosa's Aagama commentaries and in the Abhidhamma 
Commentary. Spk-p.t has: patissavati garuno aamaa ti sampa.ticchatii 
ti patisso, na patisso ti appatisso, patissayarahito; 
garupassayarahito ti attho.

Nevertheless the Dhs citation mentioned by Ole (and those in 
Vibha'nga) must be considerably older and clearly imply 'v'.

The BSkt (a)pratii"sa, etc. seems to be understood as from ii"sa 
'(not) acknowledging a master' ? However, Abhidh-k-vy has: "si.sya.m 
prati i.s.ta iti pratii"sa.h gurusthaaniiya.h.

>The commentaries indicate that 'appatisso' is equivalent to
>'appatissayo' which tells me that the -ssa is related to the root 'si'
>(si sevaaya.m) and that 'appatissa' has 'aprati"sraya' (with the root
>"sri) as its Sanskrit counterpart. What convinces you that the /y/ is
>a dissimilated /v/?. Couldn't the absence of the /ya/ element be
>explained as simple elision as with 'abhi~n~naaya' > 'abhi~n~naa'? The
>commentaries give the meaning of 'aniicavutti' for 'appatisso'.

Ole,

Do you have any parallel for this ?

>I realize that my answer to your query might be a bit unclear. To make the
>issue crystal clear I would prefer to analyse /o/ as the coalescense of /av/
> > /o/ + /as/ via /az/ > /o/, the two /o/ vowels coalescing into /o/.


Lance Cousins
 
1429
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:49pm 
Subject: SV: appatissa, disobedient

    -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af L.S. Cousins
Sendt: 25. oktober 2005 23:33
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] appatissa, disobedient

Jim:

Sp IV 741 has: appatissaa ti appatissavaa. upaasakaa ti vutte vacanam pi na
sotukaamaa; anaadaraa ti attho. appatissayaa vaa aniicavuttino ti attho.

So both the explanation with 'v' and one with 'y' are known, although the
second must be the preferred one - it seems to be the only one given in
Buddhaghosa's Aagama commentaries and in the Abhidhamma Commentary. Spk-p.t
has: patissavati garuno aamaa ti sampa.ticchatii ti patisso, na patisso ti
appatisso, patissayarahito; garupassayarahito ti attho.

Nevertheless the Dhs citation mentioned by Ole (and those in
Vibha'nga) must be considerably older and clearly imply 'v'.

The BSkt (a)pratii"sa, etc. seems to be understood as from ii"sa
'(not) acknowledging a master' ? However, Abhidh-k-vy has: "si.sya.m prati
i.s.ta iti pratii"sa.h gurusthaaniiya.h.

>The commentaries indicate that 'appatisso' is equivalent to 
>'appatissayo' which tells me that the -ssa is related to the root 'si'
>(si sevaaya.m) and that 'appatissa' has 'aprati"sraya' (with the root
>"sri) as its Sanskrit counterpart. What convinces you that the /y/ is a 
>dissimilated /v/?. Couldn't the absence of the /ya/ element be 
>explained as simple elision as with 'abhi~n~naaya' > 'abhi~n~naa'? The 
>commentaries give the meaning of 'aniicavutti' for 'appatisso'.

Ole,

Do you have any parallel for this ?

I cannot quote similar examples offhand because the number of nominals
terminating in /ava/ + case morfeme /s/ are rare. In fact, I do not know of
any obvious parallels. They may exist, though, and I think that the present
example invites us to look for parallels. There are cases, however, where
/y/ is dissimilated to /v/ such as aavuso and aavudha. In these cases the
dissimilation is evidently caused by the environment i.e. the vowel /u/.
This would indicate that under certain phonetic conditions /v/ is
substituted for /y/. In the case of patisso/aa vs. patissayo (hardly ever
met with in the canon) I think that the dissimilation is due to speaker's
attempt to avoid lexical ambiguity, and patisso is ambiguous as Buddhist
Sanskrit lit. indicates. Patissaya is like the hypothetical *patissava + s
subject to similar phonological constraints in that the group /aya/ would
generally > /e/ because of palatal /y/. In the present case, however, I
assume that the sandhi vowel /o/ (entailing retraction of the tongue and
rounding of the lips) prevented that.

Ole

Ole


>I realize that my answer to your query might be a bit unclear. To make 
>the issue crystal clear I would prefer to analyse /o/ as the 
>coalescense of /av/
> > /o/ + /as/ via /az/ > /o/, the two /o/ vowels coalescing into /o/.


Lance Cousins

1430 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:54am 
Subject: another odd form

Hello,

Ja VI 181 records the odd form paratthaddho. It is evidently a past
participle, tthaddho being equivalent to Sanskrit stabdha. The etymology of
para, however, seems to defy any attempt at identification. The
commentator's gloss suggests that paratthaddho is equivalent to upatthaddho.
This must be correct. But how did the reading paratthaddho originate? /pa/
is undoubtedly part of the original preposition /upa/. However, there seems
to be no etymological justification for /ra/. I would like to suggest that
/r/ and /a/ are glides. Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for
prosodical reasons, and speakers inserted compensatory glides. /r/ is a
highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position. According to
my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/
representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows the
cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/. The use of the on-glide /a/ as a
verbal on-glide has been misinterpreted as an inflectional item. For
instance apucchasi Sn 1051has been taken as an aorist with the inflection of
the present. However, it is a regular present form introduced by the
on-glide /a/.

Ole Pind


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1431 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 4:16am 
Subject: SV: another odd form

I notice that a sentence is incomplete. For "a vocalic on-glide /a/ " read
"a vocalic o-glide /a/ was inserted"

OP

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Ole Holten Pind
Sendt: 27. oktober 2005 09:54
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] another odd form

Hello,

Ja VI 181 records the odd form paratthaddho. It is evidently a past
participle, tthaddho being equivalent to Sanskrit stabdha. The etymology of
para, however, seems to defy any attempt at identification. The
commentator's gloss suggests that paratthaddho is equivalent to upatthaddho.
This must be correct. But how did the reading paratthaddho originate? /pa/
is undoubtedly part of the original preposition /upa/. However, there seems
to be no etymological justification for /ra/. I would like to suggest that
/r/ and /a/ are glides. Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for
prosodical reasons, and speakers inserted compensatory glides. /r/ is a
highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position. According to
my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/
representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows the
cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/. The use of the on-glide /a/ as a
verbal on-glide has been misinterpreted as an inflectional item. For
instance apucchasi Sn 1051has been taken as an aorist with the inflection of
the present. However, it is a regular present form introduced by the
on-glide /a/.

Ole Pind

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1432 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:45am 
Subject: Re: another odd form

Dear Ole,

Another solution could be that the 'para' portion is the prefix
'paraa' with shortening of final 'aa' before the conjunct -tth-. The
'upa' in 'upatthaddho' can then be taken as a synonym of 'paraa' in
the sense of 'bhusa' (strong) and this is supported by Abh 1154 (for
paraa) and Abh 1185 (for upa) which both have 'bhusattha'. Both
prefixes are functioning as intensifiers. So 'paratthaddho' (Skt.
paraastabdha.h) and 'upatthaddho' can both have the same meaning of
'strongly supported'.

Glossing 'paraa' with 'upa' is a concise and precise way of indicating
which of several meanings of 'paraa' applies.

Best wishes,
Jim

> Ja VI 181 records the odd form paratthaddho. It is evidently a past
> participle, tthaddho being equivalent to Sanskrit stabdha. The
etymology of
> para, however, seems to defy any attempt at identification. The
> commentator's gloss suggests that paratthaddho is equivalent to
upatthaddho.
> This must be correct. But how did the reading paratthaddho
originate? /pa/
> is undoubtedly part of the original preposition /upa/. However,
there seems
> to be no etymological justification for /ra/. I would like to
suggest that
> /r/ and /a/ are glides. Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for
> prosodical reasons, and speakers inserted compensatory glides. /r/
is a
> highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position.
According to
> my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/
> representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows
the
> cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/. The use of the on-glide /a/
as a
> verbal on-glide has been misinterpreted as an inflectional item. For
> instance apucchasi Sn 1051has been taken as an aorist with the
inflection of
> the present. However, it is a regular present form introduced by the
> on-glide /a/.
>
> Ole Pind

1433 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:05pm 
Subject: SV: another odd form

Dear Jim,

That would certainly make sense if the general semantics of paraa would
support that solution. In fact, the verb paraasthabnaati is found in the
brahmanas. But it is there used in the sense to hold back, and paraa in
Sanskrit means away, off, aside etc., cf. Pali paraajika (< paraa and the
root aj) "deserving to be expelled." bhusattha is given for several
prepositions in Abh. I wonder what the source is because there are no
parallels in Amarakosa. In addition, Padarupasiddhi does not record this
sense for paraa, but mentions only examples supporting the general semantics
of paraa. Pa (< pra), however is taken bhusanatthe. Interestingly,
upatthaddha hardly ever occurs in the canon. I keep an open mind, but I must
admit that I am slightly sceptical.

Best wishes,
Ole

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 27. oktober 2005 17:45
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] another odd form

Dear Ole,

Another solution could be that the 'para' portion is the prefix 'paraa' with
shortening of final 'aa' before the conjunct -tth-. The 'upa' in
'upatthaddho' can then be taken as a synonym of 'paraa' in the sense of
'bhusa' (strong) and this is supported by Abh 1154 (for
paraa) and Abh 1185 (for upa) which both have 'bhusattha'. Both prefixes are
functioning as intensifiers. So 'paratthaddho' (Skt.
paraastabdha.h) and 'upatthaddho' can both have the same meaning of
'strongly supported'.

Glossing 'paraa' with 'upa' is a concise and precise way of indicating which
of several meanings of 'paraa' applies.

Best wishes,
Jim

> Ja VI 181 records the odd form paratthaddho. It is evidently a past 
> participle, tthaddho being equivalent to Sanskrit stabdha. The
etymology of
> para, however, seems to defy any attempt at identification. The 
> commentator's gloss suggests that paratthaddho is equivalent to
upatthaddho.
> This must be correct. But how did the reading paratthaddho
originate? /pa/
> is undoubtedly part of the original preposition /upa/. However,
there seems
> to be no etymological justification for /ra/. I would like to
suggest that
> /r/ and /a/ are glides. Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for 
> prosodical reasons, and speakers inserted compensatory glides. /r/
is a
> highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position.
According to
> my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/ 
> representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows
the
> cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/. The use of the on-glide /a/
as a
> verbal on-glide has been misinterpreted as an inflectional item. For 
> instance apucchasi Sn 1051has been taken as an aorist with the
inflection of
> the present. However, it is a regular present form introduced by the 
> on-glide /a/.
>
> Ole Pind

1434 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:46pm 
Subject: Re: another odd form

Hi Ole,

I have number of beginner's question if you don't mind. I hope it's 
at least clear what I'm asking, even if the questions might make you 
want to exclaim (as in H Smith's marginalia) sne!

Going back to your original post:

>Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for
>prosodical reasons,

if /upa/ ends up going to /para/ what is gained prosodically? Same 
syllable count and quantity, right?

Do you mean that there was an intermediate form /patthaddho/ (with 
one less total syllables, fulfilling som now unattested prosodic 
requirement) that existed for a while and then was expanded with the 
glides?

>and speakers inserted compensatory glides.

What is a compensatory glide and why is there a perceived need for 
it? To restore the original syllable count (or rhythm)? What does it 
compensate?

> /r/ is a
>highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position. According to
>my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/
>representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows the
>cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/.

Aren't glides normally used to prevent vowel hiatus (or as you said, 
in intervocalic positions)? If so, if the order of events is 
insertion of /r/ glide, and THEN the /a/ on-glide to avoid rtth, 
doesn't that leave no reason for the r glide to arise in the first 
place?

Or do you mean that the /r/ glide is just a result of the speech 
organs transitioning from the /pa-/ towards the /-ttha/ so it could 
arise and then force the on-glide /a/ ?

As you can see, I don't quite follow the chain of events here. Any 
help would be appreciated. I'm interested in this sort of reasoning, 
but know very little about it. It's probably time to read the 
phonetics section in geiger which I skipped (apart from the law of 
morae that I had to know for exams)

best regards,

/Rett

1435 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:44pm 
Subject: Re: By-/vy alternation in hinter-India

Dear Lance Cousins,

Thanks for the comments.

>O. v. Hinueber (Ueberblick 255) gives initial vy- as Sinhalese and 
>initial by- as South-east Asian. That is also my impression.

>
>> However, I see no clear correlation
>>between the origin of the Patimokkha MSS and editions I have and the
>>initial by-/vy- alternation.

>
>That is interesting. Can you elaborate ? Obviously since the 18th 
>century (at least) there has been introduction of S.E. Asian Mss to 
>Sri Lanka which has influenced Pali orthography. Also some recent 
>Thai editions at least seem to be influenced by PTS which often 
>follows the Sinhalese (?) tradition on this. I think the Burmese 
>printed editions at least use almost exclusively initial by-. Do you 
>have any Burmese Mss which use vy- ?
> 
>
I was referring to Sri Lankan tradition editions and MSS. I checked the 
2 Burmese Paatimokkha editions I have and they indeed only
have by- forms. Maybe there is a rule about this in the
Saddaniti or some later Burmese grammar. I searched the CSCD and
almost all vy- forms are in the Sinhala text section on the CSCD.
Besides that, only a few vy- forms seem to have escaped the scrutiny of
the Burmese editors and are found in the devotional works Pajjamadhu
and Buddhagu.navaali. I did not go through the vy- search results in
great detail though.
It would be interesting to find out whether older pre-fifth council
Burmese MSS are so consistent.
I don't have photographs of Burmese MSS yet. I hope to photograph a few
when I get access to the library in the south where they are stored. The
Sinhala Siam Nikaya editions and MSS tend to have vy- forms, but not
consistently. The Khom MS I have seen has only by- The Sinhala
(Burmese) Amarapura Nikaya printed editions tend to have by-- but not
consistently.
It is my hope to find a pre-1750s Sinhala Patimokkha MS to see what the
differences are with what comes after, but so far I have not found one.

> >
>>Norman (``Dialect form in Paali'') notes an initial v/bh alternation in
>>Middle Indo-aryan and states that it is dialectical. I could not find
>>anything in his writings about an initial vy-/by- alternation.
>> 
>>
>
>He does however point out (e.g. EV II Introduction 74d) that initial 
>vy-/by- does not make position in verse. This might imply an earlier 
>form of writing Pali with initial v-/b- for such cases. There are a 
>number of very early Ms and inscriptional cases where we have -vv- in 
>place of the expected form -bb-.
>
> 
>
Thanks. I have seen this this -vv- form (-tavva instead of -tabba) in
Hinueber's edition of the oldest Pali manuscript (a fragment of the
Cullavagga preserved in Nepal) and in the Southeast Asian inscriptions.
Initial vya- is found in the old Cullavagga MS: vyattena bhikkhunaa
pa.tivalena sa.mgho ~n~naapetavvo. Note the -valena instead of -balena.
It also reads vahuu instead of bahuu. No ba character is used in the MS.
Further, no velar ''n appears to be used in this MS but only the
anusvaara .m, e.g.,sa.mgho instead of sa''ngho, just like in some old
Sinhalese Patimokkha MSS where no velar ''n is employed.
Is the absence of the velar n also a feature of some scripts?

>>Initial by- is not found in the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
>>Dictionary, however the MW Sanskrit English Dictionary gives byu.s (as
>>well as pyu.s) as a reading for vyu.s (in the sense of `dividing'.)
>> 

>We should note that in some Indic scribal traditions 'v' and 'b' were 
>not distinguished. This means that for some BHS texts we do not know 
>for certain whether vy- or by- was written. It is not improbable that 
>there were South Asian scribal traditions for Pali too in which 'v' 
>and 'b' were not distinguished. If so, we might expect copying of Mss 
>backwards and forwards between traditions which differed on this 
>point to have sometimes introduced minor confusion.
> 
>
Hinueber mentions in his description of the Cullavagga MS that, although
the ak.sara ba is available in this Gupta script, it was not used by the
scribe. So it seems that at this 9th century stage there was no problem
with distinguishing between b and v, but that simply no b was used or
was not found in the MS the scribe was copying from.

If the initial b-/by- form is just a Southeast Asian tradition and only
initial v- takes place in Pali and Sanskrit, then how is one to explain
that Baaraa.nasii/Benares is used instead of Vaaraa.nasii, and Bihar
instead of Vihar? (I read somewhere that the name of this Indian state
originates from vihaara, but I don't know if this is
correct.)Are these modern alternations?

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1436 
From: "navako" <navako@metta.lk> 
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:18am 
Subject: Re: Lampang (more words)

Tadao Miyamoto, 

Thank you for this note: 

> Here is a small piece of information on wearing footwears.
> Regardless of the sects they belong to, all the monks in Thailand go for alms-gathering without 
> wearing any footwears.

I believe I have seen more exceptions-to-the-rule than examples proving the 
rule --thus I was surprised in Lampang. In Northern Lao, I assume they 
invoke "the Avanti exception" allowing monks in cold/mountainous climates to 
wear boots whenever they need to (due to mud, etc.). 

> Lampang used to be a quiet city when I was studying at Wat Tamaoh, which was almost
> 30 years ago.

It has changed a great deal in 30 years --whether that change is for the 
better or for the worse, is a matter of opinion. "Change in empirical; 
progress is ideological"; the more time I spend in "Teso-Lotus Thailand" the 
more I see the advantages of the Uttarakuru --i.e., sleeping on the ground 
as a nomad with no possessions, etc. 

Until that time ... I've just noticed a job posting for a teacher in a 
remote village in Boten province ... no electricity, no communications ... 
almost Uttarakuru! 

E.M. 

-- 
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Better to swallow a red-hot iron ball, (which would consume one) like a 
flame of fire, than to be an immoral and uncontrolled person feeding on the 
alms offered by people.
Random Dhammapada Verse 308

1437 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:21am 
Subject: Re: Re: Lampang (more words) 	

Hi E. M.

I am very pleased to hear that Wat Ta-ma-oh is still "alive" and
doing well with its teaching.
I am planning to retire six years from now and to go back
to South-east Asia to resume my study of Buddhism. I hope
that the Bukkhu Sangha does its best to keep their Vinaya so that
I won't have a difficulty in finding a safe/quiet spot 
for leading a simple life of dasa-silo.
(I do not think I can become a Bukkhu again.)
tadao



--- navako <navako@metta.lk> Υå
> 
> Tadao Miyamoto, 
> 
> Thank you for this note: 
> 
> > Here is a small piece of information on wearing footwears.
> > Regardless of the sects they belong to, all the monks in Thailand go for alms-gathering
> without 
> > wearing any footwears.
> 
> I believe I have seen more exceptions-to-the-rule than examples proving the 
> rule --thus I was surprised in Lampang. In Northern Lao, I assume they 
> invoke "the Avanti exception" allowing monks in cold/mountainous climates to 
> wear boots whenever they need to (due to mud, etc.). 
> 
> > Lampang used to be a quiet city when I was studying at Wat Tamaoh, which was almost
> > 30 years ago.
> 
> It has changed a great deal in 30 years --whether that change is for the 
> better or for the worse, is a matter of opinion. "Change in empirical; 
> progress is ideological"; the more time I spend in "Teso-Lotus Thailand" the 
> more I see the advantages of the Uttarakuru --i.e., sleeping on the ground 
> as a nomad with no possessions, etc. 
> 
> Until that time ... I've just noticed a job posting for a teacher in a 
> remote village in Boten province ... no electricity, no communications ... 
> almost Uttarakuru! 
> 
> E.M. 
> 
> -- 
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
> Better to swallow a red-hot iron ball, (which would consume one) like a 
> flame of fire, than to be an immoral and uncontrolled person feeding on the 
> alms offered by people.
> Random Dhammapada Verse 308 
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1438 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2005 5:44pm 
Subject: Re: another odd form

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "rett" <rett@telia.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] another odd form


Hi Rett,

Thanks for bringing to my attention certain obscurities and infelicities 
of presentation in my post. I shall try to answer your questions to the best 
of my ability. A few lines above the reading paratthaddho at Ja VI 181 we 
find the reading jalanta-r-iva. This is morpholoically and syntactically odd 
because as the commentator correctly understands it is only possible to 
construe this reading if it is taken as a present participle in the 
accusative qualifying sela.m. The /.m/ was elided because of the 
environment: labial /m/ followed by the frontvowel /i/ requires from an 
economic point of view greater articulatory effort than the group a-r-i, 
consequently /.m/ was elided and a transitional onglide was inserted, cf. 
for instance yatha-r-iva < yathaa eva: /a/ was shortened and the onglide /r/ 
entailed fronting of /e/ because the articulation of /r/ and /i/ is easier. 
Economy is everything. Such transitional glides - all of them are 
continuants - have generally been described as "sandhi consonants," a not 
very iluminating description. This brings me to your questions


>Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for
>prosodical reasons,

if /upa/ ends up going to /para/ what is gained prosodically? Same
syllable count and quantity, right?

Yes, but the reading avoids the sequence /.m/ + /u/, the articulation of 
which requires rounding of the lips followed immediately after by labial 
/p/.

Do you mean that there was an intermediate form /patthaddho/ (with
one less total syllables, fulfilling som now unattested prosodic
requirement) that existed for a while and then was expanded with the
glides?

No. I can see that I did not express myself clearly on this point. 
pa-attthaddho was the point of departure, cf. similar examples collected in 
the CPD s.v. a. The /r/ was part of the process like the one described 
above.

>and speakers inserted compensatory glides.

What is a compensatory glide and why is there a perceived need for
it? To restore the original syllable count (or rhythm)? What does it
compensate?

It compensates for difficulties of articulation.

> /r/ is a
>highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position. According 
to
>my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/
>representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows the
>cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/ was inserted.

Aren't glides normally used to prevent vowel hiatus (or as you said,
in intervocalic positions)?

This is how they are generally described, but this description evades the 
phonetics of the glides. It is obvious, for instance, that /d/ is an onglide 
in the case of puna-d-eva or bahu-d-eva and meant to ease the transition 
from /u/ to /e/. The are not just inserted to avoid hiatus.

If so, if the order of events is
insertion of /r/ glide, and THEN the /a/ on-glide to avoid rtth,
doesn't that leave no reason for the r glide to arise in the first
place?

Yes. Forget the last line, it makes no phonetic sense, cf. the above.


Or do you mean that the /r/ glide is just a result of the speech
organs transitioning from the /pa-/ towards the /-ttha/ so it could
arise and then force the on-glide /a/ ?

As I should have stated in my post in order to avoid confusion the point 
of departure is pa-atthaddho. As I mentioned above, I consider it highly 
likely that /u/ was elided for articulatory reasons. the insertion of /a/ 
before ttha was presumably due to metrical constraints, in casu loss of a 
syllable. However, /a/ is still an onglide as can be seen from other 
metrical texts. They even occur in prose, cf. the fantastic examples 
adassayamaano D III 44 and anassaama D III 52 where the /a/'s have no 
morphological justification whatever.

It's probably time to read the
phonetics section in geiger which I skipped (apart from the law of
morae that I had to know for exams).

Well. That is sufficient. You may skip the rest.

Best regards,

Ole

PS By the way, the so-called law of the morae ws already formulated in 
nuce by Buddhapiya as far as I remember.

1439 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2005 0:49pm 
Subject: Re: another odd form

Dear Ole,

<< That would certainly make sense if the general semantics of paraa
would support that solution. In fact, the verb paraasthabnaati is
found in the brahmanas. But it is there used in the sense to hold
back, and paraa in Sanskrit means away, off, aside etc., cf. Pali
paraajika (< paraa and the root aj) "deserving to be expelled." >>

I think you mean 'paraastabhnaati' (under 'paraa-stambh' in MW's
dictionary) not 'paraasthabnaati'. It is quite possible that there are
other meanings but one would have to go searching for occurrences in
various Vedic and Sanskrit texts and also to consult commentaries on
these for the meanings. It is interesting that in the Ja VI 181 verse
it is a brahmin who is using the word in his questions to the sage
'...kismi.m vaa tva.m paratthaddho...' The answer to 'kismi.m' (in
what?) is 'mante' (in a mantra) which gives some clue as to what the
meaning of 'paratthaddho' might be. In Paa.nini's Dhaatupaa.tha the
root meaning of 'stambh' (.stabhi) is given as 'pratibandhe' (binding,
fastening). Look under the verb for 'prati-bandh' and several possible
meanings come to mind for 'paraastabdha' such as 'firmly fastened to,
fixed on, or engaged in (the mantra)' or it could relate to the
stiffening of the body during mantric practice.

<< bhusattha is given for several prepositions in Abh. I wonder what
the source is because there are no parallels in Amarakosa. In
addition, Padarupasiddhi does not record this sense for paraa, but
mentions only examples supporting the general semantics of paraa. Pa
(< pra), however is taken bhusanatthe. Interestingly, upatthaddha
hardly ever occurs in the canon. I keep an open mind, but I must admit
that I am slightly sceptical. >>

MW doesn't give much on the prefix 'paraa' but Apte gives 10 senses
according to the Ga.naratnamahodadhi that includes: "--6 excess
(paraajita)," but unfortunately he leaves out the Sanskrit meaning. I
checked another list that gives 'ati"sayaartha' (under paraa) which is
similar in meaning to 'bh.r"saartha' (= P. bhusattha) which is given
under 'upa'. Neither MW nor Apte give the latter sense for 'upa' as
far as I can tell. The Sanskrit list can be found in the Sinhalese
etext version of Abh from the JBE website but it's not clear what text
the list is drawn from.

I still think the case for reading a prefix 'paraa' in 'paratthaddho'
remains a possibility. And I haven't ruled out your solution as
another possibility.

Jim

1440 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sat Oct 29, 2005 9:22am 
Subject: Re: another odd form

Thanks, Ole and Jim for very instructive posts on this topic.

Ole, you mentioned the law of Morae being formulated in nuce early on. Was that in the Rupasiddhi, and if so in the comments to one of the suttas in the Sandhikappa? I would skim that chapter looking for it weren't in Burmese script. It would take me half a day to find, I fear. A pointer?

When you say 'economy is everything', and tone down the importance of Geiger's phonetic chapter, do you mean that studying general phonetics or more classical philology would be more fruitful for doing this sort of analysis?

About the on-glide /a-/ I think of the quaint English expressions like goin' a-walking, goin' a-courtin', both of which I believe are from metrical contexts.

best regards,

/Rett

1441 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Oct 29, 2005 0:33pm 
Subject: SV: another odd form

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 29. oktober 2005 15:22
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] another odd form

Thanks, Ole and Jim for very instructive posts on this topic.

Ole, you mentioned the law of Morae being formulated in nuce early on. Was
that in the Rupasiddhi, and if so in the comments to one of the suttas in
the Sandhikappa? I would skim that chapter looking for it weren't in Burmese
script. It would take me half a day to find, I fear. A pointer?

Right. I'll trace it and send you the reference as soon as I find time to do
so.

When you say 'economy is everything', and tone down the importance of
Geiger's phonetic chapter, do you mean that studying general phonetics or
more classical philology would be more fruitful for doing this sort of
analysis?

General phonetics, certainly. Think of the absurdities that have been heaped
upon a term like antevaasin : a vaasin at the ante (end, limit, or something
similar)? I beg you pardon. It is obvious that the term must be derived from
antas + vaasin. The original antar, the pausal form of which is anta.h. was
reinterpreted as antas. Since the sandhi form antovaasin would involve
rounding of the lips and retraction of the tongue before labial /v/. In tems
of economy of expression, speakers prefered the alternative sandhi form
ante.

About the on-glide /a-/ I think of the quaint English expressions like goin'
a-walking, goin' a-courtin', both of which I believe are from metrical
contexts.

This is a very good example.

best regards,

/Rett

1442 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:32pm 
Subject: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Dear Lance, Jim, etc,

I asked Dr K.R. Norman about the initial by/by alternation and got the 
reply reproduced below.
Bh. Nyanatusita

"There is a dialect variation of b/v, which can be seen as early as the 
A''sokan inscriptions, e.g. dbaadasa for dvaada''sa. It is presumably 
based upon a change of pronunciation, with the labio-dental v becoming 
the labial b. (We also find v becoming p in spagra < svarga). In A''soka 
this change is very limited, and seems not to occur in the vy group, 
which in the future passive participle, for example, either remains as 
vy or becomes vv or viy. In Paali we find bb in tabba, presumably via 
*tabya.

"We should therefore expect initial vy in Paali to become (b)b, by way 
of by, but it seems not to work that way. I do not know if the VRI 
edition is typical of the Burmese tradition as a whole, but that prints 
by in initial position, and also in words like habya < havya, but I have 
not found tabya for tavya.

"Again, I do not know if the BJT edition is typical of the Sinhalese 
tradition, but I have just looked at the edition of S I, and that has a 
mixture of vy and by in initial position, even in the same word, e.g. 
vyaakar- and byaakar-, and also has habya.

"Sometimes in Paali we find the expected initial (v)v < vy, and it is 
also clear that some of the forms are wrong back-formations based upon 
this development, e.g. vyappatha is < *vaak-patha, and should really be 
*vappatha. Somewhere along the line someone has assumed that initial v 
was from vy and has "restored" it.

"It is clear then that the situation has became stylised, and there is 
no simple answer to the question. In fact, Ven. Nyanatusita has 
answered his own question. The solution(s) lie in something earlier than 
the Paali language as we have it now. It is sometimes a Sanskritisation, 
sometimes a MIA form, and sometimes a matter of pronunciation. Since 
Paali is an artificial (in OvH's sense of the word) language, with 
features taken over from a number of predecessors, it is not possible to 
say which is more 'original', although we might dare to say that vyap- 
< vaak- is probably a late feature, relatively speaking."

1443 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Oct 30, 2005 0:32pm 
Subject: Re: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Dear Ven. Nyanatusita,

Thank-you very much for forwarding Dr. Norman's excellent reply to
your query. Looking through M. Cone's transcription of the Patna
Dharmapada (JPTS XIII) I spotted a -vv- for Skt. -vy- (divvesu =
dibbesu in Dhp 187) in verse 146 (p. 141); also, -vv- for -rv- is
often seen in many places but 'nibbaa.na' is used for 'nirvaa.na'.
According to M. Cone's introductory remarks the MS is written in a
proto-Bengali script and comparable to other 11th-12th century MSS
written in the same script and notes that v and b (along with other
pairs) are indistinguishable in the MS.

Owing to Ole's use of phonetic terms unfamiliar to me, I've started to
read Indira Y. Junghare's Topics in Pali Historical Phonology (Motilal
Banarsidass, 1979) which has been sitting unread on my bookshelf since
1979. In her introduction she writes:

"Paali is an archaic Prakrit, a middle Indian language which is a
descendant of one of the Old Indo-Aryan languages. It is very closely
related to both Vedic and Sanskrit, although by no means identical
with either one of them." (p. 1)

There is also some agreement with Dr. Norman's remark about Pali being
an artificial language in the following:

"But, by and large, correspondences between Paali and Old Indic are
regular and we may safely conclude that Pali is very close to a Middle
Indic language spoken somewhere in the Indian cultural area but
artificially modified in a few respects on the basis of other Middle
Indic languages and Classical Sanskrit." (p. 3)

Best wishes,
Jim

> Dear Lance, Jim, etc,
>
> I asked Dr K.R. Norman about the initial by/by alternation and got
the
> reply reproduced below.
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>

1444 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Oct 30, 2005 1:43pm 
Subject: SV: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Dear Jim and Nyanatusita,

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 30. oktober 2005 18:33
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Dear Ven. Nyanatusita,

Thank-you very much for forwarding Dr. Norman's excellent reply to your
query. Looking through M. Cone's transcription of the Patna Dharmapada (JPTS
XIII) I spotted a -vv- for Skt. -vy- (divvesu = dibbesu in Dhp 187) in verse
146 (p. 141); also, -vv- for -rv- is often seen in many places but
'nibbaa.na' is used for 'nirvaa.na'.
According to M. Cone's introductory remarks the MS is written in a
proto-Bengali script and comparable to other 11th-12th century MSS written
in the same script and notes that v and b (along with other
pairs) are indistinguishable in the MS.

<Now Pali does not disallow vy in initial position and there is also
evidence for the spelling /by/. The spelling /by/ for /vy/ or vice versa may
simply reflect peculiarities of inflection. Think of Spanish /b/ and /v/. In
the middle of a word the treatment differs. The spelling /vv/ as opposed to
/bb/ is subject to similar constraints. The cluster /rv/ is impossible in
Pali so /r/ is assimilated. These differences of spelling are no more than
local peculiarities >

Owing to Ole's use of phonetic terms unfamiliar to me, I've started to read
Indira Y. Junghare's Topics in Pali Historical Phonology (Motilal
Banarsidass, 1979) which has been sitting unread on my bookshelf since 1979.
In her introduction she writes:

"Paali is an archaic Prakrit, a middle Indian language which is a descendant
of one of the Old Indo-Aryan languages. It is very closely related to both
Vedic and Sanskrit, although by no means identical with either one of them."
(p. 1)

<Yes, indeed! However, it is first and foremost related syntactically and
otherwise to the spoken Sanskrit dialect (bhaa.sa) described by Paanini in
his celebrated grammar. The correspondences between Paninian Sanskrit and
Pali are almost unbelievable. However, this is not the place to go into a
detailed discussion of the evidence. I shall publish my investigations in
the near future.>

There is also some agreement with Dr. Norman's remark about Pali being an
artificial language in the following:

"But, by and large, correspondences between Paali and Old Indic are regular
and we may safely conclude that Pali is very close to a Middle Indic
language spoken somewhere in the Indian cultural area but artificially
modified in a few respects on the basis of other Middle Indic languages and
Classical Sanskrit." (p. 3)

<I do not know how to interpret the characterization artificially modified.
Some of the features of the language that have been so characterized are not
at all artificial.>

Best reagards,

Ole Pind 



Best wishes,
Jim

> Dear Lance, Jim, etc,
>
> I asked Dr K.R. Norman about the initial by/by alternation and got
the
> reply reproduced below.
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>

1445 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:50am 
Subject: Re: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Re:
------------------------
I've started to read
Indira Y. Junghare's Topics in Pali Historical Phonology (Motilal
Banarsidass, 1979)
------------------------

I read as much as I could of that book (and cited it in my short
article on the origins of the Pali language). Junghare makes a few
interesting observations, however, I found much of the analysis to be
"genuinely pointless" from any standpoint except a detached interest
in the proliferation of linguistic methodology.

Re: the similarities between empirical Pali and _de jure_ Paninian
Sanskrit --while many have suggested that this is because Pali is
somehow "more akin to spoken language" than Sk. epic poetry (etc.), I
wonder if this is not instead because the spoken language described by
Panini and that of the Tipitaka are equally artificial languages.

Nyanatusita's (excellent) list of Pali sources names a Pali & Prakrit
"mixed" work collecting together wit, plays-on-words, and innuendo. I
had not heard of this work before --it would probably be a very rich
source for comparative Pali & Prakrit linguistic research (if this has
not been done already...).

I also would like to complain about my own ignorance in one special
respect (there are many):
Do the Jains have any grammatical works sufficiently early to be of
interest to a comparative study of Jain prakrit, Pali, & Sk.? I have
never read of such sources; but I am dimly aware that only the
earliest Jain texts have a strong resemblance to canonical Pali.

E.M.

1446 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:22am 
Subject: SV: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Eisel Mazard
Sendt: 31. oktober 2005 11:50
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Re:
------------------------
I've started to read
Indira Y. Junghare's Topics in Pali Historical Phonology (Motilal
Banarsidass, 1979)
------------------------

I read as much as I could of that book (and cited it in my short article on
the origins of the Pali language). Junghare makes a few interesting
observations, however, I found much of the analysis to be "genuinely
pointless" from any standpoint except a detached interest in the
proliferation of linguistic methodology.

Re: the similarities between empirical Pali and _de jure_ Paninian Sanskrit
--while many have suggested that this is because Pali is somehow "more akin
to spoken language" than Sk. epic poetry (etc.), I wonder if this is not
instead because the spoken language described by Panini and that of the
Tipitaka are equally artificial languages.

In the case of Paninian Sanskrit it is absolutely impossible that Panini is
describing an artificial language. There are obvious reasons for that.
Anyway, what is an artificial language in the Indian context?

Ole Pind


Nyanatusita's (excellent) list of Pali sources names a Pali & Prakrit
"mixed" work collecting together wit, plays-on-words, and innuendo. I had
not heard of this work before --it would probably be a very rich source for
comparative Pali & Prakrit linguistic research (if this has not been done
already...).

I also would like to complain about my own ignorance in one special respect
(there are many):
Do the Jains have any grammatical works sufficiently early to be of
interest to a comparative study of Jain prakrit, Pali, & Sk.? I have never
read of such sources; but I am dimly aware that only the earliest Jain texts
have a strong resemblance to canonical Pali.

E.M.

1447 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:30pm 
Subject: Re: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Hi Eisel,

> Do the Jains have any grammatical works sufficiently early to be
> of interest to a comparative study of Jain prakrit, Pali, & Sk.? I
> have never read of such sources; but I am dimly aware that only
> the earliest Jain texts have a strong resemblance to canonical Pali.

I know very little on this but I did manage to find a short survey of
Prakrit grammatical works in M. Winternitz's History of Indian
Literature, Vol. III, Part II (Scientific Literature) translated by
Subhadra Jha (Motilal Banarsidass, 1967) pp. 447-451. The oldest
Prakrit grammar is the Praak.rtaprakaa"sa by Vararuci which treats
Maahaaraa.s.trii, Pai"saacii, Maagadhii, and "Saurasenii. The
Encyclopedia Britannica (1968 ed,) says this work is pre-700 A.D, The
next oldest work is the Praak.rtalak.sa.na by Ca.n.da, apparently in
bad shape. Next, is the eighth chapter of Siddhahemacandra by
Hemacandra (a Jaina monk), In addition to the dialects treated by
Vararuci, he treats also Aar.sa, Cuulikaapai"saacika, and
Aprabhra.m"sa. R. Pischel has produced a 2-part edition of this
chapter entitled: Hemacandras Grammatik der Praakritsprachen, Halle
1877-1880. This is just a few of the works covered in the survey to
give you some idea.

Best wishes,
Jim

1448 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 2:24am 
Subject: Re: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

In reply to Dr. Pind:
> In the case of Paninian Sanskrit it is absolutely impossible that Panini is
> describing an artificial language. There are obvious reasons for that.
> Anyway, what is an artificial language in the Indian context?

This is discussed at length in one of the articles in _Sanskrit &
Prakrit: sociolinguistic issues_ --one of the "conclusions" being that
Panini's understanding of Sk. is of "a living language, but not a
mother tongue".

This is probably not an adequate answer to the question of "what is an
artificial language in the Indian context?" --however, the article
provides a good discussion of many of the issues (and quotes critical
passages from Panini in lucid english translation/paraphrase --a
rarity, in my limited experience).

In Sanskrit's case, one of the strong indications of its artificiality
was that it was (supposedly) spoken by only one gender --male. I do
not know if any definition of a "non-artificial language" that could
include a language in which husband and wife do not have disputations.
I am being laconic --but this seems to me a significant indication,
even considered apart from the categories of "mother tongue",
"literary language", and so on. By the same dubious standard, I
believe that Hebrew would have to be considered a "dead language" in
those times and places that only men studied it (as part of a
religious education); although that is one dead language that has been
vigorously brought back to life in the past century. Likewise, I
would consider "artificial" the ritual language of the Australian
Aborigines as it was only spoken by men (i.e., even though it was
purely oral, with no written form whatsoever) --sadly, that language
is now extinct, along with its spoken literature, and most of the
people who recited it!

Given that the Pali tradition itself concedes that even doctrinal
debate and original essay composition took place in other (possibly
artifical) languages (e.g., Paisaci) it would be very difficult to
identify Pali as anything other than artificial. It is interesting to
me that the traditional Burmese texts brag that in their "golden age"
even Burmese women studied Pali grammar; it does seem to be positively
regarded (in traditional Theravada cultures) for women to learn Pali
--even if it is extremely rare due to the extinction of the female
lineage of monastics (etc.).

E.M.

1449 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 2:49am 
Subject: Ashok Aklujkar

This fellow's combination of linguistic and literary credentials
(incl. Pali) would make him a likely candidate to join this list --he
also lives in Canada. His full contact information/details are
provided below. Does anyone on the list already know him? If not,
perhaps Jim would be so bold as to write him an outright invitation?
--------------------------
Ashok Aklujkar (University of British Columbia)

submitted: Sat, 12 Mar 94 15:37:24 PST

Ashok Aklujkar (A.N. Aklujkar), Professor
Department of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z2

Phones:
work: 604-822-5185
home: 604-274-5353
Fax: 604-822-8937.
E-mail: aklujkar@unixg.ubc.ca

Regional interests:
South Asia, particularly India and areas containing Sanskrit and Prakrit
collections in printed or manuscript form.

Subject interests or themes of recent/current research:
Sanskrit linguistic philosophy, Indic analytical philosophy, Paninian
grammar, poetics, dramaturgy,Sanskrit belles lettres in general,
philosophies of ancient Indic religions, textual criticism,
manuscriptology, Sanskrit pedagogy, modern Sanskrit literature.

Disciplines:
Philosophy, linguistics, poetics, textual criticism, pedagogy, religion

Also involved in:
Preservation of traditional Sanskrit education and Sanskrit as a living
medium, preservation of manuscripts, work of the Canadian Association of
Sanskrit and Related Studies, work of the International Association of
Sanskrit Studies, etc.

Training and background:
B.A. in Sanskrit, Pali and Psychology, University of Poona. M.A. in
Sanskrit and Pali, University of Poona. Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian
Studies, Harvard University. Some education in a traditional Sanskrit
school. Head of the Department of Asian Studies, University of British
Columbia, from 1980-85. At present, Professor of Sanskrit and related
subjects.

1450 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 6:26am 
Subject: SV: Ashok Aklujkar

I know Ashok personally.

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Eisel Mazard
Sendt: 1. november 2005 08:49
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Ashok Aklujkar

This fellow's combination of linguistic and literary credentials (incl.
Pali) would make him a likely candidate to join this list --he also lives in
Canada. His full contact information/details are provided below. Does
anyone on the list already know him? If not, perhaps Jim would be so bold
as to write him an outright invitation?
--------------------------
Ashok Aklujkar (University of British Columbia)

submitted: Sat, 12 Mar 94 15:37:24 PST

Ashok Aklujkar (A.N. Aklujkar), Professor Department of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z2

Phones:
work: 604-822-5185
home: 604-274-5353
Fax: 604-822-8937.
E-mail: aklujkar@unixg.ubc.ca

Regional interests:
South Asia, particularly India and areas containing Sanskrit and Prakrit
collections in printed or manuscript form.

Subject interests or themes of recent/current research:
Sanskrit linguistic philosophy, Indic analytical philosophy, Paninian
grammar, poetics, dramaturgy,Sanskrit belles lettres in general,
philosophies of ancient Indic religions, textual criticism, manuscriptology,
Sanskrit pedagogy, modern Sanskrit literature.

Disciplines:
Philosophy, linguistics, poetics, textual criticism, pedagogy, religion

Also involved in:
Preservation of traditional Sanskrit education and Sanskrit as a living
medium, preservation of manuscripts, work of the Canadian Association of
Sanskrit and Related Studies, work of the International Association of
Sanskrit Studies, etc.

Training and background:
B.A. in Sanskrit, Pali and Psychology, University of Poona. M.A. in Sanskrit
and Pali, University of Poona. Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard
University. Some education in a traditional Sanskrit school. Head of the
Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, from 1980-85.
At present, Professor of Sanskrit and related subjects.

1451 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 6:44am 
Subject: SV: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Hi Jim,

There is very little literature on the Prakrit Grammarians. The standard
monograph is by Luigia Nitti-Dolci, Les Grammarians Prakrits, Paris 1938.
She edited Le Prakrtanusasana de Purusottama,Paris 1938 (in Cahiers de la
Socit Asiatique). The edition was dedicated to Helmer Smith, the editor of
Saddanitti.

Ole Pind


-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 1. november 2005 03:30
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Hi Eisel,

> Do the Jains have any grammatical works sufficiently early to be of 
> interest to a comparative study of Jain prakrit, Pali, & Sk.? I have 
> never read of such sources; but I am dimly aware that only the 
> earliest Jain texts have a strong resemblance to canonical Pali.

I know very little on this but I did manage to find a short survey of
Prakrit grammatical works in M. Winternitz's History of Indian Literature,
Vol. III, Part II (Scientific Literature) translated by Subhadra Jha
(Motilal Banarsidass, 1967) pp. 447-451. The oldest Prakrit grammar is the
Praak.rtaprakaa"sa by Vararuci which treats Maahaaraa.s.trii, Pai"saacii,
Maagadhii, and "Saurasenii. The Encyclopedia Britannica (1968 ed,) says this
work is pre-700 A.D, The next oldest work is the Praak.rtalak.sa.na by
Ca.n.da, apparently in bad shape. Next, is the eighth chapter of
Siddhahemacandra by Hemacandra (a Jaina monk), In addition to the dialects
treated by Vararuci, he treats also Aar.sa, Cuulikaapai"saacika, and
Aprabhra.m"sa. R. Pischel has produced a 2-part edition of this chapter
entitled: Hemacandras Grammatik der Praakritsprachen, Halle 1877-1880. This
is just a few of the works covered in the survey to give you some idea.

Best wishes,
Jim

1452 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 7:11am 
Subject: Re: SV: KR Norman on by/vy alternation
>
>
>There is very little literature on the Prakrit Grammarians. The standard
>monograph is by Luigia Nitti-Dolci, Les Grammarians Prakrits, Paris 1938.


I have this in English: Nitti-Dolci, Luiga, The Prakrita Grammarians, tr. Prabhaakara Jhaa, Motilal 1972

/Rett

1453 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 10:40am 
Subject: odd word of the day

Hi all,

At D I 96 we encounter the odd word palloma in the phrase kumaaro pallomo
bhavissati, and at M I 17 pallomam aapaadi.m arae vihaaraaya. In the
Diigha quotation palloma is evidently an adjective, in the second, however,
it is a noun in the accusative. How is this word derived? The commentator
Buddhaghosa derives the word from panna + loma (Sv 266) and understands it
to mean that the prince is not going to have hair-raising experiences, in
short his hair does not stand on end, it has so to speak "fallen down"
(panna < root pad) i.e. he is not going to be frightened. In the Majjhima
passage the same word is treated as a noun meaning peace. Buddhaghosa's
analysis is evidently correct and it signals a very important factor in
language development, that of elision of syllables for the sake of economy,
when a particular lexeme has no competion from other words. In the present
case the syllable /na/ was elided. Since the cluster /nl/ is impossible in
Pali /n/ was/ assimilated to /l/. There are other examples of elision in
Pali like cuddasa < catuddasa.


Regards,

Ole Pind 


<http://promos.hotbar.com/promos/promodll.dll?RunPromo&El=&SG=&RAND=815&part
ner=hbtools> Upgrade Your Email - Click here! 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1454 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 2:39pm 
Subject: Re: odd word of the day

Dear Ole,

<< Buddhaghosa's analysis is evidently correct and it signals a very
important factor in language development, that of elision of syllables
for the sake of economy, when a particular lexeme has no competion
from other words. In the present case the syllable /na/ was elided. >>

I believe Aggava.msa has a rule that would account for the elision of
/na/ in 'panna-lomo'. This is Sd 160: sutte sukhuccaara.nattham
akkharalopo vipariitataa ca. Some examples given for 'akkharalopo'
are: dva.t.thi for dvaasat.t.hi, abhi~n~naa for abhi~n~naaya. I take
it that your 'for the sake of economy' relates to
'sukhuccaara.nattha.m' (for the sake of pronouncing with ease).

Getting back to 'patissa', I see that the pair 'pa.tissayo pa.tissaa'
is given on p. 922,13 in the Saddaniiti as an example of va.n.nabheda
or l'alternance phonetique (en general) 1.1.2 (p. 1106).

Best wishes,
Jim

1455 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 2:47pm 
Subject: Re: odd word of the day

Hi Ole,

A couple more quick questions, still very much at beginner's level:

>... it signals a very important factor in
>language development, that of elision of syllables for the sake of economy,
>when a particular lexeme has no competion from other words.

By 'no competition from other words' do you mean that the elided form doesn't lead to a new homophone (as often occurs after sound changes)?

If so does this mean that the type of ellision you are describing is a change that takes place separately from any regular sound changes of the sort encompassed by the expression 'there are no exceptions to sound changes'? (since the issue of homophony conflict would seem to allow or prevent changes in the case of ellision).


best regards,

/Rett

1456 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 3:01pm 
Subject: Re: odd word of the day

>
>
>I believe Aggava.msa has a rule that would account for the elision of
>/na/ in 'panna-lomo'. This is Sd 160: sutte sukhuccaara.nattham
>akkharalopo vipariitataa ca. ... I take
>it that your 'for the sake of economy' relates to
>'sukhuccaara.nattha.m' (for the sake of pronouncing with ease).

Jim,

Thanks for the Sadd reference. That's an interesting section.

Did you see this one?:

samantapaasaadikaa iti eva > samantapaasaadikaa tv eva

This is only one of several where /-i/ goes to /-v/. I would have a lot of trouble if I came across that change in a text. I'd automatically read tv as tu (however). I wonder if there's something about the phonetic environment that encourages that particular exchange there.

best regards,

/Rett

1457 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 5:28pm 
Subject: SV: odd word of the day

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 1. november 2005 20:40
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] odd word of the day

Dear Ole,

<< Buddhaghosa's analysis is evidently correct and it signals a very
important factor in language development, that of elision of syllables for
the sake of economy, when a particular lexeme has no competion from other
words. In the present case the syllable /na/ was elided. >>

I believe Aggava.msa has a rule that would account for the elision of /na/
in 'panna-lomo'. This is Sd 160: sutte sukhuccaara.nattham akkharalopo
vipariitataa ca. Some examples given for 'akkharalopo'
are: dva.t.thi for dvaasat.t.hi, abhi~n~naa for abhi~n~naaya. I take it that
your 'for the sake of economy' relates to 'sukhuccaara.nattha.m' (for the
sake of pronouncing with ease).

Exactly!

Ole

Getting back to 'patissa', I see that the pair 'pa.tissayo pa.tissaa'
is given on p. 922,13 in the Saddaniiti as an example of va.n.nabheda or
l'alternance phonetique (en general) 1.1.2 (p. 1106).

Best wishes,
Jim

1458 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 5:46pm 
Subject: SV: odd word of the day

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 1. november 2005 20:48
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] odd word of the day

Hi Ole,

A couple more quick questions, still very much at beginner's level:

>... it signals a very important factor in language development, that of 
>elision of syllables for the sake of economy, when a particular lexeme 
>has no competion from other words.

By 'no competition from other words' do you mean that the elided form
doesn't lead to a new homophone (as often occurs after sound changes)?

Yes!

If so does this mean that the type of ellision you are describing is a
change that takes place separately from any regular sound changes of the
sort encompassed by the expression 'there are no exceptions to sound
changes'? (since the issue of homophony conflict would seem to allow or
prevent changes in the case of ellision).

No language tolerates a large amount of homophones, and speakers would try
to compensate one way or the other for phonetic changes generating a large
amount of homophones that would affect the semantics of the language. That
explains the phonology of many words of Pali.


Best Regards,
Ole Pind


best regards,

/Rett

1459 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Nov 2, 2005 2:22am 
Subject: SV: odd word of the day

Hi Jim and Rett,

/ti/ > tv before eva well attested in MS.s. I do not doubt that it was
caused by the environment, cf. /v/ of eva. The only alternative treatment
would be t' eva (found in some MS.s) or c' eva. However, the articulatory
combination of palatal /c/ + labial /v/ would probably exclude that
possibility. The grammarian Moggallana mentions this type of sandhi,
probably for the fist time. I refer to it in my article "Pali and the Pali
Grammarians," published in the Lienhard Festschrift, Stockholm 1995.

Regards,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af rett
Sendt: 1. november 2005 21:01
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] odd word of the day

>
>
>I believe Aggava.msa has a rule that would account for the elision of 
>/na/ in 'panna-lomo'. This is Sd 160: sutte sukhuccaara.nattham 
>akkharalopo vipariitataa ca. ... I take it that your 'for the sake of 
>economy' relates to 'sukhuccaara.nattha.m' (for the sake of pronouncing 
>with ease).

Jim,

Thanks for the Sadd reference. That's an interesting section.

Did you see this one?:

samantapaasaadikaa iti eva > samantapaasaadikaa tv eva

This is only one of several where /-i/ goes to /-v/. I would have a lot of
trouble if I came across that change in a text. I'd automatically read tv as
tu (however). I wonder if there's something about the phonetic environment
that encourages that particular exchange there.

best regards,

/Rett

1460 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Nov 2, 2005 5:45am 
Subject: Sinhala Kaccayana Grammar editions

Dear Eisel, Jim, Ole, etc,

In the library next door I just found an old 1895 printed Sinhala editon 
of the Kaccaayana-sutta-paa.thaa by Jinaratanatissa thera (11 pages) and 
a 1886 Kaccaayana-vyaakara.na edition by M. Gunaratana, revised by the 
reknown scholar Hikkaduve Suma''ngala (135 pages). Are these of interest 
to any of you? Bound together with these in the same leather cover are 
also an edition of the Baalaavattaaraya (1901, Devamitta), Padasaadhana 
(1887, Dhammaananda), and a Moggalaanaya-vyaakara.na (1899, Devamitta).
I noticed is that there seem to be quite a few copies, MSS as well as 
printed editions, of the Padasaadhana, so it seems that it is or was a 
popular grammar here alongside the Baalaavataaraya. The latter is still 
studied in monastic schools by young monks but I am not sure about the 
Padasaadhana. I was told that the only part of the Kaccaayana still 
studied is the Dhaatuma~njusa.
Best wishes,
NT

1461 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 2:04am 
Subject: SV: Sinhala Kaccayana Grammar editions

Dear Nyanatusita,

This sounds like music in my ears. I am certainly interested in these
editions.

Best wishes,

Ole

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 2. november 2005 11:45
Til: Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] Sinhala Kaccayana Grammar editions

Dear Eisel, Jim, Ole, etc,

In the library next door I just found an old 1895 printed Sinhala editon of
the Kaccaayana-sutta-paa.thaa by Jinaratanatissa thera (11 pages) and a 1886
Kaccaayana-vyaakara.na edition by M. Gunaratana, revised by the reknown
scholar Hikkaduve Suma''ngala (135 pages). Are these of interest to any of
you? Bound together with these in the same leather cover are also an edition
of the Baalaavattaaraya (1901, Devamitta), Padasaadhana (1887,
Dhammaananda), and a Moggalaanaya-vyaakara.na (1899, Devamitta).
I noticed is that there seem to be quite a few copies, MSS as well as
printed editions, of the Padasaadhana, so it seems that it is or was a
popular grammar here alongside the Baalaavataaraya. The latter is still
studied in monastic schools by young monks but I am not sure about the
Padasaadhana. I was told that the only part of the Kaccaayana still studied
is the Dhaatuma~njusa.
Best wishes,
NT

1462 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 2:37am 
Subject: Lao Theravada Buddhism (incl. stats.)

I've typed out some social statistics on Vientiane, Lao --only the
first few questions directly pertain to Buddhism, so many of you might
just want to read the first few paragraphs. As mentioned earlier,
interest in Buddhism here seems to be predominantly female. While
temple attendance is not the only indicator for "interest in
Buddhism", the number of people reading about the religion is likely
very low -- i.e., if only becase the same survey shows 94.5% of
Vientiane Laotians (i.e., the most affluent and educated part of the
country) "have not read or looked at a book in the past year" Although
much of the other

I had an interesting discussion about the state of monasticism in the
remote provinces (today) with a fellow who formerly worked and lived
in Sie.m Khu'on, and currently lives in an equally remote stretch of
Pho.msaalii near Vietnam's Dien-Bien-Phu (please excuse the attempted
Romanization of Lao toponyms...). Of the villages he had lived and
worked in, he stated as a matter of fact that the number of Buddhist
monks was literally reduced to zero during the war; he said he had
witnessed attempts to revive local Buddhist lineages of just a few
monks here and there, but the older generation had basically grown up
huddled in caves --and so had no education to speak of, much less did
they have a continuous tradition of Buddhist education. His interest
in pedagogy was primarily in traditional crafts (this was part of his
humanitarian work there) --but precisely because he had an acute
knowledge of the difference between a village where (e.g.) two
parasol-maker craftsmen had survived, and the difficulty of reviving
the art form in a village with absolutely zero continuous tradition, I
took his observations quite seriously. I questioned him about
traditional paper-making for MS/books (I did not dare ask about Pali
MS...) and he thought for some time before stating that no, he had
never seen it. He had only observed decorative and parason
paper-making.

He reported that Animism, however, has made a glorious comeback after
the war; but I wonder to what extent his evaluation is blinded by the
vibrancy of the costume & the rituals. The spoken literature of the
minority languages and Animist faiths would have been almost as
difficult to preserve as Theravada lineages when reduced to taking
shelter from incessant bombing in the caves. Even at the level of
costume, many "genres" of Northern Lao textile have become extinct
during the course of the war; i.e., if you can't actually sit down
with your daughter at a loom, you can't impart this sort of lore
between generations.

E.M.
----------------------------------------------------
Source: 1997-8 Vientiane Social Survey Project, "drafted by" Grant Evans.
Attributed to: Institute for Cultural Research, Ministry of
Information and Culture.
Funded/assisted by: SIDA, AusAID, & University of Hong Kong.
------
Vientiane Municipality Population 524,000
Sample size of 1998 survey circa 2,000 families [not individuals
--i.e., a family could include 5 or more respondents, and seems to
have been comprised of a married couple as a minimum]
% of V. residents born in V. (1995 census) 55.8
Pater: 48, Mater: 60
% of V. residents settled in V. after 1975 Pater: 47, Mater: 53
------
Who [in the family] gave offerings to the Buddha in the last week?
Wife/mother 86.4%
Daughter 6.7%
Husband 6.4%
Son 0.5%
Where did they give [offerings to the Buddha]?
Local temple 80.2%
Elsewhere 19.8%
------
In the past month, has anyone in the household consulted a shaman or a
fortune teller?
Yes 12%
No 88%
If yes, for what reasons?
For fortune / future 67.6%
Health problems / pain 12.4%
Lost objects 10.4%
Do not believe [sic.?] 9.7%
------
"What do you think is best for successful live?" [sic.!]
Hard work Pater: 86.5%, Mater: 62.3%
A pure heart* Pater: 9.8%, Mater: 27.2%
To respect & practice religion Pater: 3.1%, Mater: 7.2%
Luck Pater: 0.6%, Mater: 3%
Trick / cunning Pater: 0.1%, Mater: 0.3%
*[One would have to consult a specialist in Lao idiom to know what
this term means in its cultural and religious context --or if it is a
religious sentiment at all.]
------
In what ways are Lao youth moving away from Lao culture?
Style of dress 47%
No respect for their elders 22%
Heavy drinking & promiscuity 12%
Do not go to temple 8%
Belief in superstition 4%
Westernization 4%
------
Do you think it is important for girls to have [the] same level of
education as boys?
Yes 99%
No 1%
------
If you were able to choose a country to go and visit, which one would
you like to visit most?
America 32%
Japan 14.4%
Anywhere 11.4%
Thailand 10%
Not go anywhere 9.2%
China 7.1%
Vietnam 5.9%
Australia 3.4%
Canada 1.4%
England 1.3%
Switzerland 1.3%
Singapore* 1.2%
Germany 0.9%
India 0.4%
Hungary 0.1%
*[The low ranking of Singapore as a place to visit is interesting,
considering its high ranking on the list of "modern societies to be a
model for Laos". The opposite is the case for the U.S.A. --apparently
a nice place to visit, but very few would want Laos to resemble it]
------
Which of the modern societies would [you] most like to be a model for Laos?
Lao* 37.2%
Japan 26.3%
Singapore 19.9%
Developed, modern countries [i.e., Misc.?] 5.7%
America 3.6%
France 3.4%
Russia 2.8%
Hungary 0.7%
Thailand** 0.1%
Cambodia 0.1%
Vietnam 0.1%
*[This category includes "those who saw no country as a model",
reported as 35% of the total on pg. 44; thus, perhaps only 2.2%
actually intended to indicate Lao as its own model for development. 
The meaning of this sentiment, or of "seeing no country as a model" is
unclear in the report; perhaps it reflects a nationalistic idiom that
the survey was not prepared for?]
**[Amazingly, Thailand gets fewer votes than Hungary, tied with
Cambodia and Vietnam, each of the bottom three receviving just two
nominations to be the model for Laotian development. This is really a
very strong indication of how much the Vientiane Lao disapprove of the
development models' of their immediately neighboring countries.]
------
What is the most serious social problem in Vientiane? (Summary)
Drinking and fighting 23%
Stealing 21%
Unemployment 17%
Prostitution 9%
Sniffing glue & drugs 7%
Other* 23%
*[I note that "Failure of study / education" is below 1%]
------
Are you the owner of your home?
Yes 86%
No 14%
------
Do you read books?
Yes 39%
No 61%
% of "Yes" respondents who had actually "read or looked at" a book in
the previous year 14%
[% of respondents who had *not* "read or looked at" a book in the past
year] 94.5%
% of residents who have "read or looked at" 10 or more books in the past year 3%
------
Of books read in the past year, in what language were they?
Vietnamese 56%
Lao 28%
English 10%
Thai 6%
------
V.'s ethnic distribution according to the 1995 census (summary, pg. 37)
Lao 92.6%
Phu Tai (also considered 'Lao loum') 3.1%
Other 4%
------
Do you have relatives who are refugees overseas?
Yes 43%
No 57%
Do you keep in touch with them? [i.e., refugee relations, if any]
Yes 73%
No 27%
Do you receive money from them? [i.e., refugee relations, if any]
Yes 48%
No 52%

Quotations from the study
"A large percentage of the old residents of Vientiane, in particular
merchants, many of whom were ethnic Chinese or Vietnamese, became
refugees as did many RLG officials and their families. This, plus the
policies of the incoming LPDR, had the effect of fundamentally
changing the character of the city for approximately 10-15 years
[starting in 1975]." pg. 25-26

"What is clear from the above figures ... is that in demographic terms
the main disturbances to the social fabric of the city occurred
between 1975-1980, and then secondarily 1981-1990, rather than after
the relaxation of restrictions on population movements that
accompanied the New Economic Mechanism first implemented in the late
1980s. This contradicts commonly held perceptions of significant
rural-urban migration in the 1990s" pg. 27

"The official [1995] census does not help us very much here either
because when it inquired about ethnicity, out of the 44 options given,
Chinese or Vietnamese were not specified (nor Thai nor Indian)." pg.
36

"98% of Lao marry Lao, 62% of Phu Tai marry Phu Tai, while the
remaining Phu Tai marry only Lao, thereby giving some credence to the
category 'Lao Loum' for these two groups. A similar statement could
be made for the small number of Tai Lue in Vientiane who only marry
either Lao or Lue." pg. 38

"One would have to say from these findings that the population
Vientiane expresses a relatively high consciousness of linguistic
conformity to a standard accent, and indeed this may have led to some
under-reporting of 'deviant' language practices, such as the use of
minority languages in the home (e.g. Chinese or Hmong). Also, from
these replies we can begin to see clearer confirmation of the
importance of Vietnamese in the language practices of the people of
Vientiane. The high score for English in the question on knowledge of
other languages reflects the rapid shift in linguistic orientation of
the population since the beginning of the N.E.M. ... In the above
responses, however, there is one language that is drastically
under-reported, and that is knowledge of Thai. ... [W]hen we actually
asked direct questions about knowledge of Thai 91% said they
understood Thai, while only 27% claim to be able to speak and read
it." pg. 39

1463 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 5:16am 
Subject: SV: Lao Theravada Buddhism (incl. stats.)

Dear E.M.,

<He reported that Animism, however, has made a glorious comeback after the
war; but I wonder to what extent his evaluation is blinded by the vibrancy
of the costume & the rituals. The spoken literature of the minority
languages and Animist faiths would have been almost as difficult to preserve
as Theravada lineages when reduced to taking shelter from incessant bombing
in the caves. Even at the level of costume, many "genres" of Northern Lao
textile have become extinct during the course of the war; i.e., if you can't
actually sit down with your daughter at a loom, you can't impart this sort
of lore between generations.>

About one year ago I happened to pass a shop in Paris selling the most
fabulous silk fabrics I have ever seen. They were allegedly traditional
types of fabric from Laos! Although the price was ourageous, I had to
control myself.

Ole Pind


----------------------------------------------------
Source: 1997-8 Vientiane Social Survey Project, "drafted by" Grant Evans.
Attributed to: Institute for Cultural Research, Ministry of Information and
Culture.
Funded/assisted by: SIDA, AusAID, & University of Hong Kong.
------
Vientiane Municipality Population 524,000
Sample size of 1998 survey circa 2,000 families [not individuals
--i.e., a family could include 5 or more respondents, and seems to have been
comprised of a married couple as a minimum]
% of V. residents born in V. (1995 census) 55.8
Pater: 48, Mater: 60
% of V. residents settled in V. after 1975 Pater: 47, Mater: 53
------
Who [in the family] gave offerings to the Buddha in the last week?
Wife/mother 86.4%
Daughter 6.7%
Husband 6.4%
Son 0.5%
Where did they give [offerings to the Buddha]?
Local temple 80.2%
Elsewhere 19.8%
------
In the past month, has anyone in the household consulted a shaman or a
fortune teller?
Yes 12%
No 88%
If yes, for what reasons?
For fortune / future 67.6%
Health problems / pain 12.4%
Lost objects 10.4%
Do not believe [sic.?] 9.7%
------
"What do you think is best for successful live?" [sic.!]
Hard work Pater: 86.5%, Mater: 62.3%
A pure heart* Pater: 9.8%, Mater: 27.2%
To respect & practice religion Pater: 3.1%, Mater: 7.2%
Luck Pater: 0.6%, Mater: 3%
Trick / cunning Pater: 0.1%, Mater: 0.3%
*[One would have to consult a specialist in Lao idiom to know what this term
means in its cultural and religious context --or if it is a religious
sentiment at all.]
------
In what ways are Lao youth moving away from Lao culture?
Style of dress 47%
No respect for their elders 22%
Heavy drinking & promiscuity 12%
Do not go to temple 8%
Belief in superstition 4%
Westernization 4%
------
Do you think it is important for girls to have [the] same level of education
as boys?
Yes 99%
No 1%
------
If you were able to choose a country to go and visit, which one would you
like to visit most?
America 32%
Japan 14.4%
Anywhere 11.4%
Thailand 10%
Not go anywhere 9.2%
China 7.1%
Vietnam 5.9%
Australia 3.4%
Canada 1.4%
England 1.3%
Switzerland 1.3%
Singapore* 1.2%
Germany 0.9%
India 0.4%
Hungary 0.1%
*[The low ranking of Singapore as a place to visit is interesting,
considering its high ranking on the list of "modern societies to be a model
for Laos". The opposite is the case for the U.S.A. --apparently a nice
place to visit, but very few would want Laos to resemble it]
------
Which of the modern societies would [you] most like to be a model for Laos?
Lao* 37.2%
Japan 26.3%
Singapore 19.9%
Developed, modern countries [i.e., Misc.?] 5.7%
America 3.6%
France 3.4%
Russia 2.8%
Hungary 0.7%
Thailand** 0.1%
Cambodia 0.1%
Vietnam 0.1%
*[This category includes "those who saw no country as a model", reported as
35% of the total on pg. 44; thus, perhaps only 2.2% actually intended to
indicate Lao as its own model for development. 
The meaning of this sentiment, or of "seeing no country as a model" is
unclear in the report; perhaps it reflects a nationalistic idiom that the
survey was not prepared for?] **[Amazingly, Thailand gets fewer votes than
Hungary, tied with Cambodia and Vietnam, each of the bottom three receviving
just two nominations to be the model for Laotian development. This is
really a very strong indication of how much the Vientiane Lao disapprove of
the development models' of their immediately neighboring countries.]
------
What is the most serious social problem in Vientiane? (Summary)
Drinking and fighting 23%
Stealing 21%
Unemployment 17%
Prostitution 9%
Sniffing glue & drugs 7%
Other* 23%
*[I note that "Failure of study / education" is below 1%]
------
Are you the owner of your home?
Yes 86%
No 14%
------
Do you read books?
Yes 39%
No 61%
% of "Yes" respondents who had actually "read or looked at" a book in
the previous year 14%
[% of respondents who had *not* "read or looked at" a book in the past
year] 94.5%
% of residents who have "read or looked at" 10 or more books in the past
year 3%
------
Of books read in the past year, in what language were they?
Vietnamese 56%
Lao 28%
English 10%
Thai 6%
------
V.'s ethnic distribution according to the 1995 census (summary, pg. 37)
Lao 92.6%
Phu Tai (also considered 'Lao loum') 3.1%
Other 4%
------
Do you have relatives who are refugees overseas?
Yes 43%
No 57%
Do you keep in touch with them? [i.e., refugee relations, if any]
Yes 73%
No 27%
Do you receive money from them? [i.e., refugee relations, if any]
Yes 48%
No 52%

Quotations from the study
"A large percentage of the old residents of Vientiane, in particular
merchants, many of whom were ethnic Chinese or Vietnamese, became refugees
as did many RLG officials and their families. This, plus the policies of
the incoming LPDR, had the effect of fundamentally changing the character of
the city for approximately 10-15 years [starting in 1975]." pg. 25-26

"What is clear from the above figures ... is that in demographic terms the
main disturbances to the social fabric of the city occurred between
1975-1980, and then secondarily 1981-1990, rather than after the relaxation
of restrictions on population movements that accompanied the New Economic
Mechanism first implemented in the late 1980s. This contradicts commonly
held perceptions of significant rural-urban migration in the 1990s." pg. 27

"The official [1995] census does not help us very much here either because
when it inquired about ethnicity, out of the 44 options given, Chinese or
Vietnamese were not specified (nor Thai nor Indian)." pg.
36

"98% of Lao marry Lao, 62% of Phu Tai marry Phu Tai, while the remaining Phu
Tai marry only Lao, thereby giving some credence to the category 'Lao Loum'
for these two groups. A similar statement could be made for the small
number of Tai Lue in Vientiane who only marry either Lao or Lue." pg. 38

"One would have to say from these findings that the population Vientiane
expresses a relatively high consciousness of linguistic conformity to a
standard accent, and indeed this may have led to some under-reporting of
'deviant' language practices, such as the use of minority languages in the
home (e.g. Chinese or Hmong). Also, from these replies we can begin to see
clearer confirmation of the importance of Vietnamese in the language
practices of the people of Vientiane. The high score for English in the
question on knowledge of other languages reflects the rapid shift in
linguistic orientation of the population since the beginning of the N.E.M.
... In the above responses, however, there is one language that is
drastically under-reported, and that is knowledge of Thai. ... [W]hen we
actually asked direct questions about knowledge of Thai 91% said they
understood Thai, while only 27% claim to be able to speak and read it." pg.
39

1464 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 10:25am 
Subject: Re: odd word of the day

Hi Rett, Ole, and others,

> Did you see this one?:

Yes, but didn't pay much attention as it is related to the
'vipariitataa' (alternation?) part of the sutta.

> samantapaasaadikaa iti eva > samantapaasaadikaa tv eva
>
> This is only one of several where /-i/ goes to /-v/. I would have a
lot of trouble if I came across that change in a text. I'd
automatically read tv as tu (however). I wonder if there's something
about the phonetic environment that encourages that particular
exchange there. >>

This and a few other examples are also found in Sd 49. I think this
kind of sandhi is questionable as 'tveva' (tu eva) is of rather common
occurrence in the Tipitaka as in 'sama.no tveva gotamo' (D I 129). I
spent some time yesterday investigating 'vilapatv eva so dijo' (Ja III
302) and I noticed that this example doesn't really belong in Sd 49 as
the rule applies only to 'iti eva' but here we have the verb
'vilapati' followed by 'eva'. Also, the PTS edition of the Jatakas has
the reading 'vilapi tveva' while the Thai Budsir version has
'vilapateva'. It doesn't seem that the Sd 49 itveva rule has a
counterpart in Kacc.

This makes me wonder if the Pali texts Aggava.msa had in front of him
were not quite the same as the ones Kaccaayana was familiar with. The
(i)tveva sandhi phenomenon could be a later development of Pali and
therefore unknown to Kaccaayana. It also appears that the
'vilapatveva' example was inserted by another hand at a later date as
I find it hard to believe that Aggava.msa himself would make such a
mistake.

Best wishes,
Jim

1465 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 11:48am 
Subject: Re: Sinhala Kaccayana Grammar editions

Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

This is quite a good find. All the books you describe are of interest
to me as well. In association with the project of creating an online
catalogue of Pali grammatical literature, any publication data for
these books is much appreciated. I'm not aware of just how troublesome
this may be but it would be great if some digital images of the title
pages, and the first and last pages of the books could be produced and
uploaded to the photo section of the group's home page for members to
download.

I think a good solution for making such rare and valuable books
readily available for the international community would be to
digitally photograph or scan the pages and place the image files on CD
or DVD disks for distribution. I see that DVD disks now come in 8.5
gigabytes sizes.

Best wishes,
Jim

> In the library next door I just found an old 1895 printed Sinhala
editon
> of the Kaccaayana-sutta-paa.thaa by Jinaratanatissa thera (11 pages)
and
> a 1886 Kaccaayana-vyaakara.na edition by M. Gunaratana, revised by
the
> reknown scholar Hikkaduve Suma''ngala (135 pages). Are these of
interest
> to any of you? Bound together with these in the same leather cover
are
> also an edition of the Baalaavattaaraya (1901, Devamitta),
Padasaadhana
> (1887, Dhammaananda), and a Moggalaanaya-vyaakara.na (1899,
Devamitta).
> I noticed is that there seem to be quite a few copies, MSS as well
as
> printed editions, of the Padasaadhana, so it seems that it is or was
a
> popular grammar here alongside the Baalaavataaraya. The latter is
still
> studied in monastic schools by young monks but I am not sure about
the
> Padasaadhana. I was told that the only part of the Kaccaayana still
> studied is the Dhaatuma~njusa.
> Best wishes,
> NT

1466 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 9:20pm 
Subject: 3 Kacc-va.n.n pages on display

Dear members,

I have scanned 3 pages from the Kaccaayana-va.n.nanaa that I received from
Ven. Dhammanando in September. These are the title page and the first and
last pages of the main Pali text and are in the Thai script. They can be
viewed in the photo section of the group's home page at:

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy/lst

Members will need to log in with a Yahoo ID and password and if you don't
have one but would like to see the images, please let me know and I'll email
them to you as an attachment. They are JPG files with a low resolution of 75
dpi (40-69K per file).

Best wishes,
Jim

1467 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005 11:44pm 
Subject: Digital Books, Lao textiles

Given that the books in question are all "in the public domain" it
would indeed be possible for me to digitize them and post them to the
web if/when I am in Sri Lanka. For an example of a book that I have
already managed to get onto the web in this form, take a glance at
_The Cambodian System of Writing_, posted here:

http://www.pratyeka.org/csw/

This digital textbook is read by 800+ people per week --probably
indicating that a fair number of people in Cambodia are using the
"book" at public internet terminals (i.e., don't have a computer at
home) and downloading the file again each time they use it. For the
technically minded: the actual number of "hits" per week is above
eight thousand --my estimate assumes that only one in ten is an actual
reader.

As I'm sure Dr. Pind will have assumed: Laotian textiles and silks are
plentiful and cheap here in Lao itself. A very high-end, "modern
aesthetic" silk scarf will be about US$25; more traditional silk wares
can be $5 or less --and the latter are in some ways more desirable as
they are not "made for export". Lao cotton works are also very
impressive (traditional indigo, etc.) and the most ostentatious part
of the textile trade here are the wall hangings (made for display)
--their style and content varies considerably by tribe of origin
(although, in this category too, there are works made for Western
tastes).

I've often wondered why Lao textiles have merited so little attention
in Textile Museums (relative to, e.g., tribal textiles from the
smaller islands of Japan) --but this, too, probably reflects the
seeming remoteness of Lao after the war.

E.M.

1468 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 4, 2005 7:48pm 
Subject: Re: Sinhala Kaccayana Grammar editions

Dear Jim and Ole,

I could photograph the whole grammar tome within an hour and send it to 
you on a CD. I could also scan it in, which is of better quality but 
takes much more time. The quality of the photographs is fine though. It 
should not come to more than a 100mb. If I can find someone to scan it 
in for me then that can be done otherwise I will photograph it myself.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita



Jim Anderson wrote:

>Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,
>
>This is quite a good find. All the books you describe are of interest
>to me as well. In association with the project of creating an online
>catalogue of Pali grammatical literature, any publication data for
>these books is much appreciated. I'm not aware of just how troublesome
>this may be but it would be great if some digital images of the title
>pages, and the first and last pages of the books could be produced and
>uploaded to the photo section of the group's home page for members to
>download.
>
>I think a good solution for making such rare and valuable books
>readily available for the international community would be to
>digitally photograph or scan the pages and place the image files on CD
>or DVD disks for distribution. I see that DVD disks now come in 8.5
>gigabytes sizes.
>
>Best wishes,
>Jim
>
> 
>
>>In the library next door I just found an old 1895 printed Sinhala
>> 
>>
>editon
> 
>
>>of the Kaccaayana-sutta-paa.thaa by Jinaratanatissa thera (11 pages)
>> 
>>
>and
> 
>
>>a 1886 Kaccaayana-vyaakara.na edition by M. Gunaratana, revised by
>> 
>>
>the
> 
>
>>reknown scholar Hikkaduve Suma''ngala (135 pages). Are these of
>> 
>>
>interest
> 
>
>>to any of you? Bound together with these in the same leather cover
>> 
>>
>are
> 
>
>>also an edition of the Baalaavattaaraya (1901, Devamitta),
>> 
>>
>Padasaadhana
> 
>
>>(1887, Dhammaananda), and a Moggalaanaya-vyaakara.na (1899,
>> 
>>
>Devamitta).
> 
>
>>I noticed is that there seem to be quite a few copies, MSS as well
>> 
>>
>as
> 
>
>>printed editions, of the Padasaadhana, so it seems that it is or was
>> 
>>
>a
> 
>
>>popular grammar here alongside the Baalaavataaraya. The latter is
>> 
>>
>still
> 
>
>>studied in monastic schools by young monks but I am not sure about
>> 
>>
>the
> 
>
>>Padasaadhana. I was told that the only part of the Kaccaayana still
>>studied is the Dhaatuma~njusa.
>>Best wishes,
>> NT
>> 
>>

1469 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Nov 4, 2005 10:54pm 
Subject: Dhammasattha literature

Dear Members,

I'd like to welcome Dietrich Christian Lammerts as a new member to our
group. He is a doctoral student in the Asian Religions and Southeast
Asia Program, Cornell University and is currently in Burma until next
summer to work on Pali and Burmese dhammasattha manuscripts. This is
the first time I've heard of this kind of literature for Pali and
there doesn't seem to be a category for it in the CPD bibliography.

I asked him the following question and he has given me permission to
quote his answer.

Jim:
> I don't think I've seen the term 'dhammasattha' (Skt.
> dharma"saastra -- jurisprudence?) before. Does this relate to the
> Pali Niiti texts of Burma?

Christian:
<< "Dhammasattha" doesn't appear in canonical Pali. It is restricted
to medieval and later Mon and Burmese contexts. In Tai areas and
Cambodia there is a similar -- but much smaller -- genre of texts
whose name derives from Skt. "zAstra", though of course you are right
that "sattha" is the Pali derivation. Dhammasatthas (dhammathat, in
Burmese) are legal texts related to the Skt. dharmazAstras, although
they are written in Pali, vernacular, or nissaya, and the content is
quite different and deeply influenced by the Pali literature. The
genre is at least as old as the 13th century, and there are well over
100 extant texts in manuscript. I am currently compiling a catalog of
the manuscripts in collections in Burma, and editing and translating
an early text, the Dhammavilaasa (about 1/3 of which is nissaya).
Dhammasattha are quite different from niiti texts in that they are a
specialist literature, whereas niitis are gnomic and have a general
appeal (indeed niitis comprised basic texts for elementary Pali
education). But both genres have a lot to do with "secular ethics",
and in that sense are related. <end of quote>

There is a chapter on Dharma"saastra literature in Winternitz's
History of Indian Literature. This branch of knowledge is closely
associated with Kalpa (the literature of rituals), one of the six
Vedangas.

Best wishes,
Jim

1470 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 4:56am 
Subject: New Pali resouces (i.e., mine) on the web

A set of very useful files that I created for learning (and
practicing) Pali in indigenous scripts:

http://www.pratyeka.org/pali/

If you work your way through these simple files (one by one) you
should have a basic grasp of the three major "families" of
(extant/living) Pali scripts: (1) Mon/Burmese, (2) Sinhalese, (3)
Khmer/Khom/Muul.

The "Rosetta Stone" file is quite a lot of fun.

This includes (BTW) the "Avyaya & Upasagga" file that several members
on this list contributed to. Please pass this link on to any students
of Pali you might know (who might be able to use these resources) --I
will gradually add other files to this collection over time.

I also intend to make the promised additions to Narada Thera's
page/textbook as promised --I'm proceeding with corrections, a new
answer key, glossary, etc., in my spare time.

E.M.

1471 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 5:08am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasattha literature

I have read a few books and articles that dealt with the phenomenon of
"Pali Dharmashastras" in Burma --and, as with so much of Burmese
Buddhism, the precedent seems to have been Mon.

What struck me as interesting about the genre is its complex relation
to the earlier Hindu material --i.e., appropriating from it, but also
adapting it to a Buddhist sentimentality & ethic. This is also true
of a handful of Jatakas that relate directly to (i.e., appropriate
liberally from) Hindu mythology --I once read a rather dull article on
the latter subject as well.

In any case, I had thought that the language used in the Burmese
Dharmashastras was "just barely Pali" --i.e., significantly different
from canonical Pali-- but it could be that this observation was based
on a single example (or was simply wrong). In any case, it may be
that the CPD considered them to be outside of Pali literature as they
defined it (a sheer guess on my part); in any case, the genre is not
obscure to western scholarship, and (on the contrary) the British took
a keen interest in it for the same reason that they took an interest
in _The Laws of Manu_.

So much of the Sk. Dharmashastra tradition is either primarily or
exclusively devoted to the valourization of the caste system, that it
would be interesting to compare how similar themes are reflected in
the Burmese Pali idiom (or if they are excluded). I recently spent a
few minutes with a major set of Sk. Dharmashastra translations, and
set the tome down as --despite my detached interest-- the content of
the text was about as horrifying to me as a cannibal cookbook.

I'm sure that some of the most infamous examples of the genre are
familiar to members of this list from various conferences with
"Hegemony" in the subject-heading ("And if a low-caste man should hear
the vedas, let his ears be cut off! And if he should dare recite the
vedas, let his tongue be cut off!").

E.M.

1472 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 9:21am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasattha literature

Hi Eisel and all,

I re-checked the CPD bibliography and found the genre (under 2.9.23)
after all. Earlier, I had only looked from section 4 and on as I
didn't think it would be in the pi.taka sections. Here's the order of
classification:

2. Suttantapi.taka
2.9 Anthologies from the Suttanta and its cts., Cosmology,
Medicine, . . . Paritta
2.9.23 Law
2.9.23.1 Manudhammasattha (this seems to be the one Christian
is editing and translating)
2.9.23. [2] 'Wagaru Dhammathat'
2.9.23.3 Manusaara
2.9.23.4 Nava-dhaamasattha
2.9.23.5 Manuva.n.nanaa

I noticed that Christian's work is listed as no. 14 on the Current
Projects page of PTS. I thought I had seen the name somewhere before.
So now, 4 of our members have projects listed on that page.

Best wishes,
Jim

1473 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 2:10am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasattha literature

*Dear Jim,

Some Dhammasattha literature is mentioned under 2.9.23 in the CPD 
Epilogomena. Some more texts have been added in the Pali Literature 
Table I sent you some time ago.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita
*

> Burmese dhammasattha manuscripts. This is
>the first time I've heard of this kind of literature for Pali and
>there doesn't seem to be a category for it in the CPD bibliography.
>
> 
>
>_
>

1474 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 7:59pm 
Subject: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Pali Group,
I came accross an interesting grammatical problem.
There is a difference in the wording of two related passages regarding
the carrying out of the the ~natti, motion, of the Invitation,
pavaara.naa, in the Mahaavagga:
In the case of 4 monks in a residence a senior monk has to address the
other 3 with: "Su.nantu me aayasmanto, ajja pavaara.naa. However in the
case of 3 monks he has to address the other 2 with: "Su.nantu me
aayasmantaa, ajja pavaara.naa. (Ee M I 162/Mv 4.5, BJ p. 409-10)
The form aayasmantaa is also found in a few other passages relating to
Sanghakammas,e.g., M I 124. In the Paatimokkha, etc, addressed to a 
Sangha, only the form aayasmanto is found.
Why is the form aayasmantaa used instead of aayasmanto? Both are
addressed to more than one monk and I don't see a clear reason why
aayasmanto should become aayasmantaa.
Aggava.msa also noticed it in the Saddaniiti and categorically refuses 
to take it as an example of the dual in Pali. I made a tentative 
translation of his arguments which I reproduce below.
Maybe some members of the group have something to say about the matter.
Is it an example of the dual or is it just a Vinaya idiom or is there
some other reason? It might be of interest to check the
Muulasarvastivaadin Pravaara.naa karmavaacaa and see whether there is a
distinction in their Vinaya too. I don't have the edition of their
Vinaya though.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita


Saddaniiti Myanmar p. 123:

Kasmaa pana imasmi.m pakara.ne dvivacana.m na vuttanti? Yasmaa
buddhavacane dvivacana.m naama natthi, tasmaa na vuttanti. Nanu
buddhavacane vacanattaya.m atthi, tathaa hi "aayasmaa"ti ida.m
ekavacana.m, "aayasmantaa"ti ida.m dvivacana.m, "aayasmanto"ti ida.m
bahuvacananti? Tanna, yadi "aayasmantaa"ti ida.m vacana.m dvivacana.m
bhaveyya, "puriso purisaa"ti-aadiisu katara.m dvivacananti vadeyyaatha,
tasmaa buddhavacane dvivacana.m naama natthi. Teneva hi si yo a.m yo naa
hii ti-aadinaa ekavacanabahuvacanaa neva dassitaa niiti.

But why has no dual number (noun) been said in this noun exposition?
Because there is no dual number (noun) in the Buddha's Word, therefore
it has not been said.
But perhaps there is a triple number (noun)? For aayasmaa is a single
number (noun), aayasmantaa is a dual number (noun), and aayasmanto is a
multiple number (noun).
This isn't so. When the word aayasmantaa is a dual number (noun), then
which of the puriso, purisaa, etc, (in the above declension) would you
declare to be the dual number (noun)? Therefore there is no dual number
(noun) in the Buddha's Word. Thus neither the single number (noun) or
the multiple number (noun) is shown by whatever si, a.m, naa, hi, etc.

Nanu ca bho "su.nantu me aayasmantaa, ajja uposatho pannaraso.
Yadaayasmantaana.m pattakalla.m, maya.m a~n~nama~n~na.m
paarisuddhi-uposatha.m kareyyaamaa"ti paa.liya.m dve sandhaaya
"aayasmantaa"ti vutta.m, "uddi.t.thaa kho aayasmanto cattaaro
paaraajikaa dhammaa" ti-aadiisu pana paa.liisu bahavo sandhaaya
"aayasmanto"ti vutta.m. Na ca sakkaa vattu.m "yathaa tathaa vuttan"ti,
parivaasaadi-aarocanepi a.t.thakathaacariyehi
vi~n~naatasugataadhippaayehi "dvinna.m aarocentena `aayasmantaa
dhaarentuu'ti, ti.n.na.m aarocentena `aayasmanto dhaarentuu'ti
vattabban"ti vuttattaati?

But, venerable, hasn't aayasmantaa been said in relation to two
(monks)in the text (of the Mahaavagga: ``Let the aayasmantaa,
listen to me, today is a 15th day Uposatha. (etc.)''?
(And) in the texts (Suttavibhanga and Paatimokkha) ``Recited,
aayasmanto, have been the four cases entailing expulsion'' aayasmanto
has been said in relation to many.
Isn't it possible to say: ``It has been said in that way'' in the
declaration of (Sa'nghaadisesa) probation, etc, by the teachers of the
commentaries who understood the intention of the Sugata ('s statement):
``By one declaring to two (monks) , `Let the aayasmantaa remember' is to
be said; by one declaring to three, `let the aayasmanto remember' ''?

Sacca.m vutta.m, ta.m pana vinayavohaaravasena vuttanti. Nanu vinayo
buddhavacana.m, kasmaa "buddhavacane dvivacana.m naama natthii"ti
vadathaati? Sacca.m vinayo buddhavacana.m, tathaapi vinayakammavasena
vuttattaa upalakkha.namatta.m, na
sabbasaadhaara.nabahuvacanapariyaapanna.m. Yadi hi "aayasmantaa"ti ida.m
dvivacana.m siyaa, tappayogaani pi kriyaapadaani dvivacanaaneva siyu.m,
tathaaruupaanipi kriyaapadaani na santi. Na hi akkharasamayakovido
jhaanalaabhiipi dibbacakkhunaa vassasatampi vassasahassampi
samavekkhanto buddhavacane ekampi kriyaapada.m dvivacananti passeyya,
eva.m kriyaapadesu dvivacanassaabhaavaanaamikapadesu dvivacana.m natthi.
Naamikapadesu tadabhaavaapi kriyaapadesu tadabhaavo veditabbo.
Sakka.tabhaasaaya.m dviisupi dvivacanaani santi, maagadhabhaasaaya.m
pana natthi.

It is true that it has been said, but that has been said on account of
the Vinaya idiom.
But isn't the Vinaya the Buddha's Word? So why do you say that there is
no dual number (noun) in the Buddha's Word?
It is true that the Vinaya is the Buddha's Word. Even so, because of
being said as a mere distinction on account of a disciplinary legal act
, it is not included in all general multiple number (nouns). For when
aayasmantaa would be a dual number (noun), action-nouns with that
application would also be dual number (nouns), but there are no such
kind of action-nouns. For not even one who is an attainer of jhaana
endowed with the divine eye and skilled in the science of reading and
writing would see one dual number (noun) in the Buddha's Word while
surveying (it) for a hundred years or a thousand years . Thus in
action-nouns there is no dual number in words relating to a noun with a
dual number nature. In words relating to nouns which are not of that
nature also the action nouns are to be understood as not of that nature.
In one's own language there are dual number (nouns) with regards two,
however there is not in the language of Magadha.

1475 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Nov 6, 2005 3:47am 
Subject: SV: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 6. november 2005 01:59
Til: Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Pali Group,
I came accross an interesting grammatical problem.

Dear Bhante,

This is extremely interesting! I shall try to address the problem when I
find time to do so. Today I have to participate in a performance of
Monteverdi's Maria Vesper, so I have to spend time practicing the violin
part I am playing.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

1476 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 9:35pm 
Subject: Fw: re: Dhammasattha literature

Christian Lammerts was unable to log on to his Cornell account and
asked me to forward his response below to the group. Note that he uses
the Harvard-Kyoto convention for rendering the Skt. Dharma"saastra
i.e. z stands for "s, A for aa. The use of either Velthuis or HK in
this group is fine with me. -- Jim

------------beginning of message-----------

Hi,
Thank you for these comments on the dhammasattha literature. As a
further clarification of aspects of the genre I would like to respond
to several of Eisel Mazard's points below.

>
> I have read a few books and articles that dealt with the phenomenon
of
> "Pali Dharmashastras" in Burma --and, as with so much of Burmese
> Buddhism, the precedent seems to have been Mon.

There is much less evidence of Mon influence than was once supposed,
with respect to both dhammasattha literature and Burmese Buddhism and
literature more generally. The most recent critique along these lines
can be found in Michael Aung-Thwin's "Mists of Raama~n~na". Currently
there is no evidence that Mon dhammasatthas were transmitted to the
Burmese, rather than vice versa. There are far fewer known Mon texts,
and the distribution of these texts is not well established (most
texts seem to be extant only in Thailand, with very few Mon
dhammasattha in Burma proper -- but of course this may be due to
relatively recent causes). Complicating matters is the fact that there
are virtually no external sources (outside the extant mss themselves)
for tracing this line of transmission, and there have been no proper
comparative philological studies of Mon and Burmese versions of
certain texts to date. I have compared the 7 Burmese/Pali and 1
Mon/Pali versions of the Dhammavilaasa, and it is clear that they
represent different traditions but impossible to date which is
earlier. A related question is why the genre seems to appear in only
certain areas of the region. Why don't we find any of these texts in
the Eastern Shan States, in Chiang Tung, in Lan Na? I just spent a
couple weeks looking for mss in Tai Khun monasteries around Chiang
Tung and almost all the monks I spoke with had never heard of the
genre. Though there are northern and western Shan and even Chin
dhammasatthas. I understand that the Burmese "control" (for lack of a
better term) of certain Tai areas may have had relatively little
effect on local literature. But if dhammasattha are to be understood
as (among other things) practical legal texts, it is significant that
we do not find any traces of them in these areas (the Lan Na
dhammasat/dhammazAstr literature may be relevant, but from what I have
seen there is not much of a relationship). Transmission in this case
may be more tied to lineage or doctrinal affiliations than politics
...

>
> What struck me as interesting about the genre is its complex
relation
> to the earlier Hindu material --i.e., appropriating from it, but
also
> adapting it to a Buddhist sentimentality & ethic.
[cut]
> So much of the Sk. Dharmashastra tradition is either primarily or
> exclusively devoted to the valourization of the caste system, that
it
> would be interesting to compare how similar themes are reflected in
> the Burmese Pali idiom (or if they are excluded).

The Sanskrit exemplars are probably medieval dharmazAstras and
nibandha texts, which have less to do with "ritual" and caste than
with vyavahAra. Dhammasatthas are closer to the nAradasmRti than the
manusmRti. Again there is little evidence for transmission. We do have
some mid-18th century records of Skt. dharmazAstras that were brought
from Varanasi to Ava and then translated into Pali in what may have
been a practice dating back several centuries. There are also many
verse (ala"nkaara) dhammasattha commentaries that may have some
relationship to Skt dhz commentaries formally. This commentarial
tradition exists only in Burmese areas. In general there is very
little besides the structure of the genre that is borrowed from the
Skt texts: the laws are different, and the narrative material is
adapted from Pali literature. But about as much research has been done
on medieval dharmazAstra as on dhammasattha (i.e., almost none) so we
cannot be sure at present how close some texts may have been. Exordia
sometimes contain a version of the story of the mythic lawgiver Manu
in the context of the Mahaasammata tale (a conjunction discussed by
Collins and Huxley, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 199?), and this is
the only feature that explicitly recalls the classical smRtis. The
amount of borrowing from and proximity to canonical literature varies
greatly. Some texts cite extensively from the vinaya and discuss
monastic law, for example, whereas others may be entirely free of
narrative and canonical reference. The rule is that if there are
narrative features these typically have a canonical source. There is
no evidence to support the argument, common among early colonial
scholars, that the amount of a text's "Buddhist" content (i.e.,
content traceable to the canon) reveals something about its date of
composition.

>
> In any case, I had thought that the language used in the Burmese
> Dharmashastras was "just barely Pali" --i.e., significantly
different
> from canonical Pali-- but it could be that this observation was
based
> on a single example (or was simply wrong).

The character of the Pali will depend upon the text and ms version.
Some texts are written in correct Pali whereas others have serious
problems. In some cases problems are simply scribal mistakes, in
others they may result from phonological issues between Pali and
vernacular or even the mapping of vernacular grammar onto Pali. But I
do not think that any of these irregularities became systematized in
any way (at least not outside the ms genealogy of a single text).


Christian
----------end of message---------

1477 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Nov 6, 2005 9:20am 
Subject: SV: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 6. november 2005 01:59
Til: Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Pali Group,

Aggava.msa also noticed it in the Saddaniiti and categorically refuses to
take it as an example of the dual in Pali. I made a tentative translation of
his arguments which I reproduce below.
Maybe some members of the group have something to say about the matter.

Dear bhante,

A look at the evidence tells me that the forms in antaa as opposed to those
in anto no doubt are younger, as the vinaya prose with the exception of the
patimokkha in general is. These forms reflect the transition from stems in
ant, mant, vant to thematised a stems, a development that is not uncommon in
the Pali canon. One finds, for example, aayasmante acc. pl. next to
aayasmantaa in some of the examples, although from a declensional point of
view one would expect acc. pl. to be aayasmanto. Aggavamsa, I believe was
right in rejecting the possibility that there be instances of the dual in
canonical prose. 

With best regards,

Ole Pind

1478 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 6, 2005 9:52am 
Subject: Re: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

Thanks for posting this problem, and the translation from Saddaniiti. This sort of material is always of interest. I'm printing it out and will read through it at first opportunity. It still takes me quite some time to get through Pali grammatical texts, even with the support of a translation.

So far I believe Jim's answer sounds like a very likely explanation, that the two forms reflect different strata of Pali that have come together in one text, possibly due to later editing. But I'm looking forwards to any other ideas that might come up.

best regards,

/Rett

1479 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2005 10:59pm 
Subject: Re: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Note to the group: sorry about the duplicate posting of Christian's
message. That was a server glitch, not that I posted it twice.

Hi Rett,

> So far I believe Jim's answer sounds like a very likely explanation,
that the two forms reflect different strata of Pali that have come
together in one text, possibly due to later editing. But I'm looking
forwards to any other ideas that might come up.

That should be "Ole's answer" not mine. Like you, I find the page-long
extract from the Saddaniiti hard to follow right off the bat. The page
reference to Smith's edition is 92,18-93,13. See also pp. 151,26-152,3
and the special rule for this at Sd 389 (pp. 665-6). I will need time
to study all this material and I think I'll type out and post the rule
to the group as the Suttamaalaa volume is not available on the CSCD
disk. We can take our time going over this problem and the arguments
for and against 'ayasmantaa' being in the dual.

Best wishes,
Jim

1480 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Nov 6, 2005 0:37am 
Subject: Re: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

> It might be of interest to check the Muulasarvastivaadin
> Pravaara.naa karmavaacaa and see whether there is a
> distinction in their Vinaya too. I don't have the edition of their
> Vinaya though.

I'm not sure if the following is the text you're interested in
checking. I have Vol. II of the Muulasarvaastavaada-vinayavastu in the
Devanagari script (Buddhist Sanskrit Text Series, Vol. 16). In it,
there is a chapter called 'Pravaara.navastu' (pp. 133-9) but it
appears to me that this is only an extant portion of a larger chapter
as it begins and ends with (. . . . .). I looked through this short
chapter but couldn't see anything resembling the Pali passage in
question. The forms for 'aayu.smant-' I can see are: aayu.sman,
aayu.smanto, aayu.smanta.h, and aayu.smataam. The text would have to
be studied more closely to be sure if any of the first three functions
as a vocative and I'm not too familiar with the language. The regular
Sanskrit vocatives are: aayu.sman (sg.), aayu.smantau (dual),
aayu.smanta.h (pl.).

Best wishes,
Jim

1481 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2005 1:41am 
Subject: request

Dear group,

I have previously introduced the idea that we find in the Pali canon forms
that cannot easily be explained morphologically. I quoted the form anassaama
as an instance of a present form with an onglide /a/. At M I 177, for
instance, it is followed by the present form panassaama. One commentator,
Dhammapaala, suggested as an alternative explanation that /a/ is a nipaata.
It is obviously an on glide and not just a transmission error because it is
found in both D and M. If any one in the group comes across odd forms, I
should be glad to receive information about them. Usually one discovers such
forms by chance.

Regards, 

Ole Pind

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1482 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2005 5:36pm 
Subject: Re: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

I have been looking at the Saddaniiti passage (Sadd I 92-3) and I'd
like to point out a few things in your translation for about the first
third of it. I still have to go through the rest of the passage and
may post further comments later.

> Kasmaa pana imasmi.m pakara.ne dvivacana.m na vuttanti?

> But why has no dual number (noun) been said in this noun exposition?

I think 'imasmi.m pakara.ne' (in this work) refers to the whole work
(Saddaniiti) and not just to the part on nouns.

> Teneva hi si yo a.m yo naa hii ti-aadinaa ekavacanabahuvacanaa
> neva dassitaa niiti.

This should read:

"Teneva hi si yo a.m yo naa hii ti-aadinaa ekavacanabahuvacanaaneva
dassitaaniiti."

'ekavacanabahuvacanaaneva dassitaaniiti' = ekavacanabahuvacanaani eva
dassitaani iti

> Thus neither the single number (noun) or the multiple number (noun)
> is shown by whatever si, a.m, naa, hi, etc.

For this very reason, only singular and plural nominal words with 'si
yo a.m yo naa hi' etc. are shown.

[To members:] 'si yo' etc. is part of the standard list of 7 pairs
(singular and plural) of syaadi (nominal) inflections. 'si yo' is the
nominative sing. and pl. inflections but these in turn usually undergo
substitution when affixed.

Best wishes,
Jim

1483 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2005 5:36am 
Subject: Bizot's Kaccayana?

Mme. Filliozat informs me that Bizot printed an edition of Kaccayana
in Cambodia, in Khmer script, possibly with Khmer explanatory text
--and that she only know of it, but has never seen a copy. She said
it was based on his working closely with a Cambodian monk, and will
reflect the (pre-revolution) traditional method of teaching Kaccayana
that was prevalent in Cambodian monasticism at the time.

Sounds stimulating.

Does anyone have publication data (or even a title) for this work?

E.M.

1484 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2005 6:37am 
Subject: SV: Bizot's Kaccayana?

Mme. Filliozat informs me that Bizot printed an edition of Kaccayana in
Cambodia, in Khmer script, possibly with Khmer explanatory text --and that
she only know of it, but has never seen a copy. She said it was based on
his working closely with a Cambodian monk, and will reflect the
(pre-revolution) traditional method of teaching Kaccayana that was prevalent
in Cambodian monasticism at the time.

Sounds stimulating.

Does anyone have publication data (or even a title) for this work?

I have never heard about this publication. I wonder if Mme. Filliozat is
thinking of F.Bizot/F. Lagigarde Saddavimala La puret par ls mots. Paris
1996 (EFEO)

E.M.

1485 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2005 6:46am 
Subject: Re: Bizot's Kaccayana?

Well, I have now written to F. Bizot directly asking about the book
(we shall see if I get a reply); Filliozat said that it was published
in Cambodia (i.e., not by the EFEO?) --but perhaps it was merely
inspired in Cambodia.

On an unrelated topic: I reviewed Duroiselle's chapter on Syntax
today, and agree (again) with Ole's earlier statement that almost
nothing has been written about word-order in the Pali language.

(e.g.) Although Duroiselle makes some useful comments about negatives
("na", "no", etc.), what is needed here is something concrete as to
why the negation is sometimes before the verb, sometimes before a
substantive, and sometimes ... elsewhere in the sentence. The same
can be said of just about everything mentioned in his chapter on
Syntax (e.g., position of interrogatives, etc.).

The Pali textbooks I have used have left me very uncertain as to what
is possible, what impossible, and what optimal, in the order of words
when constructing a sentence. Presumably, one gets a vague sense of
this over time; but I would prefer to read an analytic treatment of
the subject than to develop my instincts on imperfect examples.

E.M.

1486 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2005 7:07am 
Subject: SV: Bizot's Kaccayana?

(e.g.) Although Duroiselle makes some useful comments about negatives ("na",
"no", etc.), what is needed here is something concrete as to why the
negation is sometimes before the verb, sometimes before a substantive, and
sometimes ... elsewhere in the sentence. The same can be said of just about
everything mentioned in his chapter on Syntax (e.g., position of
interrogatives, etc.).

Just a stray remark on the use of katama "who, which." To the best of my
knowledge no one has observed that katama is used anaphorically. You will
find this usage amply exemplified in Vedic prose as well as Pali.


Ole Pind

1487 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2005 7:32pm 
Subject: Re: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Jim,

Thanks. I appreciate your suggestions and corrections and am looking 
forward to the rest. It was just a rapid translation I made. I am not so 
familiar with commentarial grammatical literature and sometimes had to 
check MW Sanskrit English Dictionary rather than PED to get the meaning 
of words. 
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita


Jim Anderson wrote:

>Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,
>
>I have been looking at the Saddaniiti passage (Sadd I 92-3) and I'd
>like to point out a few things in your translation for about the first
>third of it. I still have to go through the rest of the passage and
>may post further comments later.
>
> 
>
>>Kasmaa pana imasmi.m pakara.ne dvivacana.m na vuttanti?
>> 
>>
>
> 
>
>>But why has no dual number (noun) been said in this noun exposition?
>> 
>>
>
>I think 'imasmi.m pakara.ne' (in this work) refers to the whole work
>(Saddaniiti) and not just to the part on nouns.
>
> 
>
>>Teneva hi si yo a.m yo naa hii ti-aadinaa ekavacanabahuvacanaa
>>neva dassitaa niiti.
>> 
>>
>
>This should read:
>
>"Teneva hi si yo a.m yo naa hii ti-aadinaa ekavacanabahuvacanaaneva
>dassitaaniiti."
>
>'ekavacanabahuvacanaaneva dassitaaniiti' = ekavacanabahuvacanaani eva
>dassitaani iti
>
> 
>
>>Thus neither the single number (noun) or the multiple number (noun)
>>is shown by whatever si, a.m, naa, hi, etc.
>> 
>>
>
>For this very reason, only singular and plural nominal words with 'si
>yo a.m yo naa hi' etc. are shown.
>
>[To members:] 'si yo' etc. is part of the standard list of 7 pairs
>(singular and plural) of syaadi (nominal) inflections. 'si yo' is the
>nominative sing. and pl. inflections but these in turn usually undergo
>substitution when affixed.
>
>Best wishes,
>Jim
>

1488 
From: rett <rett@telia.com> 
Date: Thu Nov 10, 2005 3:02am 
Subject: Re: Dual or Vinaya Idiom?

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita and group,

> I am not so
>familiar with commentarial grammatical literature and sometimes had to
>check MW Sanskrit English Dictionary rather than PED to get the meaning
>of words.

That's exactly what it's like for me as well, which is one of the reasons I'm very glad this mailing list exists. By linking up, I hope we can all be spared some of the 'blood, sweat and tears' of learning to read this type of material.

best regards,

/Rett

1489 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Nov 10, 2005 4:59am 
Subject: Re: Dhammasattha literature

Many thanks for the informative posting on this subject.

All that was said seems to substantiate that the Mon connection (in
this genre) is "not what it once seemed to be".

> A related question is why the genre seems to appear in only
> certain areas of the region. Why don't we find any of these texts in
> the Eastern Shan States, in Chiang Tung, in Lan Na?
> ... Though there are northern and western Shan and even Chin
> dhammasatthas. I understand that the Burmese "control" (for lack of a
> better term) of certain Tai areas may have had relatively little
> effect on local literature. But if dhammasattha are to be understood
> as (among other things) practical legal texts...

For myself (in my ignorance), the latter is very much an open
question; it may be that these texts served some role in providing
legitimacy to ruler (and subject) without a formal "juridical" or
"procedural" role. It seems to me _a priori_ possible that these
texts were only used to educate monks and laypeople about the ideal
role of citizen and state, and had no "practical" legal value beyond
this. The same can be said of the "constitution" in many countries
today --i.e., where it provides no actual obstacle (or procedural
norm) to constrain or direct state power, but is very much promoted as
an "ideal constellation" (in the hope that citizens will constrain
themselves accordingly). Why, according to the constitution of Malta,
the Catholic church has the power to determine right and wrong! 
However, this is of absolutely no juridical significance, even in
Malta.

> In general there is very
> little besides the structure of the genre that is borrowed from the
> Skt texts: the laws are different, and the narrative material is
> adapted from Pali literature.

Very interesting; could you tell me if there are any specific ritual
contexts in which the texts were recited by monks or laypeople?

E.M.

1490 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:16am 
Subject: Kacc page images from Kandy

Dear members,

Yesterday, Ole and myself both received a large file (about 7 Mb)
containing 14 page images varying in size from 110 Kb to 585 Kb of two
old Kaccaayana texts in the Sinhala script that Ven. Nyanatusita
discovered in a nearby library. It appears that one of the texts, the
Kaccaayana-sutta-paa.tho published in 1895, is complete in 8 images;
but the other one, the Kaccaayana-vyaakara.na published in 1886, was
sent only in part with 6 images covering the work up to Sutta 26.

I have uploaded the title page (192 Kb) of the first one to the
group's photo section (Kaccayana folder) at:

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy/lst

I will be adding more pages later whenever I can get a good internet
connection as my computer has been too slow on the Yahoogroups website
and I'm on metered time.

FYI, I quote the following from Ven. Nyanatusita's message:
". . . .the antique Kaccayanasuttapatha edition by Jinaratanatissa of
1896 and a few pictures of the Kaccayana edition by M. Gunaratana,
revised by Hikkaduve Sumangala, of 1886. Both are in a leather tome
which originally belonged to Vajira~naana thera, a famous scholar monk
in Sri Lanka. His signature can be seen on the first page of the
Kaccaayanasuttapaatha edition, and his margninal are found throughout
the tome. I will inquire whether the introductions give an indication
about the school affiliations of the editors. If they belong to the
Amarapura Nikaya then it could well be that the text is based on
copies of Burmese MSS. If they belong to the Siam Nikaya then they
might be based on Siamese MSS. They might also be based on original
Sinhalese MSS traditions. The bya-/vya- forms can give an indication.
I had no time to do the scan the whole Kacc and the rest of the
grammars in the tome, but I could try to ask someone to do so if there
is sufficient interest."

Perhaps Eisel could photograph the rest of the tome when he visits Sri
Lanka. At any rate, I'm in no hurry for more as there is quite enough
for me to work on and besides, I have to learn to read the Sinhala
script.

Best wishes,
Jim

1491 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 11, 2005 3:10am 
Subject: Kacc images; return to Canada

Hi Jim,

(1) I would be delighted to receive the images of the Kacc.
Suttapatho from you as an attachment --"my" edition will include the
Suttapatho as a separate text (i.e., useful both as a table of
contents for the complete work, and also useful in the process of
memorization) --although this 1894 Sinhalese edition might be largely
identical to my 1904 Sinhalese edition.

(2) I am writing in a bit of a hurry, as I have suddenly had to plan
a return trip to Canada (unforeseen passport issues). I will be able
to bring the 1904 edition mentioned, and a few other Pali grammatical
oddities, for Jim to inspect / photocopy. I will then return to Laos
after about two weeks. Sadly, this hastily-planned trip will "put a
dent" in my productivity --I will not get as much work done on the
book as I had planned (between the present and my trip to Sri Lanka). 
Jim, maybe you could send me a message off-list and let me know if you
already have Senart's, Vidyabhusana's, or Piyaratana's edition of
Kacc.? If you have none of them, I'll bring them all with me --and I
suppose we could meet either in Toronto or Orillia?

(3) My computer "almost exploded" after several hours of working on
Pali grammatical tables in indigenous scripts --I don't know if I'll
get *any* further work done on the book (or Narada's book, etc.), as
the problem is either very fundamental to the software, or is at the
hardware level. This is one of the few cases in which it is hard to
tell what is wrong --but the problem is "quite profound".

E.M.

1492 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 11, 2005 3:17am 
Subject: 1896 Kaccayanasuttapatha

Nyanatusita's description below is actually very exciting for me
--this will be a truly worthy "comparative reading" to carry out (even
though it is "just" the Suttapatha). My own edition will be heavily
footnoted (although most notes will simply describe the differences
between the various editions of the text), and it might be really
wonderful to include a few of the "marginal comments" from
Vajiranyaana among those notes.

Many thanks --I will probably spend many weeks staring at the images
you've produced --although, sadly, it may not be until after I return
from both Canada and Sri Lanka.

E.M.
----------
the antique Kaccayanasuttapatha edition by Jinaratanatissa of
1896 ... in a leather tome
which originally belonged to Vajira~naana thera, a famous scholar monk
in Sri Lanka. His signature can be seen on the first page of the
Kaccaayanasuttapaatha edition, and his margninal are found throughout
the tome. I will inquire whether the introductions give an indication
about the school affiliations of the editors. If they belong to the
Amarapura Nikaya then it could well be that the text is based on
copies of Burmese MSS. If they belong to the Siam Nikaya then they
might be based on Siamese MSS.

1493 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:00am 
Subject: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

I note that modern Sinhalese uniformly supplants the combination "~nh"
with ".nh" --I am not sure if this rule is phonetic or orthographic,
but the retroflex .n replaces the ~n whenever the latter is ligatured
to h. Possibly this is not the only instance.

My question is how this impacts Pali orthography.

Do Sinhalese Pali MS *or* printed editions substitute a retroflex ".n"
into the combination "~nh" ... or not?

I would appreciate any opinions on this matter; it is difficult for me
to judge, as I have never consciously "searched" for a context in
which ~n/.n could be clearly seen as an error (super-imposed by modern
Sinhalese typesetting).

E.M.

1494 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Nov 18, 2005 7:08pm 
Subject: Re: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

Hi Eisel,

I don't think I've ever seen a retroflex ".n" changing to a "~n"
before "h". I wonder if what you're really referring to is the
"niggahita" (.m) changing to a "~n" before "h" as in, for example,
ta.m hi > ta~nhi. This is covered by Kc 32 as follows:

32, 50. ehe ~na.m.
ekaarahakaare pare niggahita.m kho ~nakaara.m pappoti vaa.
paccatta~n~neva parinibbaayissaami, ta~n~nevettha pa.tipucchissaami,
eva~nhi vo bhikkhave sikkhitabba.m, ta~nhi tassa musaa hoti.
vaati kasmaa? evameta.m abhi~n~naaya, eva.m hoti subhaasita.m.

The rule states that the niggahita can change to ~n before e or h. It
is my understanding that the examples "ta.m hi" and "ta~nhi" are both
pronounced the same -- the difference being only in the spelling. But
I'm not absolutely sure of this. It should be noted that Pali does not
have the combination -"nh- (see Sadd III 609,3).

Jim

1495 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:37pm 
Subject: Re: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

No, no, Jim! You've got it the wrong way around!

The question is whether "~nh" is WRITTEN AS ".nh". In modern
Sinhalese, "~nh" simply isn't written --probably because they
pronounce this combination as ".nh". So, to reiterate: the question
is, "do Sinhalese Pali texts similarly substitute retroflex .n for ~n
--or is this limited to the modern language only (without being
super-imposed on Pali).

Basically, in modern Sinhala there is no distinction between ".nh" and
"~nh" --in Pali there is (or should be). Thus the problem. Some
Sinhalese fonts and word processors will automatically replace ~n with
.n (in certain circumstances).

This is purely a question of comparative orthography --it has nothing
to do with the permutation of the anuswara!

E.M.

1496 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Nov 19, 2005 2:06pm 
Subject: SV: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

<This is purely a question of comparative orthography --it has nothing to do
with the permutation of the anuswara!

E.M.

Dear Jim and E.M.,

The use of /.n/ raises some interesting questions about early Pali
orthography. The use of /.n/ recorded in ms.s is often confusing and
seemingly erratic. Kacc records /.n/ as one of letters of Pali, so it must
have been part of the orthographical system used to render the canon at the
time of composition of Kacc. However, there is no trace of /.l/ in the
rules, although it is occasionally found in the canon. The rules invariably
use /l/ in contrast to Kacc-v that introduces /.l/ instead. They were
evidently composed when the system of writing used to reproduce the
canonical texts were not in use. This is historically interesting. 

Ole Pind

1497 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:08pm 
Subject: Re: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

Eisel,

It might help if you could give an example of "~nh" being replaced by
".nh". In Pali, I'm only aware of the use of "~nh" in cases like
"ta~nhi" or "eva~nhi" and both involve the niggahita. It would be a
spelling mistake to change ~n to .n. I would be interested in seeing
examples, if there are any, of "~nh" within a word like the ".nh" in
"ta.nhaa". If the Sinhalese typesetter lacked ~nh fonts, he could
print it as "ta.m hi" or "eva.m hi" instead.

Jim

> No, no, Jim! You've got it the wrong way around!
>
> The question is whether "~nh" is WRITTEN AS ".nh". In modern
> Sinhalese, "~nh" simply isn't written --probably because they
> pronounce this combination as ".nh". So, to reiterate: the question
> is, "do Sinhalese Pali texts similarly substitute retroflex .n for
~n
> --or is this limited to the modern language only (without being
> super-imposed on Pali).

1498 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:12pm 
Subject: Re: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

Dear Ole,

> The use of /.n/ raises some interesting questions about early Pali
> orthography. The use of /.n/ recorded in ms.s is often confusing and
> seemingly erratic. Kacc records /.n/ as one of letters of Pali, so
> it must have been part of the orthographical system used to render
> the canon at the time of composition of Kacc. However, there is no
> trace of /.l/ in the rules, although it is occasionally found in
the
> canon. The rules invariably use /l/ in contrast to Kacc-v that
> introduces /.l/ instead. They were evidently composed when the
> system of writing used to reproduce the canonical texts were not in
> use. This is historically interesting.

Some versions of Kc 616 (dahassa do .la.m) have /.la.m/ in it but,
interestingly, the 1895 Sinhalese edition of the
Kaccaayanasuttapaa.tha that Ven. Nyanatusita recently sent us has
/la.m/ (under 613). However, I think it would be hard to prove which
reading is historically older. Also, if /.l/ were absent at the time
the grammar was first composed what letter would have taken its place
in the set of 41?

Best wishes,
Jim

1499 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 0:02am 
Subject: ~n/.n

Dear Eisel, etc,

I checked the Patimokkha. In Patimokkha rule 71, two Siam Nikaya MSS and
one Siyam nikaaya based printed eds read paripa.nhitabba.m, all other
Sinhala MSS and other Burmese and Thai editions read paripa~nhitabba.m.
So, ~nh is used in Sinhala script.
Elsewhere, Sanghadisesa 3 & 4, we find that all Sinhalese MSS and
Burmese editions read -upasa.mhit-, while only the Thai editions and MS
read -upasa~nhit-.

Geiger (Pali Grammar para 50) writes:1. ''sn becomes ~nh (Pkt .nh):
pa~nha (AMg pa.nha) `question' = Skt pra''sna; pa''nhipa.n.nii (sic! not
pa.nhi-) (name of a plant) Abh 584 = Skt p.r''snipar.nii.

Maybe the .nh in pa.nhitabba.m in the Siam Nikaaya MSS, and in the
occurence Geiger disapproved of, is a survival from an older strata of
the Pali language. The characters .n and ~n are quite different in
Sinhala and so are their pronunciations, so it is difficult to explain
the change. The ~n in ~nh is clearly pronounced by the Sinhalese.

The l/.l and n/.n alternations, especially the latter, appear to be 
fairly common in Sinhala MSS. The written characters are quite distinct 
and can't be mixed up. One monk told me that this mix up happened 
because sometimes the text was being read out by one monk while the 
other monk was writing the MS. As there is no difference in 
pronunciation of these letters by Sinhalese speakers, the writer would 
have mixed them up. I don' t know if this argument is valid because 
there seems to be no alternation of t/.t, which are also often 
pronounced the same. There is a d/.d alternation such as in 
addha/a.d.dha though.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1500 
From: nina <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 6:07am 
Subject: Inscription Kuru

Dear Jim and friends,
Jim, you helped me before to understand the inscription on the Asoka Pillar
in Lumbini. 
I would be very grateful to know more about the Asoka stone in
Kammassadhamma, in Kuru, that is near New Delhi. We inquired here and there
but could not find out the meaning of the text.
This the place where the Buddha preached the Satipatthaanasutta. Today it
has been cleaned up, fenced in and trees have been planted, thanks to a
friend, ex foreign secretary of India and the Department of Archeological
Survey. 
The inscription is worn out but still readable, but difficult for us to
photograph. It is not so well known and it may not be included in books.
A monk who has passed away now took us there for the fisrt time and read the
text aloud. 
I would be grateful for any info.

Q. 2: I am doing a little cross reference on animitta. I remember you did
research on nimitta.
As far as I understand it refers mostly to the unconditioned dhamma,
nibbaana. It is opposite to defilements and nimitta making, or sign making.
Nina.

1501 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:31am 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Dear Nina,

There is a version of Minor Rock Edict I at Bahapur near Delhi 'on a 
small rocky outcrop amidst modern housing development'.

If this is the one you mean, slightly differing versions of it are 
found in at least 17 places. It refers to his having been a lay 
disciple for more than two and a half years. Some versions give the 
actual name Asoka (as opposed to Piyadassin) and the number of days 
he spent on tour.

Lance

>Dear Jim and friends,
>Jim, you helped me before to understand the inscription on the Asoka Pillar
>in Lumbini.
>I would be very grateful to know more about the Asoka stone in
>Kammassadhamma, in Kuru, that is near New Delhi. We inquired here and there
>but could not find out the meaning of the text.
>This the place where the Buddha preached the Satipatthaanasutta. Today it
>has been cleaned up, fenced in and trees have been planted, thanks to a
>friend, ex foreign secretary of India and the Department of Archeological
>Survey.
>The inscription is worn out but still readable, but difficult for us to
>photograph. It is not so well known and it may not be included in books.
>A monk who has passed away now took us there for the fisrt time and read the
>text aloud.
>I would be grateful for any info.

1502 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:28pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Dear Nina,

Welcome back from your pilgrimage to India.

> Jim, you helped me before to understand the inscription on the Asoka
> Pillar in Lumbini.
> I would be very grateful to know more about the Asoka stone in
> Kammassadhamma, in Kuru, that is near New Delhi. We inquired here
> and there but could not find out the meaning of the text.
> This the place where the Buddha preached the Satipatthaanasutta.
> Today it has been cleaned up, fenced in and trees have been planted,
> thanks to a friend, ex foreign secretary of India and the Department
of
> Archeological Survey.
> The inscription is worn out but still readable, but difficult for us
> to photograph. It is not so well known and it may not be included in
> books.
> A monk who has passed away now took us there for the fisrt time and
> read the text aloud.
> I would be grateful for any info.

I have a booklet containing romanized transcriptions of the Asokan
inscriptions but I'm not sure if the inscription you're interested in
is included. Would you have a transcription of it? Is it one of the
Rock Edicts?

> Q. 2: I am doing a little cross reference on animitta. I remember
> you did research on nimitta.
> As far as I understand it refers mostly to the unconditioned dhamma,
> nibbaana. It is opposite to defilements and nimitta making, or sign
> making.

I don't see a question. Are you looking for more references?
According to a quick CSCD search, "animitta.m" occurs at least 99
times in the Tipitaka (24 times in Pa.tisambhidaamagga and 20 times in
the Dhammasanganii). I'm afraid I don't know much on how the term is
defined in the commentaries.

Best wishes,

Jim

1503 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 0:18pm 
Subject: SV: "~NH" in Sinhalese Pali Orthography

Dear Jim,

<Some versions of Kc 616 (dahassa do .la.m) have /.la.m/ in it but,
interestingly, the 1895 Sinhalese edition of the Kaccaayanasuttapaa.tha that
Ven. Nyanatusita recently sent us has /la.m/ (under 613). However, I think
it would be hard to prove which reading is historically older. Also, if /.l/
were absent at the time the grammar was first composed what letter would
have taken its place in the set of 41?>there 

You will find the evidence in the Mukhamattadipani (ca. tenth c. AD.) on the
number of syllables used to reproduce the language of the canon. .l is there
considered an allophone of Sanskrit /.d/. The existence of this letter is
what generated the debate among the Pali grammarians about the phonological
status of /.l/ and the number of letters of the Pali. You will find that
then Saddaniti reproduces tyhe relevant suttas as if the reading were /.l/

Ole Pind

1504 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 0:32pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Nina,

Although I am not an expert in the Ashokan inscriptions, I have had a
hobby interest in them for several years --and can read the script
fairly well.

If you could send me a legible (digital) copy of any of your
photographs of the text, I could produce both an Ashokan transcription
and a Romanization (or a Thai script transcription if you wanted one,
for that matter) and post it to the web.

The level of "lexical support" for the Ashokan inscriptions is so high
that just about anyone can attempt their own translation of the
materials --these have been much more closely and carefully studied by
Western scholars than any Pali text (that I know of).

I believe that Lance Cousins knows much more than I do about the
existing translations --and their relative adequacy (or inadequacy).

L.C., I had the impression that the Ashokan inscriptions are (or were)
one of your major research interests?

E.M.

1505 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:09pm 
Subject: Re: Retroflex ".l"

A boring but very easy study could be conducted of the actual
orthography for ".l" in various periods and scripts --the question
that Ole raises about the relationship to ".d" seems to be re-enforced
by the acutal "writ" of the ".l" in some cases. Systematic
relationships of phonology are often reflected in systematic
relationships of orthography --a tradition dating to Ashoka. Thus,
e.g., that it was thought of as some sort of "d" sound seems blatantly
true of Khmer ("Cambodian") orthography, in which the ".l" is simply a
modified "d". Also, e.g., it may be that the Burmese script(s)
devised the glyph for ".l" as an inverse ".d" to suggest their
phonological relationship (NB: sheer speculation). At any rate,
because none of the vernaculars had a ".l" sound, the orthography for
this sound was "no accident".

I'm sorry to say this message is an improvisation under the influence
of Jet lag ... I may later regret it.

P.S., I'm currently in Toronto, Canada --and will soon meet with Jim.

E.M.

1506 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:02pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Well, this goes a little too far, perhaps. I read them as a set text 
when I was an undergraduate in the 1960s and have tried to keep up 
with the literature since. But I have not published any serious 
research on them. They are of course crucial evidence for the early 
history of Buddhism.

Lance

>L.C., I had the impression that the Ashokan inscriptions are (or were)
>one of your major research interests?
>
>E.M.

1507 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:02pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Dear Jim,
thank you. It is not a rock edict, only an inscription commemorizing the
place of special significance. It may not be in your booklet, I doubt it.
Meanwhile, our Ambassdor in Delhi will enquire from the Department of
Archeological Survey of India. He has connections there.

I looked up several references and the meaning of animitta as explained in
co. I was merely wondering whether you could add something to the meaning of
signless referring to the absence of conditioned dhammas and the end of
defilements, thus, nibbaana. I remember that you mentioned that there are
many meanings of nimitta.
Nina.

1508 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:02pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Dear Lance and Eisel,
Yes, it is in the midst of modern housing, but placed high on rocks.
I would be interested in the text on the rock itself.
Eisel, we are no good at photo graphs. I saw that once Singhalese sprinkled
water over it and then it became clearer. We go again in two years and I try
my luck,
thanks anyway,
Nina. 
op 20-11-2005 17:31 schreef L.S. Cousins op selwyn@ntlworld.com:

> 
> There is a version of Minor Rock Edict I at Bahapur near Delhi 'on a
> small rocky outcrop amidst modern housing development'.
> 
> If this is the one you mean, slightly differing versions of it are
> found in at least 17 places. It refers to his having been a lay
> disciple for more than two and a half years. Some versions give the
> actual name Asoka (as opposed to Piyadassin) and the number of days
> he spent on tour.

1509 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:17pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Nina,

If it is the Bahaapur inscription, it was first published in 1967:
Joshi, M.C. and Pande, B.M., "A Newly Discovered Inscription of 
A"soka at Bahapur, Delhi," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3/4, 
1967, 96-8.
I think this includes photographs of the rock and estampage.

K.R.Norman published some notes on this in the same Journal in 1971.

It is included in the later study:
Andersen, Paul Kent, _Studies in the minor rock edicts of A"soka I_, 
Hedwig Falk, Freiburg, 1990.
This gives an edition, but the subsequent volume which should give a 
translation has possibly not appeared yet ?

Lance

>Dear Lance and Eisel,
>Yes, it is in the midst of modern housing, but placed high on rocks.
>I would be interested in the text on the rock itself.

1510 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 6:45pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru
		
If the particular inscription has been correctly identified by Lance
(i.e., can Nina affirm this?) the Pali could be "handily" translated
by the members of this list --if someone has A.P. Kent's 1990 edition,
and can type the text into an email. If this isn't the correct minor
rock edict, or if Nina has some cause for doubt, I would just mention
that sometime non-Ashokan inscriptions that are in "Brahmi" script
(NB: the latter is a problematic category/term to begin with) might be
mis-represented as "an Ashokan inscription". In other words, if this
doesn't match any of the minor rock edicts covered in the standard
texts (as Nina was suggesting earlier) ... it may not be Ashoka's
Brahmi.

Museums and tour guides are prone to this type of error by way of
embellishment; I recently heard a very vivid description of "Hindu
human sacrifices" at Champassak --i.e., a description from a tour
guide that was not based on any historical fact.

I, too, have no skill/luck at recording stone inscriptions with
photography --and creating a "rubbing" is illegal in most
circumstances.

In case Nina doesn't already have an English translation of the
Ashokan edicts, I believe the following includes all of the "minor
rock edicts":

http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html

The strange offer I made of "transcribing Ashokan into Ashokan..." is
partly explained by the software here:

http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxBrahmi.html

Photographs and rubbings tend to be of such poor quality (in print)
that there have been many arguments as to what a particular line is
supposed to be --sometimes difficult to resolve without reference to
the original stone.

E.M.

1511 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:34pm 
Subject: Re: ~n/.n

Hello Bhante,

Thanks very much for this "brief comparative study" --I was not
expecting such instant research. To follow on the query.

> Geiger (Pali Grammar para 50) writes:1. ''sn becomes ~nh (Pkt .nh):
> pa~nha (AMg pa.nha) `question' = Skt pra''sna; pa''nhipa.n.nii (sic! not
> pa.nhi-) (name of a plant) Abh 584 = Skt p.r''snipar.nii.

Although interesting, I do not think this is directly related.

> Maybe the .nh in pa.nhitabba.m in the Siam Nikaaya MSS, and in the
> occurence Geiger disapproved of, is a survival from an older strata of
> the Pali language.

I think it is far more likely a question of modern orthography, and
not of historical development of the underlying language; the initial
impression that I was working from was that *modern* Sinhalese
orthography allows/encourages the confusion of ".nh" vs. "~nh" --thus,
I was expecting the confusion would be imposed from the modern
vernacular onto the Pali. The connection to Thailand may be
extraneous (in this case); I assume the Siam Nikaya MS (that you have
described) are in Sinhalese script. My assumption would be that the
.nh/~nh error would have arised in transcription, not from the Thai
source --but, as I have said, this assumption is (so far) without
empirical basis.

> The characters .n and ~n are quite different in
> Sinhala ...

I agree, but there seems to be a convention (perhaps euphonic?) in the
modern vernacular of substituting .n for ~n in some circumstances. In
the same way that the (modern vernacular) Sinhalese convention of
using the anuswara instead of the velar 'n has been imposed on Pali, I
assumed that this might also happen with ~nh in Sinhalese Pali. 
However, I was wondering how rare (or how common) it might be --if it
is regarded as an error at all.

Many of the special combined consonants in Sinhalese orthography have
a "disputed applicability" to Pali. The sythentically combined "mba"
glyph vs. the ligatured "mba" is an example of this --i.e., the former
is reserved for the vernacular, although actually many printed
editions disregard this and use either glyph interchangeably (again,
just like the distinction between anuswara & the velar 'n being
ignored!). Thus, part of the reason for my question is that I did not
know if the distinction between ".nh / ~nh" was regarded as fixed
--i.e., if the substitution described would be considered an error, or
acceptable orthography (because of approximation to modern Sinhalese).

E.M.

1512 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Nov 21, 2005 7:10am 
Subject: Re: ~n/.n

Dear Eisel,

>>Geiger (Pali Grammar para 50) writes:1. ''sn becomes ~nh (Pkt .nh):
>>pa~nha (AMg pa.nha) `question' = Skt pra''sna; pa~nhipa.n.nii (sic! not
>>pa.nhi-) (name of a plant) Abh 584 = Skt p.r''snipar.nii.
>> 
>>
>
>Although interesting, I do not think this is directly related.
> 
>
It might be, because it seems that in Prakrit .nh occured rather than ~nh.

> 
>
>>Maybe the .nh in pa.nhitabba.m in the Siam Nikaaya MSS, and in the
>>occurence Geiger disapproved of, is a survival from an older strata of
>>the Pali language.
>> 
>>
>
>I think it is far more likely a question of modern orthography, and
>not of historical development of the underlying language; the initial
>impression that I was working from was that *modern* Sinhalese
>orthography allows/encourages the confusion of ".nh" vs. "~nh" --thus,
>I was expecting the confusion would be imposed from the modern
>vernacular onto the Pali. The connection to Thailand may be
>extraneous (in this case); I assume the Siam Nikaya MS (that you have
>described) are in Sinhalese script. My assumption would be that the
>.nh/~nh error would have arised in transcription, not from the Thai
>source --but, as I have said, this assumption is (so far) without
>empirical basis.
> 
>
Can you please give your *modern* sources? I need to actually see what 
you are writing about. Please give some modern vernacular Sinhalese 
words which contain .nh and ~nh.

Regarding -pa.nhi- in the Siyam Nikaya MSS. These are not modern, they 
are about 200-250 years old. I failed to make clear that it is found in 
a Siamese Khom script MS at the Vijasundara Vihara in Kandy. It also 
occurs in a MS at a temple near Kandy, which is no doubt a copy of a 
Thai MS, and it is found in Dickson's edition of the Patim, which is 
based on Malwatte Siyam Nikaya MS. Therefore there is an unambiguous 
Siamese connection. Is there a confusion between .nh and ~nh in 
Indochinese scripts?

> 
>
>>The characters .n and ~n are quite different in
>>Sinhala ...
>> 
>>
>
>I agree, but there seems to be a convention (perhaps euphonic?) in the
>modern vernacular of substituting .n for ~n in some circumstances. In
>the same way that the (modern vernacular) Sinhalese convention of
>using the anuswara instead of the velar 'n has been imposed on Pali, I
>assumed that this might also happen with ~nh in Sinhalese Pali. 
>However, I was wondering how rare (or how common) it might be --if it
>is regarded as an error at all.
> 
>
Even in Pali, the combination ~nh is rare, it only occurs in the words 
pa~nha and sa~nhita (disregarding the consonant sandhis with hi). In 
Sinhala it probably is rare too because the Sinhalese tend to use 
Sanskritised words instead of Pali words. For pa~nha they use 
pra''snaya. However, in the dictionary, there is also another word for 
pra''snaya, pae.na, which might be from a Prakrit.
I wonder how rare the combination .nh is in Sinhala, if it exists at 
all, for example, for u.nha, ''heat'', they use u.na or u''s.na.
Maybe because of its

>Many of the special combined consonants in Sinhalese orthography have
>a "disputed applicability" to Pali. The sythentically combined "mba"
>glyph vs. the ligatured "mba" is an example of this --i.e., the former
>is reserved for the vernacular, although actually many printed
>editions disregard this and use either glyph interchangeably (again,
>just like the distinction between anuswara & the velar 'n being
>ignored!). Thus, part of the reason for my question is that I did not
>know if the distinction between ".nh / ~nh" was regarded as fixed
>--i.e., if the substitution described would be considered an error, or
>acceptable orthography (because of approximation to modern Sinhalese).
>
>E.M.

1513 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Mon Nov 21, 2005 1:42pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Dear Lance and Eisel,
thank you for all the trouble.
Bahapur, I do not know about it.

It is situated in Delhi itself just East of the Kailash market, near a
famous Hindu Temple, and this should mention the satipatthana sutta. I
remember the deceased bhikkhu saying this, but it is long ago.
No embellishment by tour operators, they did not come here and are not
interested. It was until a few years ago such a dirty, out of the way place.
But we met a group of Singhalese pilgrims here some years ago. If I had
thought of it I could have asked them to read the text.

Eisel, the stone is on the steep side of the rock and difficult to reach
with a camera. It is a climb anyway to reach the place.
You have given some interesting links. I found nothing on the newly
discovered one in this link.
I would not call it a rock edict, more a memorial stone.
Nina. 
op 20-11-2005 22:17 schreef L.S. Cousins op selwyn@ntlworld.com:

> 
> If it is the Bahaapur inscription, it was first published in 1967:
> Joshi, M.C. and Pande, B.M., "A Newly Discovered Inscription of
> A"soka at Bahapur, Delhi," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3/4,
> 1967, 96-8.
> I think this includes photographs of the rock and estampage.
> 
> K.R.Norman published some notes on this in the same Journal in 1971.

1514 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:37am 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru

Dear Nina,

> Dear Jim,
> thank you. It is not a rock edict, only an inscription commemorizing
the place of special significance. It may not be in your booklet, I
doubt it. Meanwhile, our Ambassdor in Delhi will enquire from the
Department of Archeological Survey of India. He has connections there.
>>

I'd be interested to know if the JRAS article that Lance refers to
deals with the inscription you are enquiring about. I'm planning to be
in Toronto next week to meet Eisel and will check to see if the
article is accessible at the University of Toronto.

> I looked up several references and the meaning of animitta as
explained in co. I was merely wondering whether you could add
something to the meaning of
> signless referring to the absence of conditioned dhammas and the end
of defilements, thus, nibbaana. I remember that you mentioned that
there are many meanings of nimitta. >>

I don't think I can add anything useful without putting a great of
effort into studying the matter. And I'd want to start with the
etymology (said to be uncertain) of 'nimitta' and then proceed to its
meanings (kaara.na, a"ngajaata, la~nchana) given in the
Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.

Best wishes,

Jim

1515 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Nov 21, 2005 7:40pm 
Subject: Pali & Icelandic

Although I have read both the "old" claims that Icelandic was directly
related to Vedic (e.g., Max Muller) and some of the recent literature
that heaps scorn on those earlier claims, today was the first day that
I sat down with a grammar of the Icelandic language.

After half an hour of reading about the phonology, grammar, and syntax
of Icelandic (i.e., knowing just a little more than nothing) I still
am baffled that anyone ever thought this language was especially
"Indo-Aryan". It certainly does not seem to have any strikingly
"Vedic"/"Old Indo-Aryan" features --i.e., no more than any other
modern European language.

Does anyone know what features of Icelandic have supported this
thesis? One Sanskritist told me that "notwithstanding" the
controversy over Muller (and the word "Aryan" generally) there were
still substantive reasons to suppose that early Icelandic had a direct
descent from India. This surprises me for more reasons than one;
Rasmus Rask's thesis (now widely accepted) is that the Nordic
languages have their direct descent from "Proto-Hungarian" (i.e., to
the east). I had generally thought that early Hungarian and, thus,
Norse, would have much less in common with "Middle Indo-Aryan"
languages like Pali than (e.g.) ancient Greek.

E.M.

1516 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Nov 21, 2005 7:55pm 
Subject: Re: ~n/.n

Hello Bhante,

> Can you please give your *modern* sources? [...]
> Regarding -pa.nhi- in the Siyam Nikaya MSS. These are not modern, they
> are about 200-250 years old.

Sorry if there was some confusion, I was writing "modern vernacular
Sinhalese" just to be clear that I did not mean Pali/Prakrit. Perhaps
I should have said "non-ancient Sinhalese"; for the purposes of the
above, I would include 200-250 year old Sinhalese as "modern
vernacular" insomuch as the orthographic influlence proposed is
concerned.

> Is there a confusion between .nh and ~nh in
> Indochinese scripts?

Not that I know of --although Burmese "~nh" is an exceedingly peculiar glyph.

E.M.

1517 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:12am 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru, nimitta

Dear Jim, 
op 21-11-2005 17:37 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

> I'd be interested to know if the JRAS article that Lance refers to
> deals with the inscription you are enquiring about. I'm planning to be
> in Toronto next week to meet Eisel and will check to see if the
> article is accessible at the University of Toronto.
----------
N: I am interested, thank you.
---------- N:> there are many meanings of nimitta. >>
> 
J: I don't think I can add anything useful without putting a great of
> effort into studying the matter. And I'd want to start with the
> etymology (said to be uncertain) of 'nimitta' and then proceed to its
> meanings (kaara.na, a"ngajaata, la~nchana) given in the
> Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.
-------
N: Sounds great, especially Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.
Etymology seems: maa, from measuring?
If you have only a little time, please gives us some crumbs.
Please share,
Nina.

1518 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:22am 
Subject: Pa.nha in Khom MSS

Dear Eisel,

I searched the Paali MSS catalogues of Vat Po, EFEO, and the
Bibliotheque Nationale de France made by Madam Filliozat. In all Khom
Paali MSS, pa.nha, is consistently used instead of pa~nha, e.g.,
Milindapa.nhaa, Kosalapa.nhaa.
In my Khom script tables I could not find a specific character for ~nh, 
neither for .nh, so it seems to me that the origin for your problem is 
not in the Sinhala script tradition, but in the Khom script tradition. I 
was told that Senart's edition of the Kaccaayana is mainly based on Thai 
MSS.
I hope that this is of use,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1519 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Nov 22, 2005 2:28pm 
Subject: SV: Pali & Icelandic

Dear E.M.,

<Although I have read both the "old" claims that Icelandic was directly
related to Vedic (e.g., Max Muller) and some of the recent literature that
heaps scorn on those earlier claims, today was the first day that I sat down
with a grammar of the Icelandic language.

How nice. I am very pleased! There is a lot to learn, and much to read in
old Icelandic. We call it "Old Norse" in my part of the world. My parents
learned it in high school along with Latin and Old Greek, and so did I.

<After half an hour of reading about the phonology, grammar, and syntax of
Icelandic (i.e., knowing just a little more than nothing) I still am baffled
that anyone ever thought this language was especially "Indo-Aryan". It
certainly does not seem to have any strikingly "Vedic"/"Old Indo-Aryan"
features --i.e., no more than any other modern European language.

<the controversy over Muller (and the word "Aryan" generally) there were
still substantive reasons to suppose that early Icelandic had a direct
descent from India. 

No one knows what aryan denotes. But you can have my opinion. It is probably
a loan word from semitic based on the root /'ar/ denoting free people as
opposed to slaves. There are some good semitic cognates. This was suggested
about more than one hundred years ago by the Danish linguist Herman Mller,
the inventor of the laryngal theory, one of the corner stones of modern
Indoeuropean comparative linguistics.

<This surprises me for more reasons than one; Rasmus Rask's thesis (now
widely accepted) is that the Nordic languages have their direct descent from
"Proto-Hungarian" (i.e., to the east). 

That's interesting. Maybe I have missed somethimg in Rask's writings.

Ole Pind

1520 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:15pm 
Subject: Re: Inscription Kuru, nimitta.

Dear Nina,

> > I'd be interested to know if the JRAS article that Lance refers to
> > deals with the inscription you are enquiring about. I'm planning
to be
> > in Toronto next week to meet Eisel and will check to see if the
> > article is accessible at the University of Toronto.
> ----------
> N: I am interested, thank you.

I checked the university's online catalogue for the article but came
up with nothing.

> ---------- N:> there are many meanings of nimitta. >>
> >
> J: I don't think I can add anything useful without putting a great
of
> > effort into studying the matter. And I'd want to start with the
> > etymology (said to be uncertain) of 'nimitta' and then proceed to
its
> > meanings (kaara.na, a"ngajaata, la~nchana) given in the
> > Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.
> -------
> N: Sounds great, especially Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.
> Etymology seems: maa, from measuring?
> If you have only a little time, please gives us some crumbs.
> Please share,
> Nina.

Even after spending the best part of a day on it, I'm sorry to report
that I'm unable to give as much as one tiny little crumb...

Best wishes,
Jim

1521 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Nov 23, 2005 0:18pm 
Subject: Re: Pali & Icelandic

Hi Ole,

> How nice. I am very pleased! There is a lot to learn, and much to read in
> old Icelandic. We call it "Old Norse" in my part of the world.

I would probably be more interested in the intellectual cross-currents
of modern Iceland than in the ancient literature. After all, if Max
Muller is correct, the content of the Norse sagas is "basically the
same" as the Vedas anyway. (ha ha ha)

> No one knows what aryan denotes. But you can have my opinion. It is probably
> a loan word from semitic based on the root /'ar/ denoting free people as
> opposed to slaves.

This is a very widespread phenomenon in ethnic "autonymns" --e.g.,
both "Tai" (now Thai) and "Lao" have their origins in terms used (in
extant inscriptions) to refer to the "non-slave" portion of the
population. The popular etymology of "Thai" as meaning "free/freedom"
is a bit of a glorification in this regard. This would be about as
valid as glossing "aristocrat" (which, as you know, is of one
etymology with "Aryan" via greek) as "the free".

> There are some good semitic cognates.

Although it may sound obscure, I would be interested in the Albanian
cognates. It seems that Albania was a more important "bridge" between
the two continents than previously thought; and, if you can dig
beneath the veneer of Catholicism, you can apparently find some
important linguistic evidence of "Proto-Thracian" --think of what a
different world it might be if we still used that old term instead of
"Aryan"!

E.M.

1522 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Nov 23, 2005 0:25pm 
Subject: Re: Pa.nha in Khom MSS

Bhante Nyanatusita,

I think that is not mere "useful", but a really original discovery.

I would encourage you to write up a brief description of the issue
and publish it as a small article in either the PTS Journal or Dr.
Skilling's "Fragile Palm Leaves" Journal.

E.M.

1523 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:49pm 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta

Dear Jim,
op 23-11-2005 02:15 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

>> ---------- N:> there are many meanings of nimitta. >>
>>> 
>> J: I don't think I can add anything useful without putting a great
> of
>>> effort into studying the matter. And I'd want to start with the
>>> etymology (said to be uncertain) of 'nimitta' and then proceed to
> its
>>> meanings (kaara.na, a"ngajaata, la~nchana) given in the
>>> Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.
>> -------
>> N: Sounds great, especially Abhidhaanappadiipikaa.
>> Etymology seems: maa, from measuring?
>> If you have only a little time, please gives us some crumbs.
>> Please share,
>> Nina.
> 
> Even after spending the best part of a day on it, I'm sorry to report
> that I'm unable to give as much as one tiny little crumb...
------
N: I understand. But what did the Abhidhaanappadiipikaa say?
On dsg we have several posts on nimitta: conditioned dhammas, also the
defilements on account of sense objects. Many sutta quotes.
Just now I found an old post by Num, Dec 2002. Patisambhidamagga. about
paaa that leads out of sankhaara nimitta, bahidda sankhaara nimitta.
Nina.

1524 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:30pm 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta.

Dear Nina,

> Even after spending the best part of a day on it, I'm sorry to
> report that I'm unable to give as much as one tiny little crumb...
------
N: I understand. But what did the Abhidhaanappadiipikaa say?
On dsg we have several posts on nimitta: conditioned dhammas, also the
defilements on account of sense objects. Many sutta quotes.
Just now I found an old post by Num, Dec 2002. Patisambhidamagga.
about paaa that leads out of sankhaara nimitta, bahidda sankhaara
nimitta. >>

J: The Abhidhaanappadiipikaa says:
979. nimitta.m kaara.ne vutta.m, a"ngajaate ca la~nchane.

I thought this passage from the .tiikaa on MN of some help:
aaramma.naa naama saaramma.nadhammaana.m visesato uppattinimittanti
aaha "sabbanimittaananti ruupaadiina.m sabbaaramma.naanan" ti. Natthi
ettha kici sa"nkhaaranimittanti animittaa, asa"nkhataa dhaatuuti aaha
"sabbanimittaapagataaya nibbaanadhaatuyaa"ti. --Ps-p.t 2.275 (Burmese
ed.)

Jim

1525 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:06am 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta.

Dear Jim,
thank you very much.
This was a topic of discussion in India. Visible object is seen, but there
are so many of them arising in a group of rupas, arising and falling away.
We cannot pinpoint which visible object exactly is seen at which moment. The
nimitta or impression remains. I like the word lachana, mark, imprint. That
is what it is. 
So I am interested in aaramma.naa naama saaramma.nadhammaana.m visesato
uppattinimittanti. 
I understand what is said about the difference between nimitta and animitta,
at least in theory, but could you please give a translation of the part I
quoted above?
Thank you,
Nina. 
op 24-11-2005 00:30 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

> I thought this passage from the .tiikaa on MN of some help:
> aaramma.naa naama saaramma.nadhammaana.m visesato uppattinimittanti
> aaha "sabbanimittaananti ruupaadiina.m sabbaaramma.naanan" ti. Natthi
> ettha kici sa"nkhaaranimittanti animittaa, asa"nkhataa dhaatuuti aaha
> "sabbanimittaapagataaya nibbaanadhaatuyaa"ti. --Ps-p.t 2.275 (Burmese
> ed.)

1526 
From: Ong Teng Kee <ongtkee@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:32am 
Subject: Re: Pa.nha in Khom MSS

I don't follow the list closely but in Danish collection mss catalog about kambodia script there is pan~ha in page 49 by Godakumbura.Maybe I misread about what you guys say 

Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> wrote: Bhante Nyanatusita,

I think that is not mere "useful", but a really original discovery.

I would encourage you to write up a brief description of the issue
and publish it as a small article in either the PTS Journal or Dr.
Skilling's "Fragile Palm Leaves" Journal.

E.M.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1527 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:34pm 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta.

Dear Nina,

<< So I am interested in aaramma.naa naama saaramma.nadhammaana.m
visesato uppattinimittanti. I understand what is said about the
difference between nimitta and animitta, at least in theory, but could
you please give a translation of the part I quoted above? >>

I'm afraid I don't understand the line well-enough to give a clear
translation. I have a problem with the word 'visesato'. Should it
be taken as an adverbial (in particular, particularly, especially)?
Also, "aaramma.naa" which seems to be in the ablative singular (from
the object?) is not clear. To get a better understanding I think one
would have to study it in a larger context, that is, to follow it back
to the original word/passage in the MN sutta and also to be more
familiar with the Abhidhamma technical explanations in Pali. I think
'uppattinimitta.m' can be translated as 'the cause of the arising (of
dhammas having objects)'.

My main point in citing the passage was to show a connection between
'aaramma.na' and 'nimitta' as they both share a meaning in common
(cause, condition). I think the meanings of nimitta as cause or sign
get confused. It is possible that 'nimitta' is derived from two or
more roots and this would give us homonyms. The Abh .tiikaa gives the
root 'maa' for the one meaning cause, 'mih' (sprinkle) for the one
meaning sexual organ, but none for the one meaning sign. The word
'nimitta' is also found in Sanskrit and Apte gives 'mid' as the root
in his dictionary.

There doesn't seem to be any detailed explanation of the term
'nimitta' in any Pali text or commentary that I know of.

Jim

1528 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 6:07am 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta.

Dear Jim,
Thank you for the trouble. I just add a few guesses, not more.
op 24-11-2005 20:34 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:
> << So I am interested in aaramma.naa naama saaramma.nadhammaana.m
> visesato uppattinimittanti.

. I have a problem with the word 'visesato'. Should it
> be taken as an adverbial (in particular, particularly, especially)?
---------
N: Or distinctly? Severally?
-------
> Also, "aaramma.naa" which seems to be in the ablative singular (from
> the object?) is not clear.
-----
N:could it be depending on an object?
--------- 
J:To get a better understanding I think one
> would have to study it in a larger context, that is, to follow it back
> to the original word/passage in the MN sutta and also to be more
> familiar with the Abhidhamma technical explanations in Pali.
-------
N: Jonothan gave a few texts: (a) AA "The signless liberation of mind
(animittacetovimutti) is strong
insight; but the reciters of the Digha Nikaya say that it is the
fruition attainment of arahantship, for that is called 'signless'
because of the absence of the signs of lust, etc., of the signs of
forms, etc., and the signs of permanence, etc."
(b) In MN43 "the signless liberation of mind" is explained in a way
that clearly connects it with the fruition of arahantship: there lust,
hatred and delusion are declared to be "sign-makers" (nimittakarana),
which the arahant has totally abandoned.
(c) Elsewhere, however, a "signless concentration" (animitta-samadhi)
is referred to in a context which makes it plain that the one who has
attained it is not yet an arahant; see e.g., MN 121, SN 40:9.
(d) The "sign of forms", etc., is nothing other than the form itself,
taken as an object of attachment; see MN 138 and Comy.>
------
N: Nimittakara.na: what causes the arising of conditioned dhammas.
------
J: I think
> 'uppattinimitta.m' can be translated as 'the cause of the arising (of
> dhammas having objects)'.
-------
N: Or as nimitta which is conditioned dhamma. What kind of compound is the
big question. 
Nina.

1529 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 9:55am 
Subject: sati meditation

Dear freinds,

Perhaps a native speaker could tell whether or not the usual translation of
the phrase parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa "having established or set up
his mindfulness in front, to set one's mindfulness alert, summon up one's
mindfulness in front" or similar translations make any sense whatsoever in
English. How does one establish one's mindfulness in front, knowing that the
objects mindfulness inter alia is breathing in and out. I find it
incomprehensible.

Regards,

Ole Pind

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1530 
From: Alan McClure <alanmcclure3@yahoo.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 10:31am 
Subject: Re: sati meditation

Ole Holten Pind wrote:

> Dear freinds,
>
> Perhaps a native speaker could tell whether or not the usual 
> translation of
> the phrase parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa "having established or 
> set up
> his mindfulness in front, to set one's mindfulness alert, summon up one's
> mindfulness in front" or similar translations make any sense whatsoever in
> English. How does one establish one's mindfulness in front, knowing 
> that the
> objects mindfulness inter alia is breathing in and out. I find it
> incomprehensible.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ole Pind
>
Dear Dr. Pind (all),
I don't know what the protocol is for posting here, so I apologize if I 
am breaking it with this post (please let me know). However, I am aware 
that Bhikkhu Soma has looked into this issue and the article is online here:
http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/ebmed058.htm
The article is quite short, but here is the most relevant section (about 
half-way down in the above article) under the heading:
**"LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: A SMALL RELATED MATTER"**
:
"A related secondary matter regarding the breath nimitta is, once again, 
a traceable misunderstanding, which has evolved to its final form in the 
Visuddhimagga. A critical phrase is used in the suttas Four Foundations 
of Mindfulness and Anapanasati, that is: "/parimukham satim 
upatthapetva,/" which is often translated as "setting mindfulness before 
him." One is then left to wonder why the Patisambhidamagga, the 
Vimuttimagga, and the Vissudhimagga all confidently give the location of 
breath contact as the nostrils. Furthermore, we find in the three works: 
"either at the nose or lip." And here Buddhaghosa, the editor, gives as 
explanation that a "long-nosed man can feel the breath at his nostril as 
it passes through his nose." A short-nosed man however, feels it on his 
upper lip. This is a strange bit of business if one thinks about it, 
because even if one is a "short-nosed man" one can only feel the 
exhalation of warm air out the nostrils onto the upper lip. We are now 
missing the entire in-breath. So it seems we have another puzzle.
If we look back to the original sutta at the word "mukha", it literally 
and sensibly means "entrance" or "mouth." If we give it this obvious 
meaning we have: "He fixes his attention at the �entrance'", the 
entrance being either the nose or the mouth. The early commentators are 
assuming the reader realizes that the meditator may be breathing either 
through his mouth or his nose. If he is breathing through his mouth he 
should direct his attention to air contact at the lip. It is very 
sensible advice really, for it would be a shame to have to give up 
breath meditation just because one has a cold or a plugged nose! So we 
see what began as a straightforward location of breath contact at the 
nose or mouth, i.e. "the entrance", slowly take on the perplexing 
addition of a "long-nosed and a short-nosed man." The debate over the 
meaning of this phrase came about at a very early time (see quote from 
the original note in the Patisambhidamagga, below), and in fact all 
three commentaries have opted for /mukha/ as nose or mouth.

"/Has the sense of embracing/" is in the sense of being embraced.
What is embraced? The outlet. What outlet? Concentration based on
mindfulness of breathing is itself the outlet, right up to the
arahant path. Hence "has the sense of outlet" is said. The meaning
of "outlet from the round of rebirths" is expressed by the meaning
of the word /mukha/ (mouth) as foremost (front). "Has the sense of
establishing" is in the sense of individual essence. The meaning
expressed by all these words is: Having made mindfulness an embraced
outlet. But some say that "has the sense of embracing'" stands for
"embracing as the meaning of mindfulness," and that "has the sense
of outlet" stands for "door of entry and exit as the meaning of
in-breaths and out-breaths." Then what is meant is: Having
established mindfulness as the embraced outlet of the in-breaths and
out-breaths.(Note 14, Engl. Ed.; PsA 350-1) 

Some modern teachers have suggested that it doesn't matter where the 
breath contact is located, probably in response to the phrase which 
occurs later on in the sutta: "Experiencing the whole body, he breathes 
in...", etc. And since the whole body of the breath is not explicitly 
stated, they feel there is room for interpretation. But the breath as a 
"whole body" is explicitly mentioned in the /Anapanasati Sutta,/ though 
not in the /Satipatthana Sutta/ the phrase means the same: "I say, 
monks, that of bodies this is one, that is to say breathing-in and 
breathing-out" (/Majjhima Nikaya,/ PTS edition, III.83, p.125; the 
footnote states that "...breathing is a body because it is included in 
the field of touch"). As well there is an explicit location of "the 
entrance" in the sutta, which the three commentaries agree on, whatever 
the later confusion may have been. It also overlooks the simile which 
immediately follows the explicit location, i.e., "As a turner or his 
apprentice, while making a long turn, knows that he is making a long 
turn, or in making a short turn, knows that he is making a short turn, 
so too a monk, in breathing in a long breath, knows that he breathes in 
a long breath, in breathing a short breath, knows that he breathes in a 
short breath...and so trains himself, thinking: 'I will breathe out, 
calming the whole body formation.' "(/Digha Nikaya./ 22) The Buddha 
includes this apparently redundant simile for one reason. Similes, like 
pictures, are worth a thousand words and usually survive the butcheries 
of translation. This is the Buddha's failsafe mechanism to show that as 
a lathe worker fixes his attention one-pointedly with his chisel on a 
single spot while the wooden spindle is in ceaseless motion, the 
meditator does likewise at the "entrance spot" while the breath 
continuously flows past. Basically all the commentaries have managed to 
preserve this notion in the "simile of the saw", but unfortunately the 
mouth as location is overlooked by the time of the Visuddhimagga.
All of this does not mean that there is only one way to attain serenity 
using the breath. If someone has developed a technique that issues in 
jhana and which does not follow the explicit instructions that is fine 
too. Whatever works."

1531 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 10:56am 
Subject: Re: sati meditation

Dear Ole,
at the tip of the nose or at the upperlip.
Co. to the satipa.t.thaanasutta: (Ven. Soma transl): <Arouses mindfulness in
front. Fixes the attention by directing it towards the breath which is in
front.> 
Nina. 
op 25-11-2005 15:55 schreef Ole Holten Pind op oleholtenpind@mail.dk:

> Dear freinds,
> 
> Perhaps a native speaker could tell whether or not the usual translation of
> the phrase parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa "having established or set up
> his mindfulness in front, to set one's mindfulness alert, summon up one's
> mindfulness in front" or similar translations make any sense whatsoever in
> English. How does one establish one's mindfulness in front, knowing that the
> objects mindfulness inter alia is breathing in and out. I find it
> incomprehensible.

1532 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:11am 
Subject: SV: sati meditation

Dear Alan,

Than you very much for this reference and extract.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

1533 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:30am 
Subject: Re: sati meditation

Hi Everyone:

Given the fact that it is the development of mindfulness, there should not be
"Self", who directs it to front of the mouth/face.

I may be wrong, but I also feel that "patimukha" is "figurative speech", which can be interpreted 
in different ways, depending on practisoners' levels of understanding.

tadao

--- Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> Υå
> Dear Ole,
> at the tip of the nose or at the upperlip.
> Co. to the satipa.t.thaanasutta: (Ven. Soma transl): <Arouses mindfulness in
> front. Fixes the attention by directing it towards the breath which is in
> front.> 
> Nina. 
> op 25-11-2005 15:55 schreef Ole Holten Pind op oleholtenpind@mail.dk:
> 
> > Dear freinds,
> > 
> > Perhaps a native speaker could tell whether or not the usual translation of
> > the phrase parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa "having established or set up
> > his mindfulness in front, to set one's mindfulness alert, summon up one's
> > mindfulness in front" or similar translations make any sense whatsoever in
> > English. How does one establish one's mindfulness in front, knowing that the
> > objects mindfulness inter alia is breathing in and out. I find it
> > incomprehensible.

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1534 
From: Alan McClure <alanmcclure3@yahoo.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:23pm 
Subject: Re: SV: sati meditation

Ole Holten Pind wrote:

> Dear Alan,
>
> Than you very much for this reference and extract.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ole Pind
>
>

Dear Dr. Pind,

No problem at all. Actually, I started to do a bit more research into 
this and then realized that Dmytro had already compiled together the 
various commentary sections relevant to the topic in one thread at the 
E-Sangha pali forum. I'll post everything below and hopefully it will be 
useful to you. Also, I know that you are a member of E-Sangha, so if you 
wish to continue the conversation, then it is still open here:
http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=21109&view=findpost&p=290882
Howver, even people who are not members can still view it.

Dmytro wrote:
---begin---
"An article by Bhikkhu Sona
http://my.tbaytel.net/arfh/dhamma/nimitta.html
inspired me to research this term

Here's a quote from the early text, Vibhanga:

537. "Parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa"ti tattha katamaa sati? Yaa
sati anussati pa.tissati pe sammaasati - aya.m vuccati "sati".
Aya.m sati upa.t.thitaa hoti supa.t.thitaa naasikagge vaa
mukhanimitte vaa. Tena vuccati "parimukha.m sati.m
upa.t.thapetvaa"ti.

Vibhangapali .252

In the passage above Vibhanga clearly explains 'parimukha.m' as 'the tip 
of the nose (naasikagge) or mouth-lip (mukha-nimitta)'.

This is confirmed by Atthakatha:

"parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaati kamma.t.thaan'aabhimukha.m sati.m
.thapayitvaa. mukhasamiipe vaa katvaati attho. teneva vibha'nge
vutta.m - "aya.m sati upa.t.thitaa hoti suupa.t.thitaa naasikagge vaa
mukhanimitte vaa, tena vuccati parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa"ti
(vibha. 537). athavaa pariiti pariggaha.t.tho. mukhanti
niyyaana.t.tho. satiiti upa.t.thaana.t.tho. tena vuccati- "parimukha.m
satin"ti. eva.m pa.tisambhidaaya.m vuttanayenapettha attho
da.t.thabbo. tatraaya.m sa'nkhepo- "pariggahitaniyyaanasati.m
katvaa"ti.

Silakkhandhavagga-Atthakatha 1.211

Dr. Rhys Davids, quoting Buddhaghosa's commentary 'ure
loma-samhara.nam' on the phrase 'parimukham kaaraapeti',
from Vin. II.134, suggests the translation 'in front', explaining it as
'set up his memory in front of the object of thought'.

The only support for this I've found is the Buddhaghosa's commentary
(Culavagga-Atthakatha 6.1211) 'Parimukhanti ure lomasa.mhara.na.m'
(cutting off the hair on the breast) to the passage (Culavagga 2.134
5.Khuddakavatthuuni)

Na, bhikkhave, massu kappaapetabba.m pe na massu
va.d.dhaapetabba.m na golomika.m kaaraapetabba.m na caturassaka.m
kaaraapetabba.m na parimukha.m kaaraapetabba.m na a.d.dhaduka.m
kaaraapetabba.m na daa.thikaa .thapetabbaa na sambaadhe loma.m
sa.mharaapetabba.m".

In approximate translation:
(Bhikkhu, the beard should not be trimmed, the beard should not be
enlarged, should not be cut into a ball- or cluster-shape, should
not be cut into quadrangular shape, should not be cut around the
mouth, should not be cut in 'half-dyad', should not be arranged in
whiskers, the hair should not be made grown at pudendum.)

Sorry, but there seem to be occasional inexact places in highly
venerable Buddhaghosa's commentary. Vibhanga's and Patisambhidamagga's
interpretation 'around the mouth' is far more credible, and quite fits
here.

Probably the quoting of Ven. Buddhaghosa's commentary in PED made many
people accept 'breast' interpretetion."

---end---

With metta,

Alan

1535 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 0:22pm 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta.

Dear Nina,

> > Also, "aaramma.naa" which seems to be in the ablative singular
(from > > the object?) is not clear.
> -----
> N:could it be depending on an object?

I'm not sure. When I first saw "aaramma.naa naama", I took
"aaramma.naa" as a nom. plural but then the normal plural form for it
would have been "aaramma.naani" and this left "aaramman.naa" as an
ablative singular. However, I wonder if the particle "naama' that
follows is ever used in this way with a preceding non-nominative word.
We can see a Pali neuter noun in a masculine form such as "cattaaro
satipa.t.thaanaa". See below for a translation attempt with the nom.
plural.

> (b) In MN43 "the signless liberation of mind" is explained in a way
> that clearly connects it with the fruition of arahantship: there
lust, > hatred and delusion are declared to be "sign-makers"
(nimittakarana), > which the arahant has totally abandoned.

It just so happens that the MN .tiikaa passage we're looking at
belongs to this sutta. It is elaborating on the a.t.thakathaa comment
(Ps II 352) on the word 'sabbanimittaana.m' at M I 297,1. This is
found in the following: 'sabbanimittaana~nca amanasikaaro'
(non-attention to every/any object). Horner has 'paying no attention
to any sign' --p.357. I don't know why 'sign' was chosen as the
a.t.thakathaa makes it quite clear that 'sabbanimittaana.m' =
'ruupaadiina.m sabbaaramma.naana.m'.

aaramma.naa naama saaramma.nadhammaana.m visesato uppattinimittanti
aaha "sabbanimittaananti ruupaadiina.m sabbaaramma.naanan"
ti. --Ps-p.t 2.275 (Burmese ed.)

Translation:
Because, namely, objects (as conditions) are a cause for the arising
of states having objects in particular, he (the commentator) said "
'sabbanimittaana.m' means 'to any object such as a visible object
and so on'. "

'visesato' which I have translated as 'in particular' seems to be
singling out the four immaterial khandhas to the exclusion of
ruupakkhandha and the unconditioned element. Does that make sense? I
have taken 'uppattinimitta.m' to be a sixth case tappurisa.

Thanks for your other comments.

Jim

1536 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 6:12pm 
Subject: Re: sati meditation

Dear Alan,

> Dear Dr. Pind (all),
> I don't know what the protocol is for posting here, so I apologize
if I > am breaking it with this post (please let me know). However, I
am aware that Bhikkhu Soma has looked into this issue and the article
is online here: >>

That should be Bhikkhu Sona (a Canadian), not to be confused with Soma
Mahathera of The Way of Mindfulness.

The protocol is just to use common sense, good etiquette, and careful
consideration in the preparation of what one posts. I think it's good
practice to keep it short and to the point as much as possible. That
way your posts stand a better chance of being read and responded to.
If you're pulling material off the web to post here, please trim it
down to what's really relevant. I think the part about hair-cutting
from the Vinaya commentary was unnecessary.

Best wishes,
Jim

1537 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:53pm 
Subject: Re: Pa.nha in Khom MSS

Dear Ong Teng Kee,

Thanks for the message.
I checked the Copenhagen catalogue you mentioned and checked also 
Filliozat's EFEO catalogues again.
The Copenhagen MS of the Milinda-.tiikaa indeed reads pa~nhaa in the 
title as well as in the text, but I wonder whether this is not a 
correction or a mistake of the Sinhalese cataloguer.
In the Khom Milindapa.nhaa MS at the EFEO (EFEO Pali 58), pa~nhaa is 
read in the title given to two bundles of leaves (phuk), however the 
other 6 or so phuks are titled -pa.nhaa. So it seems the tradition was 
not entirely consistent, however the other Khom Milindapa~nhaa MSS in 
France and at Vat Po in Bankok, although they might be been given the 
title Milinda-pa~nhaa by the cataloguer, read pa.nhaa in the text.
I wrote to Dr Filliozat and Dr Peter Skilling to get some more 
information about this alternation.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita


Ong Teng Kee wrote:

>I don't follow the list closely but in Danish collection mss catalog about kambodia script there is pan~ha in page 49 by Godakumbura.Maybe I misread about what you guys say 
>
>Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> wrote: Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
> I think that is not mere "useful", but a really original discovery.
>
> I would encourage you to write up a brief description of the issue
>and publish it as a small article in either the PTS Journal or Dr.
>Skilling's "Fragile Palm Leaves" Journal.
>
>E.M.

>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1538 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 11:44am 
Subject: sati meditation

Dear group,

I have always been in doubt about the interpretation of the phrase
parimukha.m sati.m upa.t.thapetvaa and its interpretation in Vibh and
Pa.tis. Obviously these interpretations are incompatible, in addition tto
the fact that there are other objects of sati meditation that are not
similar to those of breathing in and out. As I have mentioned before the
pivotal question is how to interpret parimukha.m and upa.t.thapatvaa, the
latter is supposed to be used in a particular sense that is not recorded
elsewhere in the canon. This makes me suspect whether this important passage
has been correctly understood. I do not wish to go into a detailed analysis
of the commentarial tradition (some evidently to parimukha.m as an adjective
qualifying sati.m. This interpretation is reflected in BUddhis Sanskrit
literature, for instance Vajjracchedikaa), I only want to point out what
appears to me to be an important methodological principle when trying to
determine the sense of particularly difficult passage in the Pali canon,
namely to make as few suppositions about the meaning of particular term as
possible, when there are Sanskrit cognates recorded in, for instance,
Panini's Sanskrit grammar. Now, it happens that Panini records the adverb
parimukha.m "around the face" in order to explain the derivative
"paarimukhika" i.e. an attendant or servant who is constantly watching his
masters face (watching his face around the clock so to speak in orsder to
react to his wishes (cf. the term mukhullokika). My solution to this passage
is that it has to be seen in the context of a servant who is made to attend
his master assiduously (parimukha.m). In fact, I think that the passage
means "he lets (his) sati attend upon (him) assiduously". This is important
because upa.t.thaa generally means to attend upon and upa.t.thap is a
causative. This means that we do not have to make dubious assumptions about
te meaning of upa.t.thap in this particular passage, meaning that are not
attested elsewhere.

With best regards,

Ole Pind

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1539 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 9:12am 
Subject: Pa.n.natti/pa~n~natti

Dear Eisel and Ong, etc,

Have you noticed that there is an ~n/.n alternation in the word
pa~n~natti/pa.n.natti (manifestation)? See PED. I did a quick search of 
the CSCD and pa.n.natti is commonly found in commentaries, .tiikaas, 
other late Paali works, and even in the Cullaniddesa and the Yamaka. As 
it is found in the Burmese CS edition, the form is not confined to the 
Siamese tradition unlike .nh/~nh.
Again, it appears to be a Prakitism or a survival from an earlier
stratum of the Pali language. Geiger, Pali Grammar para 48.2 mentions
that rarely pa.n.narasa (15), is found instead of pannarasa & pa~cadasa,
and that pa.n.naasa (50) is found besides pa~n~aasa. He notes that in
Pkt pa.n.narasa and pa.n.naasa.m are used. Also, in footnote 2 to para
53.1, he mentions that, instead of the usual j~n > ~n~n development in
Pali (described in para 53.1), the Pkt j~n usually becomes .n.n. An
exception in Pali is aa.naa = Skt aaj~na, where a retroflex appears for
a palatal like in Pkt aa.naa; see para 63.2. Geiger does not mention
pa.n.natti.
Are there any rules in the Kaccaayana or Saddaniiti with regards the 
assimilation of ~n and .n?
Best wishes,
NT

1540 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 2:47pm 
Subject: Re: Pa.n.natti/pa~n~natti

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

> Are there any rules in the Kaccaayana or Saddaniiti with regards
> the assimilation of ~n and .n?

I haven't checked for specific rules of assimilation for ~n and .n but
you may be interested to know that the Saddaniiiti gives the following
two rules involving substitution (aadesa) of .n for ~n:

89. pa~n~nattti-pa~n~naasaana.m ~n~nassa .n.no.
90. pa~ncaviisatiyaa pa~ncassa pa.n.no.

However, I don't see these rules in Kaccaayana which would suggest
that forms like 'pa.n.natti' were unknown to Kaccaayana. The fact that
Aggava.msa gives these rules for substitution shows that the words
with ~n belong to an older period than the ones with .n.

On cerebrals or retroflexes, A.A. Macdonell has the following
interesting comment in his _A Vedic Grammar for Students_:

"8. The cerebrals are entirely secondary, being a specifically Indian
product and unknwn in the Indo-Iranian period. They are probably due
to aboriginal, especially Dravidian, influence. They are still rare in
the RV., where they never occur initially but only medially and
finally." --p.8

My comment: unlike classical Sanskrit, both Vedic and Pali have the
consonant /.l/.

Best wishes,
Jim

1541 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 9:43pm 
Subject: Thai Pali

Dear Friends,

I'm sorry if this is not in-line with the goals and aims of this group, 
as I can see that the train of conversation is clearly in regards to the 
pali as a language, but I have a question that has been creating 
difficulty for me for quite some time. Maybe it can be easily answered 
by someone on this group? It is a question regarding the Pali as a 
group of texts.

I have two quotes that have been clearly stated by a highly esteemed 
scholar/meditation monk in Bangkok as being "in the Paa.li", which I 
take to mean that they are somewhere in the three pitakas as we know 
them now. But I can find neither one on the CSCD in either the tipitaka 
or commentaries. Has anyone any clue as to why this may be? Here they 
are; if anyone can tell me where they are found, I would be most 
appreciative:

1. "Yen'eva yanti nibbaana.m buddhaa tesa~nca saavakaa,
ekaayanena maggena satipa.t.thaana sa~n~ninaa."

2. "Yaava hi imaa catasso parisaa
ma.m imaaya pa.tipattipuujaaya puujessanti
taava mama saasana.m nabhamajjhe
pu.n.nacando viya virocessati."

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1542 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 5:11am 
Subject: SV: Pa.n.natti/pa~n~natti

Dear Jim,

<My comment: unlike classical Sanskrit, both Vedic and Pali have the
consonant /.l/.

The evidence of Kacc shows that ths grammar was compiled at a time when the
script made no distinction between /.l/ and /l/, cf. e.g. Kacc 35 according
to which /l/ is an aagama. However, instances recorded in ms. Read /.l/.

Best wishes,

Ole Pind

1543 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 8:01am 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Dear Ven. Yuttadhamma:

I do not know where these specific Pali passages are from.
However, in Thailand there are many short Pali
passages, which were composed and commonly cited/memoried.
Given the fact that these passages are all in Pali, 
many Thai monks somehow assume that they
all originate in the Tipitaka.

tadao






--- Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> Υå
> Dear Friends,
> 
> I'm sorry if this is not in-line with the goals and aims of this group, 
> as I can see that the train of conversation is clearly in regards to the 
> pali as a language, but I have a question that has been creating 
> difficulty for me for quite some time. Maybe it can be easily answered 
> by someone on this group? It is a question regarding the Pali as a 
> group of texts.
> 
> I have two quotes that have been clearly stated by a highly esteemed 
> scholar/meditation monk in Bangkok as being "in the Paa.li", which I 
> take to mean that they are somewhere in the three pitakas as we know 
> them now. But I can find neither one on the CSCD in either the tipitaka 
> or commentaries. Has anyone any clue as to why this may be? Here they 
> are; if anyone can tell me where they are found, I would be most 
> appreciative:
> 
> 1. "Yen'eva yanti nibbaana.m buddhaa tesa~nca saavakaa,
> ekaayanena maggena satipa.t.thaana sa~n~ninaa."
> 
> 2. "Yaava hi imaa catasso parisaa
> ma.m imaaya pa.tipattipuujaaya puujessanti
> taava mama saasana.m nabhamajjhe
> pu.n.nacando viya virocessati."
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Yuttadhammo
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1544 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 10:51am 
Subject: Re: Pa.n.natti/pa~n~natti

Hello all,

[Preamble:] I have just completely disassembled my former computer and
"tore the beating heart from its chest". Hopefully I will soon be
generating more grammatical nonsense after implanting this heart into
the new computer.

> > Are there any rules in the Kaccaayana or Saddaniiti with regards
> > the assimilation of ~n and .n?

I would generally emphasise that this is a separate question from the
~nh/.nh controversy. My own impression is that "~n~n" and ".n.n"
follow some unwritten rule of euphony --very similar to the rules
governing the permutation of the anuswara. I only say this is an
"unwritten rule" because I myself have never read it. As with some
other questions that have been discussed on this list, it would seem
to me a desideratum to compare the operation of this "rule" (if it is
a rule) as it is observed in Pali poetics vs. prose. It may be that
one pronounciation "sounds more Vedic" than the other (this is an
issue, e.g., in the Sutta-Nipata, where "sounding Vedic" seems to be
at a premium), or it may be (more generally) that there is an
aesthetic criterion (shaping the pronounciation of these words in
certain contexts) that prevails over the rules of euphony _per se_
--and I would hope this might be demonstrable by comparing poetics to
prose.

One other desideratum comes to mind when I read this:

> "8. The cerebrals are entirely secondary, being a specifically Indian
> product and unknwn in the Indo-Iranian period. They are probably due
> to aboriginal, especially Dravidian, influence.

Does anyone know of an actual comparative study of Pali &
Munda/Santali linguistics? The relationship between Munda/Santal
languages, old Vedic, and M.I.A. (Pali & Prakrit) is certainly a very
thorny subject --but I do not know of any printed source that actually
speak from a sound knowledge of the Munda/Santal group. Every study I
have seen is limited to comparative judgements about Pali, Prakrit,
and Vedic, with only vague allusions to "aboriginal language" (such as
the quote above) --and PLEASE NOTE (contra the quotation above) *not*
all aboriginal language (in ancient India) can be called "Dravidian".

Unless we are so foolish as to define "Dravidian" as "non-Aryan", the
former term cannot reasonably include Munda/Santal in one category
with all of the South Indian languages.

> My comment: unlike classical Sanskrit, both Vedic and Pali have the
> consonant /.l/.

Indeed; in many respects, Pali has "ostentatious Vedicisims" that most
genres/periods of Sanskrit literature lack. I think there is an
understandable degree of discomfort in discussing these connections,
partly because of the tendency among some Hindu and Western scholars
to assert that Buddhist philosophy is largely/wholly derivative of the
Vedas. The latter thesis is absurd to anyone who know the primary
source material, however, it is convincing to many who know absolutely
nothing --and I have met plenty of them.

E.M.

1545 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 11:10am 
Subject: Re: sati meditation

This is, perhaps, an obvious point, but I will add below...

> In fact, I think that the passage
> means "he lets (his) sati attend upon (him)
> assiduously". This is important
>because upa.t.thaa generally means to attend
> upon and upa.t.thap is a
> causative. This means that we do not have to
>make dubious assumptions about
>the meaning of upa.t.thap in this particular
>passage, meaning that are not
>attested elsewhere.

Without reference to the Sanskrit, one could defend this reading of
the Pali "Upa.t.tha-" by construing "pari-" as "in the range of...". 
In Pali, we have familiar usage of attendants keeping "in ear's
range", or even "in a whisper's range"; it therefore does not seem so
unnatural to be attended upon within the range of one's breath, or
indeed within the mouth's range --i.e., very close to oneself indeed.

I am not convinced that this particular sutta has the overweening
importance that modern authors seem to assign to it. However, a small
class of western layperson seems to now earn money by teaching this
method of meditation in much the same way that Hindu "Yoga" has become
a bourgeois passtime at the Y.M.C.A.

Well, we've come a long way from _The Religion of the Samurai_ being
the predominant Western evaluation of Buddhism. But change is
empirical, progress ideological; I cannot say if we are any better off
at this stage of transition.

E.M.

1546 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 0:17pm 
Subject: Saddaniti aadesa

Dear Jim,

Thanks for the interesting information.

>you may be interested to know that the Saddaniiiti gives the following
>two rules involving substitution (aadesa) of .n for ~n:
>
>89. pa~n~nattti-pa~n~naasaana.m ~n~nassa .n.no.
>90. pa~ncaviisatiyaa pa~ncassa pa.n.no.
>
>However, I don't see these rules in Kaccaayana which would suggest
>that forms like 'pa.n.natti' were unknown to Kaccaayana. The fact that
>Aggava.msa gives these rules for substitution shows that the words
>with ~n belong to an older period than the ones with .n.
>
> 
>
I have a few questions regarding this.

1. Are there any substitution ''rules'' in the Kaccaayana?

2. Are Aggava.msa's aadesas obligatory rules? Or are they just 
possibilities, i.e., variant forms, which he mentions?

PED: AAdesa [fr. aadisati, cp. Sk. aadesa] information, pointing out; as 
tt. g. characteristic, determination, substitute, e. g. kutonidaanaa is 
at SnA 303 said to equal ki.m--nidaanaa, the to of kuto (abl.) equalling 
or being substituted for the acc. case: paccatta--vacanassa to--aadeso 
veditabbo.

3. Why would Aggava.msa suggest this substitution? As far as I know 
Aggava.msa was influenced by Sanskrit grammarians and it would seem 
strange that he would suggest to substitute with a Prakrit or Magadhi form.

4. Are words with .n.n or ~n~n and .nh or ~nh used in the Asoka edicts? 
Maybe the edicts can offer clarification.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1547 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:16pm 
Subject: SV: sati meditation

Dear Eisel,

<Without reference to the Sanskrit, one could defend this reading of the
Pali "Upa.t.tha-" by construing "pari-" as "in the range of...". 
In Pali, we have familiar usage of attendants keeping "in ear's range", or
even "in a whisper's range"; it therefore does not seem so unnatural to be
attended upon within the range of one's breath, or indeed within the mouth's
range --i.e., very close to oneself indeed.

This exactly what I mentioned in my post. In addition, I mentioned that we
do not have to make assumptions about the semantics of upa.t.thap
(causative) when the sommonly attested usage clearly menas to attend to
someone or something, and in the causative to let someone or something do
that. As for the rest I have no commentary except that it seems to me that
the Paninian reference makes perfect sense in the context of the use of
upa.t.thap. 

Best Regards,

Ole Pind

1548 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 10:13pm 
Subject: Re: Saddaniti aadesa

> 4. Are words with .n.n or ~n~n and .nh or ~nh used in the Asoka edicts?
> Maybe the edicts can offer clarification.

There are no double consonants of this kind in the edicts. Generally,
where one would expect to find a double consonant (in Pali) the edicts
just provide a single consonant. I suppose there are exceptions, but
I believe that neither .n.n nor ~n~n ever appear (i.e., as pairs).

E.M.

1549 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 6:56pm 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

Your questions are always welcome here.

I located the second quote on the Budsir IV cd-rom. I also searched
for the first quote on the same disk but came up nil. Btw, Budsir can
be accessed and searched on the budsir.org website.

> 2. "Yaava hi imaa catasso parisaa
> ma.m imaaya pa.tipattipuujaaya puujessanti
> taava mama saasana.m nabhamajjhe
> pu.n.nacando viya virocessati."

Ma"ngalatthadiipanii 1, p. 77, item 70

Best wishes,

Jim

1550 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 4:58pm 
Subject: Re: sati meditation

Dear Ole,

> Now, it happens that Panini records the adverb
> parimukha.m "around the face" in order to explain the derivative
> "paarimukhika" i.e. an attendant or servant who is constantly
watching his masters face (watching his face around the clock so to
speak in orsder to react to his wishes (cf. the term mukhullokika). My
solution to this passage is that it has to be seen in the context of a
servant who is made to attend his master assiduously (parimukha.m). In
fact, I think that the passage means "he lets (his) sati attend upon
(him) assiduously". This is important because upa.t.thaa generally
means to attend upon and upa.t.thap is a causative. This means that we
do not have to make dubious assumptions about te meaning of upa.t.thap
in this particular passage, meaning that are not attested elsewhere.
>>

I had a look at S.C. Vasu's translation and interpretation of Panini's
sutra (4.4.29 parimukha.m ca.) that you speak of. In addition to the
above interpretation of 'paarimukhika', there is another one given
that is quite the opposite: "a servant who always avoids the face of
his master". It depends on whether one interprets the prefix 'pari' as
avoidance or all around. 'parimukha.m' is said to be an indeclinable
(avyayiihhaava) compound. Because both 'pari' and 'mukha' each have a
number of possible meanings by themselves, putting the two together
significantly increases the number of possible interpretations and it
would be up to the well-informed reader to sift and sort it out. In
addition to 'face' and 'mouth' for 'mukha', there is also 'head' which
can be taken metaphorically as the meditation-subject and we can come
up with: "having established mindfulness around the
meditation-subject" (one of the 21) or "having caused mindfulness to
attend to the meditation-subject". This seems to agree with the
commentarial "kamma.t.thaanaabhimukha.m sati.m .thapayitvaa" (having
caused sati to stand in the presence of the meditation-subject).

Best wishes,
Jim

1551 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 3:18am 
Subject: SV: sati meditation

Dear Jim,

<In addition to the above interpretation of 'paarimukhika', there is another
one given that is quite the opposite: "a servant who always avoids the face
of his master". It depends on whether one interprets the prefix 'pari' as
avoidance or all around. 

In the context of upa.t.thap- "pari-" could hardly imply avoidance.

<In addition to 'face' and 'mouth' for 'mukha', there is also 'head' which
can be taken metaphorically as the meditation-subject and we can come up
with: "having established mindfulness around the meditation-subject" (one of
the 21) or "having caused mindfulness to attend to the meditation-subject".
This seems to agree with the commentarial "kamma.t.thaanaabhimukha.m sati.m
.thapayitvaa" (having caused sati to stand in the presence of the
meditation-subject).

The concept of kamma.t.thaana is only attested in post-canonical lit.
beginning with Vimuttimagga. The commentarial explanation appears to
construe parimukha.m as an adjective qualifying sati.m, an interpretation
that at least Pa.tis seems to presuppose. It must have been a widespread
understanding of the passage because in Buddhist Sanskrit lit. like the
Vajrachedikaa we find praatimukhii.m sm.rtim. This, I believe, is
impossible.

With best wishes,

Ole Pind

1552 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 5:22am 
Subject: Re: SV: sati meditation

Hi Ole Pind:

I am sorry, but I have to ask you a very simple question:
if marimukkh.m is a modifier of sati.m., then what would
be your translation of the noun phrase, and what would it really mean?


tadao


--- Ole Holten Pind <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> Υå
> 
> Dear Jim,
> 
> <In addition to the above interpretation of 'paarimukhika', there is another
> one given that is quite the opposite: "a servant who always avoids the face
> of his master". It depends on whether one interprets the prefix 'pari' as
> avoidance or all around. 
> 
> In the context of upa.t.thap- "pari-" could hardly imply avoidance.
> 
> <In addition to 'face' and 'mouth' for 'mukha', there is also 'head' which
> can be taken metaphorically as the meditation-subject and we can come up
> with: "having established mindfulness around the meditation-subject" (one of
> the 21) or "having caused mindfulness to attend to the meditation-subject".
> This seems to agree with the commentarial "kamma.t.thaanaabhimukha.m sati.m
> .thapayitvaa" (having caused sati to stand in the presence of the
> meditation-subject).
> 
> The concept of kamma.t.thaana is only attested in post-canonical lit.
> beginning with Vimuttimagga. The commentarial explanation appears to
> construe parimukha.m as an adjective qualifying sati.m, an interpretation
> that at least Pa.tis seems to presuppose. It must have been a widespread
> understanding of the passage because in Buddhist Sanskrit lit. like the
> Vajrachedikaa we find praatimukhii.m sm.rtim. This, I believe, is
> impossible.
> 
> With best wishes,
> 
> Ole Pind

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1553 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 7:38am 
Subject: SV: SV: sati meditation

Hi Tadao,

<I am sorry, but I have to ask you a very simple question:
if marimukkh.m is a modifier of sati.m., then what would be your translation
of the noun phrase, and what would it really mean?


Parimukha.m is an adverb to be construed with upa.t.thapetvaa. As I have
suggested the term refers to the actions of a diligent attendant who watches
his master around the clock, cf. the expression mukhullokaka/-ika. The
causative indicates that the meditating monk lets his sati serve him
attentively (parimukha.m)

Ole Pind

1554 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:28am 
Subject: Re: SV: SV: sati meditation

Hi Ole Pind:

Thank you for your clarification.
I like the following reading of yours since it doesn't sugest any involvement
of Agent or Self:

The causative indicates that the meditating monk lets his sati serve him
attentively (parimukha.m)

tadao


--- Ole Holten Pind <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> Υå
> 
> Hi Tadao,
> 
> <I am sorry, but I have to ask you a very simple question:
> if marimukkh.m is a modifier of sati.m., then what would be your translation
> of the noun phrase, and what would it really mean?
> 
> 
> Parimukha.m is an adverb to be construed with upa.t.thapetvaa. As I have
> suggested the term refers to the actions of a diligent attendant who watches
> his master around the clock, cf. the expression mukhullokaka/-ika. The
> causative indicates that the meditating monk lets his sati serve him
> attentively (parimukha.m)
> 
> Ole Pind
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1555 
From: Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@xs4all.nl> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 10:46am 
Subject: Re: nimitta, animitta.

Dear Jim,
Just back from being away a few days, I want to thank you for your
translation which I will study. If I have problems I let you know,
Nina. 
op 25-11-2005 18:22 schreef Jim Anderson op jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca:

>>> Also, "aaramma.naa" which seems to be in the ablative singular
> (from > > the object?) is not clear.

1556 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2005 9:45pm 
Subject: Re: Saddaniti aadesa

Dear Bh. Nyanatusita,

> I have a few questions regarding this.
>
> 1. Are there any substitution ''rules'' in the Kaccaayana?

Yes, there certainly are. These kinds of rules are quite numerous in
the traditional Sanskrit and Pali grammars. Not only are there rules
for the substitution of letters but also for morphemes and words, e.g.
sa is the substitute of pasattha before iya and i.t.tha. This gives us
seyya and se.t.tha.

> 2. Are Aggava.msa's aadesas obligatory rules? Or are they just
> possibilities, i.e., variant forms, which he mentions?

I don't know enough to give you a definitive answer except to say that
some of the rules appear to be obligatory. In reading the gloss for
the two rules I cited, the substitution is optional. But in Sd 80 'bo
vassa' (also in Kaccaayana) as in 'nibbaana.m' one might assume that
it is obligatory since one never sees 'nivvaana.m' or 'nirvaa.na.m' in
a Pali text. But, for all we know, nivvaana.m may once have been
normal in Pali with nibbaana.m as an optional alternative.

I will have to defer attempting to answer your other questions since
there isn't much time left to do the research. I'll be away for a week
starting Tuesday morning and will be meeting Eisel in Toronto this
Thursday.

Best wishes,
Jim

1557 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 7:45pm 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Dear Jim,

Thank you, that makes sense - as I understand, the Ma"ngalatthadiipanii 
is a Thai text, so it wouldn't appear on the CSCD. No hope on the other 
quote, I suppose.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo



Jim Anderson wrote:
> Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
> 
> Your questions are always welcome here.
> 
> I located the second quote on the Budsir IV cd-rom. I also searched
> for the first quote on the same disk but came up nil. Btw, Budsir can
> be accessed and searched on the budsir.org website.
> 
>> 2. "Yaava hi imaa catasso parisaa
>> ma.m imaaya pa.tipattipuujaaya puujessanti
>> taava mama saasana.m nabhamajjhe
>> pu.n.nacando viya virocessati."
> 
> Ma"ngalatthadiipanii 1, p. 77, item 70
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Jim
> 

1558 
From: "Stephen Hodge" <s.hodge@padmacholing.freeserve.co.uk> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 7:56pm 
Subject: Variant reading

Dear Friends,

For those interested in textual minutiae, I have recenly noted the following 
textual variation. In the string "puaabhisandaa kusalaabhisandaa 
sukhassaahaaraa", found, inter alia, in SN 55.31-33 abhisanda etc and 
several places in AN, working back from Chinese and Tibetan sources, I have 
found that instead of the "aahaara" in "sukhassaahaaraa", the SA reading has 
"aadhaara". It is not obvious which reading should take precedence, though, 
to my mind, the SA reading seems to make better sense in the context than 
the Pali "aahaara".

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge

1559 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:44pm 
Subject: Re: SV: SV: sati meditation

Quoth Jim Anderson:
---------
"Because both 'pari' and 'mukha' each have a
number of possible meanings by themselves, putting the two together
significantly increases the number of possible interpretations and it
would be up to the well-informed reader to sift and sort it out."
---------

I disagree; taking a "decoder ring" approach to translation can be
time-consuming and dangerous.

Testing all possible combinations against a self-defined criterion (as
to which one might be correct) will be less effective than Ole's
method of pre-determining the possible meanings allowed by the known
terms, known grammatical structures, and known prior usage, forming
the context of the unknown term. I should emphasise the word "prior"
in the phrase "prior usage" --Ole has already pointed out that
examples of usage from 1,000 years after a text was written are not
admissable in the same way as examples of contemporaneous or earlier
usage.

Considering, e.g., the debate that arose over "island vs. lamp" in
translating the Buddha's last words (in the Maha-Pari-Nibbana Sutta),
one may generally say that this has been something of a problem in
Western scholarship: the assertion of "all possible meanings" as
comparatively probable interpretations comprising any given passage
has proliferated incorrect readings among the Pali illiterati. This
is particularly striking when comparing some translations of the
Dhammapada, where it seems that "all possible meanings" have been
considered, and the one selected seems simply to reflect the
ideological agenda of the translator --not the grammatical context,
nor prior usage. As Mason says, etymology tells us nothing about
meaning; for the latter we must rely solely on usage as our guide. If
etymology determined meaning, then "a tragedy" would be a song about a
goat.

E.M.

1560 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:42am 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Dear Yuttadhammo,

There are many Pali texts around in Thailand which are not part of the
Pali Canon and are not found on the CSCD, such as apocryphal jaatakas
(Pa~n~naasa-jaataka, etc), apocryphal suttas, works dealing with relics,
Thai subcommentaries called yojanaas, anthologies, etc. Quite a few of 
these texts are little known and some maybe even unknown to western 
scholarship. The quotations you give are likely to come from some of 
those texts.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1561 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:45pm 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Bhante,

Honestly, I don't think it goes quite that far in this case; because of 
the scholastic background of the monk in question, I would bet that both 
quotes most likely come from one or another "lakh sutra" (foundation 
text) for the Thai Pali exams. It makes sense, therefore, that the one 
quote exists in the Mangalatthadipani, because it is used as a lakh 
sutra for level 9 pali studies. If I am correct, it is a modern work by 
a Lanna scholar, and supposedly takes parts of the tipitaka and puts 
them together in a cohesive fashion, based on the maha-mangala sutta. I 
am surprised that the quote is in the Mangalatthadipani but not in the 
tipitaka itself, since it is put in the mouth of the Lord Buddha. I 
can't imagine the author of the mangalatthadipani making it up in the 
modern day and getting away with it. Unless he took it in turn from one 
of the more apocryphal Thai texts.

I'll have to look up myself on the Budsir to see, I guess. Jim, you 
didn't happen to download the page it was on to send to me did you? :)

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

nyanatusita wrote:
> Dear Yuttadhammo,
> 
> There are many Pali texts around in Thailand which are not part of the
> Pali Canon and are not found on the CSCD, such as apocryphal jaatakas
> (Pa~n~naasa-jaataka, etc), apocryphal suttas, works dealing with relics,
> Thai subcommentaries called yojanaas, anthologies, etc. Quite a few of 
> these texts are little known and some maybe even unknown to western 
> scholarship. The quotations you give are likely to come from some of 
> those texts.
> Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
> 

1562 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:08pm 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Okay, I've gone through the Budsir site, and it appears to me that the 
quote below is an commentatorial extrapolation of the Buddha's words in 
the mahaparinibbaana sutta "yo kho aananda... paramaaya puujaaya."

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

Jim Anderson wrote:
> Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
> 
> Your questions are always welcome here.
> 
> I located the second quote on the Budsir IV cd-rom. I also searched
> for the first quote on the same disk but came up nil. Btw, Budsir can
> be accessed and searched on the budsir.org website.
> 
>> 2. "Yaava hi imaa catasso parisaa
>> ma.m imaaya pa.tipattipuujaaya puujessanti
>> taava mama saasana.m nabhamajjhe
>> pu.n.nacando viya virocessati."
> 
> Ma"ngalatthadiipanii 1, p. 77, item 70
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Jim
> 

1563 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Nov 30, 2005 4:02am 
Subject: SV: Thai Pali

Dear freinds,

The recently published Thai edition of the ~naanodayappakara.nam contains a
lot of verses put in the mouth of the Buddha. I have not been able to trace
them to the canon, though. The study of Pali pseudepigraphy has not begun
yet. It is, of course, quite common in Mahaayaana.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

Bhante,

Honestly, I don't think it goes quite that far in this case; because of the
scholastic background of the monk in question, I would bet that both quotes
most likely come from one or another "lakh sutra" (foundation
text) for the Thai Pali exams. It makes sense, therefore, that the one
quote exists in the Mangalatthadipani, because it is used as a lakh sutra
for level 9 pali studies. If I am correct, it is a modern work by a Lanna
scholar, and supposedly takes parts of the tipitaka and puts them together
in a cohesive fashion, based on the maha-mangala sutta. I am surprised that
the quote is in the Mangalatthadipani but not in the tipitaka itself, since
it is put in the mouth of the Lord Buddha. I can't imagine the author of
the mangalatthadipani making it up in the modern day and getting away with
it. Unless he took it in turn from one of the more apocryphal Thai texts.

I'll have to look up myself on the Budsir to see, I guess. Jim, you didn't
happen to download the page it was on to send to me did you? :)

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

nyanatusita wrote:
> Dear Yuttadhammo,
> 
> There are many Pali texts around in Thailand which are not part of the 
> Pali Canon and are not found on the CSCD, such as apocryphal jaatakas 
> (Pa~n~naasa-jaataka, etc), apocryphal suttas, works dealing with 
> relics, Thai subcommentaries called yojanaas, anthologies, etc. Quite 
> a few of these texts are little known and some maybe even unknown to 
> western scholarship. The quotations you give are likely to come from 
> some of those texts.
> Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>

1564 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 0:37am 
Subject: Re: Thai Pali

Although it may be a very obvious point, the vast bulk of words "put
into the mouth of the Buddha" in South-East Asian pseudoscriptures are
associated with the Jataka (incl. para-canonical Jataka) folklore of
the region.

I had the impression that Thai cosmological texts were also "liberal"
in their ascriptions of quotations/paraphrases to the Buddha --but
this may reflect the same issue already mentioned of all "Pali" being
regarded (by some monks) as authoritative (or canonical) in some
sense.

Hopefully Dr. McDaniel will chime in with some further observations
about Thailand and Laos.

E.M.

On 11/30/05, Ole Holten Pind <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> wrote:
>
> Dear freinds,
>
> The recently published Thai edition of the ~naanodayappakara.nam contains a
> lot of verses put in the mouth of the Buddha. I have not been able to trace
> them to the canon, though. The study of Pali pseudepigraphy has not begun
> yet. It is, of course, quite common in Mahaayaana.

1565 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 2:06am 
Subject: Man.galatthadiipanii

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

Sorry, but the Mangalatthadiipanii is not a modern work, but a late
medieaval work written by Siri Mangala in the Lanna Kingdom in 1524.

When things become part of the Asian Buddhist traditions, the borders 
between what is canonical and non canonical often blur. Thailand, 
Cambodia and Laos (i.e. the countries part of old Siam) seem to have a 
fairly strong apocryphal, or what Ole Pind calls a pseudepigraphical, 
tradition, but it also exists to a lesser degree in Burma and Sri Lanka.

Many people here and in Thailand and Burma,even some learned monks,
actually believe that the Buddha came flying to their countries, 
although the Canon and modern scholarship do not support this in the 
least. To question these beliefs can meet strong resistance. A hilareous
example is the one about the German monk living in Burma who was 
discussing the Jaataka stories with a Burmese monk. When the German monk 
questioned the literal truth of the image of hare on the moon (found in 
the jaataka in which the hare/bodhisatta sacrificed himself by jumping 
into the fire, this being so noble that his image appeared on the moon, 
etc.) the Burmese monk accused him of harboring wrong views...

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

>Honestly, I don't think it goes quite that far in this case; because of 
>the scholastic background of the monk in question, I would bet that both 
>quotes most likely come from one or another "lakh sutra" (foundation 
>text) for the Thai Pali exams. It makes sense, therefore, that the one 
>quote exists in the Mangalatthadipani, because it is used as a lakh 
>sutra for level 9 pali studies. If I am correct, it is a modern work by 
>a Lanna scholar, and supposedly takes parts of the tipitaka and puts 
>them together in a cohesive fashion, based on the maha-mangala sutta. I 
>am surprised that the quote is in the Mangalatthadipani but not in the 
>tipitaka itself, since it is put in the mouth of the Lord Buddha. I 
>can't imagine the author of the mangalatthadipani making it up in the 
>modern day and getting away with it. Unless he took it in turn from one 
>of the more apocryphal Thai texts.
> 
>
nyanatusita wrote:

>>Dear Yuttadhammo,
>>
>>There are many Pali texts around in Thailand which are not part of the
>>Pali Canon and are not found on the CSCD, such as apocryphal jaatakas
>>(Pa~n~naasa-jaataka, etc), apocryphal suttas, works dealing with relics,
>>Thai subcommentaries called yojanaas, anthologies, etc. Quite a few of 
>>these texts are little known and some maybe even unknown to western 
>>scholarship. The quotations you give are likely to come from some of 
>>those texts.
>>Best wishes,
>> Bh. Nyanatusita
>>

1566 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:02pm 
Subject: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Ole,

Regarding the ~Naanodayappakara.nam. You mention a recently published 
Thai edition, however, Dr Filliozat
mentions in relation to a MS of this text found in the Vat Po MSS 
collection that there is an edition published
already in 1962: ''Gambhiira~naanodaya published in homage to Phra 
Supharnabat Somdet Phra Sangkharat ~Naa.nodaya mahaathera, 22-23 
mithunaayon 2506 [June 1962].A copy of this printed edition has been 
offered to EFEO library in Paris.''
Is this an editon of the text or maybe some kind of commemoration volume 
in honour of Phra Somdet ~Naa.nodaya?

Best wishe,
Bh. Nyanatusita

> 
>Dear freinds,
>
>The recently published Thai edition of the ~naanodayappakara.nam contains a
>lot of verses put in the mouth of the Buddha. I have not been able to trace
>them to the canon, though. The study of Pali pseudepigraphy has not begun
>yet. It is, of course, quite common in Mahaayaana.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Ole Pind
>

1567 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 2:59am 
Subject: Re: Man.galatthadiipanii

Hi Everyone:

In Thiland, it is often the case that monks recite/chant Pali passages 
without understanding their meanings. Their general lack of Pali grammatical knowledge 
may have been adding some confusion to the issue discussed below.

tadao



--- nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> Υå
> Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
> 
> Sorry, but the Mangalatthadiipanii is not a modern work, but a late
> medieaval work written by Siri Mangala in the Lanna Kingdom in 1524.
> 
> When things become part of the Asian Buddhist traditions, the borders 
> between what is canonical and non canonical often blur. Thailand, 
> Cambodia and Laos (i.e. the countries part of old Siam) seem to have a 
> fairly strong apocryphal, or what Ole Pind calls a pseudepigraphical, 
> tradition, but it also exists to a lesser degree in Burma and Sri Lanka.
> 
> Many people here and in Thailand and Burma,even some learned monks,
> actually believe that the Buddha came flying to their countries, 
> although the Canon and modern scholarship do not support this in the 
> least. To question these beliefs can meet strong resistance. A hilareous
> example is the one about the German monk living in Burma who was 
> discussing the Jaataka stories with a Burmese monk. When the German monk 
> questioned the literal truth of the image of hare on the moon (found in 
> the jaataka in which the hare/bodhisatta sacrificed himself by jumping 
> into the fire, this being so noble that his image appeared on the moon, 
> etc.) the Burmese monk accused him of harboring wrong views...
> 
> Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
> 
> >Honestly, I don't think it goes quite that far in this case; because of 
> >the scholastic background of the monk in question, I would bet that both 
> >quotes most likely come from one or another "lakh sutra" (foundation 
> >text) for the Thai Pali exams. It makes sense, therefore, that the one 
> >quote exists in the Mangalatthadipani, because it is used as a lakh 
> >sutra for level 9 pali studies. If I am correct, it is a modern work by 
> >a Lanna scholar, and supposedly takes parts of the tipitaka and puts 
> >them together in a cohesive fashion, based on the maha-mangala sutta. I 
> >am surprised that the quote is in the Mangalatthadipani but not in the 
> >tipitaka itself, since it is put in the mouth of the Lord Buddha. I 
> >can't imagine the author of the mangalatthadipani making it up in the 
> >modern day and getting away with it. Unless he took it in turn from one 
> >of the more apocryphal Thai texts.
> > 
> >
> nyanatusita wrote:
> 
> >>Dear Yuttadhammo,
> >>
> >>There are many Pali texts around in Thailand which are not part of the
> >>Pali Canon and are not found on the CSCD, such as apocryphal jaatakas
> >>(Pa~n~naasa-jaataka, etc), apocryphal suttas, works dealing with relics,
> >>Thai subcommentaries called yojanaas, anthologies, etc. Quite a few of 
> >>these texts are little known and some maybe even unknown to western 
> >>scholarship. The quotations you give are likely to come from some of 
> >>those texts.
> >>Best wishes,
> >> Bh. Nyanatusita
> >>

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1568 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 7:02am 
Subject: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Bhante,

<Regarding the ~Naanodayappakara.nam. You mention a recently published Thai
edition, however, Dr Filliozat mentions in relation to a MS of this text
found in the Vat Po MSS collection that there is an edition published
already in 1962: ''Gambhiira~naanodaya published in homage to Phra
Supharnabat Somdet Phra Sangkharat ~Naa.nodaya mahaathera, 22-23 mithunaayon
2506 [June 1962].A copy of this printed edition has been offered to EFEO
library in Paris.''
Is this an editon of the text or maybe some kind of commemoration volume in
honour of Phra Somdet ~Naa.nodaya?

Thank you very much for this imformation. I was completely unaware of the
edition you mention. Do you think that Dr. Filliozat would have it copied
and mailed to me? Unfortunately I am unable to read the Thai preface of the
modern edition that was presented to me in 2004. It contains a lot of
photos, some in colour. I wonder if anyone has ever studied it. It is a kind
of saasanava.msa. It contains quotations from Mahaava.msa and the poraa.na,
some of which are identical with Diipava.msa verses. Whoever wrote it must
have had access to the material on which both Diipava.msa amd Mahaava.msa
are based.

Best regards,

Ole 
> 

1569 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 2:05pm 
Subject: Re: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

I think I have a copy of this edition of the 
Gambhira-nyanodaya-Pakarana in my files. If not, I will check 
with a couple friends and get back to you if I find it. 
best, 
jm 
P.S. The Mangaladipani is one of the most well-known text 
(1524 Chiang Mai) in Thailand and is the subject of the 
highest Pali examinations. There are a number of good 
vernacular Thai studies of this text. The text has been out on 
CD Rom for these exams. It is largely an anthology of Pali 
canonical verses. I have lots more on this text if anyone is 
interested. To respond to Eisel's request (sorry, i enjoy the 
debates on this site, but only chime in if I have something to 
add, I am learning a lot from the group). In general, I work a 
lot on the subject of "apocryphal" Pali and bi-lingual 
(Pali-Thai, Pali-Lao, Pali-Khoen, Pali-Lue, Pali-Shan) 
manuscripts in Laos and Thailand. We can see these texts as 
corrupt or as creative depending on your perspective and the 
way the text is used in liturgies, homiletics, rituals, drama. 
Peter Skilling works on these subjects as well and has 
published a few articles and a three volume manuscript 
catalogue looking at these "new" texts in the region 
(14th-20th centuries). I have pasted below my entry (only 1000 
words) to the Encyclopedia of Buddhism on "Laos," it has some 
short notes on texts in the region. I have a few other longer 
pieces on the subject and can send some to interested parties 
(subjects include: khoen adaptations of jatakas, nissaya, 
naamasadda, and vohaara texts, oral adaptations of pali texts, 
uses of the abhidhamma in funeral rituals, history of the EFEO 
and the teaching of pali in laos, and the like). 

History of Lao Buddhism 
Justin McDaniel 
(from the Encyclopedia of Buddhism) 

Texts (palm-leaf and mulberry leaf manuscripts, stone and 
metal inscriptions, travelers reports, and printed texts) are 
our primary sources for the history of Buddhist practice in 
Laos. These sources only provide information on Lao Buddhism 
from the 14th century and many remain unexposed to scholarly 
scrutiny in monastic, governmental and royal archives. A 
survey of the information gleaned from these sources reveals a 
fragmented and contested history of royal patronage and 
governmental reform, as well as a creative engagement between 
local, indigenous beliefs and a translocal religion. As the 
various kingdoms of what now makes up Laos emerged as regional 
centers of power and wealth Buddhism became constitutive of 
Lao identity. In turn, royal reform, rituals, beliefs, 
aspirations and vehicles of expression reconstituted Buddhism. 

Textual sources and inscriptions reflect the fragmented and, 
for lack of a better word, syncretic, nature of the early 
history Lao Buddhism. Generally, the most common texts found 
in Laos before the 20th century are nidans (folktales such as 
Thao Hung Thao Chuang, Sin Xai, Om Lom Dang Kieo), the 
anisamsas (blessings used in Buddhist ritual and magical 
ceremonies), parittas (incantations for protection), xalongs 
(ceremonial instructions for both lay and religious 
ceremonies), aprocryphal jatakas (non-canonical birth-stories 
of the Buddha), nissayas (creative translations and 
commentaries of Pali texts) and tamnans (relic, image and 
temple histories). Xalongs, anisamsas and parittas are used in 
everyday house, buffalo, temple and bodily blessings or for 
making love potions and protective tatoos. The tamnans are 
histories that show the heavy Buddhist influence in the 
governmental, economic, and military history of Laos. 
Apocryphal jatakas, and nidans are intricate and entertaining 
stories of heroism, romance and adventure that were (and are) 
often requested to be narrated at religious events or 
life-cycle rituals, such as funerals, the end of the rains 
retreat, etc. or were the basis for monastic education and 
public sermons. What should be emphasized is that Pali 
canonical texts are often in the minority in these collections 
and that translocal Buddhist narratives and philosophical 
texts have been commented on and adapted by local Lao teachers 
and these commentaries are much more popular in Laos than 
their source texts from India and Sri Lanka. 

Lao Buddhist inscriptions have yet to be fully surveyed, read 
and catalogued; however, they generally provide evidence of 
royal or wealthy lay patronage of certain monasteries (votive 
inscriptions). They also reflect the great influence Northern 
Thailand and (after 1560) Burma had on the practice of Lao 
Buddhism. One inscription from Dansai (formerly part of the 
Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang, but since the mid-19th century in 
Thailand) tells of Buddhist monks accompanying the king to a 
political meeting with the King of the Kingdom of Ayudhya. 
Another from Vientiane (the present capital of Laos) suggests 
that their were many monks from Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) 
in the region which would account for similarities in Lao and 
Northern Thai Buddhist and secular literature composed from 
1480 to 1620. 

King Phothisalarat was probably the most active patron of 
Buddhism and Buddhist literature in Laos. It is him and his 
son Xetthathirat that we must thank for most of our sources of 
Lao Buddhist history. He actively tried to purify Lao 
Buddhism by banning magical practices and the worshipping of 
phi (ghosts) and phabhum (local deities of trees, rocks, 
waterfalls, etc.). However, modern rituals (like the riak 
kwan, phuk heuan, bun bang fai, etc.) in various parts of Laos 
show the limited success his reforms since the all of these 
rituals combine the worship and propitiation of phi and 
phabhum by Buddhist monks and the chanting of Buddhist 
mantras. The practice of drawing magical yantras by monks and 
lay experts has also been popular from at least the 15th 
century and involve the mixing of Buddhist prayers with 
aspirations to be lucky in love, finances and to avoid attacks 
by knives, guns and poison. The documentation and 
preservation of many of these artistic works and rituals by 
the French and the fact that many of the ritual implements, 
paintings, and statues sit in French libraries, museums, and 
private homes speaks to the contested legacy of French 
Colonial rule. 

Laos did not have a printing press until the French Colonial 
Period (approx. 1893 to 1954) and only recently has there been 
a regular printing of religious books in Lao. These books 
cover a wide range of subjects, but generally are like their 
palm and mulberry leaf manuscript predecessors. Still, 
whether it be printed books, inscriptions or manuscripts, the 
textual sources resist easy classifcation and cannot be used 
to provide a clear, linear history of Buddhism in Laos. 
However, this should not suggest that Lao scholars from the 
14th century to the present day did not attempt to write (or 
perhaps initially orally record) these types of positivist 
historical chronicles. There are several extant royal and 
religious chronicles, the most famous being the Nidan Khun 
Borom. These chronicles tell of the introduction of Buddhism 
into Laos under King Fa Ngum in the mid-14th century, the 
growth and reform and of Buddhism under Kings Xetthathirat in 
the late 15th century, the movement of monks, scribes, 
artisans, etc. from Chiang Mai to Laos after the Burmese 
invasion of the former in the 1560s, the patronage and 
building of numerous monasteries under King Surinyavong from 
1638 to 1695, the burning of the Sisaket Monastery and the 
theft of the Emerald Buddha by the Siamese in the late 18th 
century, and the building of numerous monasteries, the 
re-unification of the three kingdoms of Laos (Luang Pabang, 
Vientiane and Xampasak) by King Anuwong and the subsequent 
burning of the Vientiane by the forces of Siam in 1827. 
Still, these chronicles, like Western and local modern 
historical reconstructions written in the twentieth century, 
generally sacrifice accuracy to clarity, covering the variety 
of the of Buddhist beliefs and practices with a sheen of unity 
and linearity. 

In the 19th and 20th centuries, travelers reports provide 
information about the history of Buddhist practice among the 
general population that is lacking in royal chronicles, 
protective chants, philosophy and relic and temple histories, 
and confirm the validity of some of the rituals described in 
folktales and epic poems. The six volume collection by 
members of the Mission Pavie (1879-1895) and the work of Karl 
Izikowitz in the 1930s discusses how local animistic 
practices of the Hmong, Sedang, Moi and other Lao hill-tribes 
became mixed with Buddhist practices and how monks took on the 
role of magician, appeaser of local deities, doctor and 
secular and religious teacher in Lao villages. Still, besides 
these reports and many others, a comprehensive study of how 
Buddhism and indigenous Lao religions have constituted each 
other remains a desideratum. 

At the end of almost 100 years of war and foreign occupation, 
the independent Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos emerged 
in 1975 and despite its being Marxist the government has 
allowed the practice of Buddhism to flourish and even used 
Buddhist monks as political advocates who hold up the 
communist ideals of equality among the classes, generosity, 
and community cooperation. However, the government have 
encouraged more involvement of monks in community development 
and secular education by sponsoring the Union of Lao Buddhists 
and other Buddhist/Communist organizations, while discouraging 
monks practice of traditional healing rituals, exorcism and 
prophecy, or from using the monkhood to avoid military and 
government service. They also have made attempts to limit lay 
donations (in order to gain merit for a favourable re-birth) 
to monasteries, which has been the foundation of lay/monk 
interaction for the entire history of Lao Buddhism. Still, 
like the efforts of King Phothisalarat and King Anuvong to 
reform Buddhism, these government policies have largely been 
quietly ignored and although monks have played a greater role 
in secular education since 1975, the unique and syncretic 
practices of Lao Buddhists that our sources evince persist and 
even flourish in among the urban and rural population. 








---- Original message ---- 
>Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:02:57 +0100 
>From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
>Subject: SV: [palistudy] Nyanodayapakarana 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> 
> 
> 
>Dear Bhante, 
> 
><Regarding the ~Naanodayappakara.nam. You mention a recently 
published Thai 
>edition, however, Dr Filliozat mentions in relation to a MS 
of this text 
>found in the Vat Po MSS collection that there is an edition 
published 
>already in 1962: ''Gambhiira~naanodaya published in homage to 
Phra 
>Supharnabat Somdet Phra Sangkharat ~Naa.nodaya mahaathera, 
22-23 mithunaayon 
>2506 [June 1962].A copy of this printed edition has been 
offered to EFEO 
>library in Paris.'' 
>Is this an editon of the text or maybe some kind of 
commemoration volume in 
>honour of Phra Somdet ~Naa.nodaya? 
> 
>Thank you very much for this imformation. I was completely 
unaware of the 
>edition you mention. Do you think that Dr. Filliozat would 
have it copied 
>and mailed to me? Unfortunately I am unable to read the Thai 
preface of the 
>modern edition that was presented to me in 2004. It contains 
a lot of 
>photos, some in colour. I wonder if anyone has ever studied 
it. It is a kind 
>of saasanava.msa. It contains quotations from Mahaava.msa and 
the poraa.na, 
>some of which are identical with Diipava.msa verses. Whoever 
wrote it must 
>have had access to the material on which both Diipava.msa amd 
Mahaava.msa 
>are based. 
> 
>Best regards, 
> 
>Ole 
>> 
______________ 
Dr. Justin McDaniel 
Dept. of Religious Studies 
2617 Humanities Building 
University of California, Riverside 
Riverside, CA 92521 
909-827-4530 
justinm@ucr.edu

1570 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 3:01pm 
Subject: SV: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Justin,

If you find your copy, I would appreciate if you could send me one.

All the best,

Ole Pind 


I think I have a copy of this edition of the Gambhira-nyanodaya-Pakarana in
my files. If not, I will check with a couple friends and get back to you if
I find it.
best,
jm
P.S. The Mangaladipani is one of the most well-known text
(1524 Chiang Mai) in Thailand and is the subject of the highest Pali
examinations. There are a number of good vernacular Thai studies of this
text. The text has been out on CD Rom for these exams. It is largely an
anthology of Pali canonical verses. I have lots more on this text if anyone
is interested. To respond to Eisel's request (sorry, i enjoy the debates on
this site, but only chime in if I have something to add, I am learning a lot
from the group). In general, I work a lot on the subject of "apocryphal"
Pali and bi-lingual (Pali-Thai, Pali-Lao, Pali-Khoen, Pali-Lue, Pali-Shan)
manuscripts in Laos and Thailand. We can see these texts as corrupt or as
creative depending on your perspective and the way the text is used in
liturgies, homiletics, rituals, drama.
Peter Skilling works on these subjects as well and has published a few
articles and a three volume manuscript catalogue looking at these "new"
texts in the region (14th-20th centuries). I have pasted below my entry
(only 1000
words) to the Encyclopedia of Buddhism on "Laos," it has some short notes on
texts in the region. I have a few other longer pieces on the subject and can
send some to interested parties (subjects include: khoen adaptations of
jatakas, nissaya, naamasadda, and vohaara texts, oral adaptations of pali
texts, uses of the abhidhamma in funeral rituals, history of the EFEO and
the teaching of pali in laos, and the like).

History of Lao Buddhism
Justin McDaniel
(from the Encyclopedia of Buddhism)

Texts (palm-leaf and mulberry leaf manuscripts, stone and metal
inscriptions, traveler's reports, and printed texts) are our primary sources
for the history of Buddhist practice in Laos. These sources only provide
information on Lao Buddhism from the 14th century and many remain unexposed
to scholarly scrutiny in monastic, governmental and royal archives. A survey
of the information gleaned from these sources reveals a fragmented and
contested history of royal patronage and governmental reform, as well as a
creative engagement between local, indigenous beliefs and a translocal
religion. As the various kingdoms of what now makes up Laos emerged as
regional centers of power and wealth Buddhism became constitutive of Lao
identity. In turn, royal reform, rituals, beliefs, aspirations and vehicles
of expression reconstituted Buddhism.

Textual sources and inscriptions reflect the fragmented and, for lack of a
better word, syncretic, nature of the early history Lao Buddhism. Generally,
the most common texts found in Laos before the 20th century are nidans
(folktales such as Thao Hung Thao Chuang, Sin Xai, Om Lom Dang Kieo), the
anisamsas (blessings used in Buddhist ritual and magical ceremonies),
parittas (incantations for protection), xalongs (ceremonial instructions
for both lay and religious ceremonies), aprocryphal jatakas (non-canonical
birth-stories of the Buddha), nissayas (creative translations and
commentaries of Pali texts) and tamnans (relic, image and temple histories).
Xalongs, anisamsas and parittas are used in everyday house, buffalo, temple
and bodily blessings or for making love potions and protective tatoos. The
tamnans are histories that show the heavy Buddhist influence in the
governmental, economic, and military history of Laos.
Apocryphal jatakas, and nidans are intricate and entertaining stories of
heroism, romance and adventure that were (and are) often requested to be
narrated at religious events or life-cycle rituals, such as funerals, the
end of the rains retreat, etc. or were the basis for monastic education and
public sermons. What should be emphasized is that Pali canonical texts are
often in the minority in these collections and that translocal Buddhist
narratives and philosophical texts have been commented on and adapted by
local Lao teachers and these commentaries are much more popular in Laos than
their source texts from India and Sri Lanka. 

Lao Buddhist inscriptions have yet to be fully surveyed, read and
catalogued; however, they generally provide evidence of royal or wealthy lay
patronage of certain monasteries (votive inscriptions). They also reflect
the great influence Northern Thailand and (after 1560) Burma had on the
practice of Lao Buddhism. One inscription from Dansai (formerly part of the
Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang, but since the mid-19th century in
Thailand) tells of Buddhist monks accompanying the king to a political
meeting with the King of the Kingdom of Ayudhya. 
Another from Vientiane (the present capital of Laos) suggests that their
were many monks from Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) in the region which
would account for similarities in Lao and Northern Thai Buddhist and secular
literature composed from 1480 to 1620.

King Phothisalarat was probably the most active patron of Buddhism and
Buddhist literature in Laos. It is him and his son Xetthathirat that we
must thank for most of our sources of Lao Buddhist history. He actively
tried to "purify" Lao Buddhism by banning magical practices and the
worshipping of phi (ghosts) and phabhum (local deities of trees, rocks,
waterfalls, etc.). However, modern rituals (like the riak kwan, phuk heuan,
bun bang fai, etc.) in various parts of Laos show the limited success his
reforms since the all of these rituals combine the worship and propitiation
of phi and phabhum by Buddhist monks and the chanting of Buddhist mantras.
The practice of drawing magical yantras by monks and lay experts has also
been popular from at least the 15th century and involve the mixing of
Buddhist prayers with aspirations to be lucky in love, finances and to avoid
attacks by knives, guns and poison. The documentation and preservation of
many of these artistic works and rituals by the French and the fact that
many of the ritual implements, paintings, and statues sit in French
libraries, museums, and private homes speaks to the contested legacy of
French Colonial rule.

Laos did not have a printing press until the French Colonial Period (approx.
1893 to 1954) and only recently has there been a regular printing of
religious books in Lao. These books cover a wide range of subjects, but
generally are like their palm and mulberry leaf manuscript predecessors.
Still, whether it be printed books, inscriptions or manuscripts, the textual
sources resist easy classifcation and cannot be used to provide a clear,
linear history of Buddhism in Laos. 
However, this should not suggest that Lao scholars from the 14th century to
the present day did not attempt to write (or perhaps initially orally
record) these types of positivist historical chronicles. There are several
extant royal and religious chronicles, the most famous being the Nidan Khun
Borom. These chronicles tell of the introduction of Buddhism into Laos under
King Fa Ngum in the mid-14th century, the growth and reform and of Buddhism
under Kings Xetthathirat in the late 15th century, the movement of monks,
scribes, artisans, etc. from Chiang Mai to Laos after the Burmese invasion
of the former in the 1560's, the patronage and building of numerous
monasteries under King Surinyavong from
1638 to 1695, the burning of the Sisaket Monastery and the theft of the
Emerald Buddha by the Siamese in the late 18th century, and the building of
numerous monasteries, the re-unification of the three kingdoms of Laos
(Luang Pabang, Vientiane and Xampasak) by King Anuwong and the subsequent
burning of the Vientiane by the forces of Siam in 1827. 
Still, these chronicles, like Western and local modern historical
reconstructions written in the twentieth century, generally sacrifice
accuracy to clarity, covering the variety of the of Buddhist beliefs and
practices with a sheen of unity and linearity. 

In the 19th and 20th centuries, traveler's reports provide information about
the history of Buddhist practice among the general population that is
lacking in royal chronicles, protective chants, philosophy and relic and
temple histories, and confirm the validity of some of the rituals described
in folktales and epic poems. The six volume collection by members of the
Mission Pavie (1879-1895) and the work of Karl Izikowitz in the 1930's
discusses how local animistic practices of the Hmong, Sedang, Moi and other
Lao hill-tribes became mixed with Buddhist practices and how monks took on
the role of magician, appeaser of local deities, doctor and secular and
religious teacher in Lao villages. Still, besides these reports and many
others, a comprehensive study of how Buddhism and indigenous Lao religions
have constituted each other remains a desideratum.

At the end of almost 100 years of war and foreign occupation, the
independent People's Democratic Republic of Laos emerged in 1975 and despite
its being Marxist the government has allowed the practice of Buddhism to
flourish and even used Buddhist monks as political advocates who hold up the
communist ideals of equality among the classes, generosity, and community
cooperation. However, the government have encouraged more involvement of
monks in community development and secular education by sponsoring the Union
of Lao Buddhists and other Buddhist/Communist organizations, while
discouraging monks' practice of traditional healing rituals, exorcism and
prophecy, or from using the monkhood to avoid military and government
service. They also have made attempts to limit lay donations (in order to
gain merit for a favourable re-birth) to monasteries, which has been the
foundation of lay/monk interaction for the entire history of Lao Buddhism.
Still, like the efforts of King Phothisalarat and King Anuvong to reform
Buddhism, these government policies have largely been quietly ignored and
although monks have played a greater role in secular education since 1975,
the unique and syncretic practices of Lao Buddhists that our sources evince
persist and even flourish in among the urban and rural population. 








---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:02:57 +0100
>From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk>
>Subject: SV: [palistudy] Nyanodayapakarana
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>
>Dear Bhante,
>
><Regarding the ~Naanodayappakara.nam. You mention a recently
published Thai
>edition, however, Dr Filliozat mentions in relation to a MS
of this text
>found in the Vat Po MSS collection that there is an edition
published
>already in 1962: ''Gambhiira~naanodaya published in homage to
Phra
>Supharnabat Somdet Phra Sangkharat ~Naa.nodaya mahaathera,
22-23 mithunaayon
>2506 [June 1962].A copy of this printed edition has been
offered to EFEO
>library in Paris.''
>Is this an editon of the text or maybe some kind of
commemoration volume in
>honour of Phra Somdet ~Naa.nodaya?
>
>Thank you very much for this imformation. I was completely
unaware of the
>edition you mention. Do you think that Dr. Filliozat would
have it copied
>and mailed to me? Unfortunately I am unable to read the Thai
preface of the
>modern edition that was presented to me in 2004. It contains
a lot of
>photos, some in colour. I wonder if anyone has ever studied
it. It is a kind
>of saasanava.msa. It contains quotations from Mahaava.msa and
the poraa.na,
>some of which are identical with Diipava.msa verses. Whoever
wrote it must
>have had access to the material on which both Diipava.msa amd
Mahaava.msa
>are based.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Ole
>> 
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1571 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005 10:32pm 
Subject: Re: Man.galatthadiipanii

nyanatusita wrote:
> Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
> 
> Sorry, but the Mangalatthadiipanii is not a modern work, but a late
> medieaval work written by Siri Mangala in the Lanna Kingdom in 1524.

That surprises me... I thought Sirimangalaajaan was a modern scholar. Thank you for the info.

> When things become part of the Asian Buddhist traditions, the borders
> between what is canonical and non canonical often blur. Thailand,
> Cambodia and Laos (i.e. the countries part of old Siam) seem to have a
> fairly strong apocryphal, or what Ole Pind calls a pseudepigraphical,
> tradition, but it also exists to a lesser degree in Burma and Sri Lanka.

But the verse I was looking at, though, seems perhaps not intended to be given as the exact words of the Buddha, but an 
expansion, as in, "what He means to say is, 'for as long as my four groups of disciples...'."

justinm@ucr.edu wrote:
> P.S. The Mangaladipani is one of the most well-known text
> (1524 Chiang Mai) in Thailand and is the subject of the
> highest Pali examinations. There are a number of good
> vernacular Thai studies of this text. The text has been out on
> CD Rom for these exams. It is largely an anthology of Pali
> canonical verses. I have lots more on this text if anyone is
> interested.

I certainly am, as I may never have time to get around to actually studying it :) Is it worth studying, do you think? 
I would be happy to hear your thoughts on it.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

PS: Unrelated to this, I am working on (or rather wishing I had time to work on) a Digital Pali Reader, in case it is of 
use to anyone here. Please check out the alpha version if you have time:

http://www.fivethousandyears.org/files/dpr.zip

1572 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005 0:44am 
Subject: Re: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Ole,

Let's see whether it is an edition or not. It could some kind of 
commemoration volume in honour of the Somdet ~Naano.daya.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita




Ole Holten Pind wrote:

>Dear Bhante,
>
><Regarding the ~Naanodayappakara.nam. You mention a recently published Thai
>edition, however, Dr Filliozat mentions in relation to a MS of this text
>found in the Vat Po MSS collection that there is an edition published
>already in 1962: ''Gambhiira~naanodaya published in homage to Phra
>Supharnabat Somdet Phra Sangkharat ~Naa.nodaya mahaathera, 22-23 mithunaayon
>2506 [June 1962].A copy of this printed edition has been offered to EFEO
>library in Paris.''
>Is this an editon of the text or maybe some kind of commemoration volume in
>honour of Phra Somdet ~Naa.nodaya?
>
>Thank you very much for this imformation. I was completely unaware of the
>edition you mention. Do you think that Dr. Filliozat would have it copied
>and mailed to me? Unfortunately I am unable to read the Thai preface of the
>modern edition that was presented to me in 2004. It contains a lot of
>photos, some in colour. I wonder if anyone has ever studied it. It is a kind
>of saasanava.msa. It contains quotations from Mahaava.msa and the poraa.na,
>some of which are identical with Diipava.msa verses. Whoever wrote it must
>have had access to the material on which both Diipava.msa amd Mahaava.msa
>are based.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Ole 
> 

1573 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005 7:57pm 
Subject: Pali Inscriptions on Marble, 5th council

The "Marble slab edition" of the Tipitaka is well publicized, but, it
seems, not very well published. Jim alerted me to this project to
digitize all 729 inscriptions and keem them "in print".

http://www.uq.edu.au/buddhistcentre/research.html

I would assume that there would be considerable historical
significance in any editorial decisions made (or errors that might be
found) in this most direct recension of the 5th council text --and
even the "typography" is of some interest to me, as it seems to mark
the last major achievement of pre-modern book-making in the Burmese
tradition. In the one (& only) close-up photograph provided by this
website, I notice some features of the script that I do not see in
print today (nor recognise from samples of MS / handwriting).

E.M.

1574 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Dec 7, 2005 5:00am 
Subject: Glossary for Narada Thera & grammatical terms 	

We finally put that glossary for Narada Thera's grammar up on the net.
This is a massive improvement on the old file, including Burmese
script beside the Roman Pali (and roughly 10,000 corrected errors). 
It is not perfect, and may never be perfected, as I have so many other
projects to pursue --however, it will be quite useful to anyone
working their way through Narada's textbook:

Direct link:
http://www.pratyeka.org/narada/narada-glossary.pdf

General page:
http://www.pratyeka.org/narada/

Also, we corrected the link to the (two-page) summary of grammatical
terminology:

Direct link:
http://www.pratyeka.org/pali/PaliGrammaticalTerms.pdf

General page:
http://www.pratyeka.org/pali/

E.M.

1575 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Wed Dec 7, 2005 8:08am 
Subject: Re: Glossary for Narada Thera & grammatical terms 	

Hi E.M.

Thank you for your posting of the glossary.
I am wondering if you have a couple of SSHRC grants
to conduct various projects of yours.

tadao



--- Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> Υå
> We finally put that glossary for Narada Thera's grammar up on the net.
> This is a massive improvement on the old file, including Burmese
> script beside the Roman Pali (and roughly 10,000 corrected errors). 
> It is not perfect, and may never be perfected, as I have so many other
> projects to pursue --however, it will be quite useful to anyone
> working their way through Narada's textbook:
> 
> Direct link:
> http://www.pratyeka.org/narada/narada-glossary.pdf
> 
> General page:
> http://www.pratyeka.org/narada/
> 
> Also, we corrected the link to the (two-page) summary of grammatical
> terminology:
> 
> Direct link:
> http://www.pratyeka.org/pali/PaliGrammaticalTerms.pdf
> 
> General page:
> http://www.pratyeka.org/pali/
> 
> E.M.
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1576 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Dec 8, 2005 3:33am 
Subject: Re: Glossary for Narada Thera & grammatical terms 	

Hello,

I do not currently have a grant of any kind --I have never applied for
a grant, and have never receieved one.

I have been thinking of devoting more of my time to learning Lao, and
perhaps producing a Pali-Lao-English glossary, along with some really
basic comparative grammar (and examples) from the three languages. 
This could, possibly, be the basis for a grant application ... I
honestly have never thought about grants/funding, and have always
assumed that I would simply earn money to support my own scholarship.

Perhaps I'm wrong; I'm always delighted to learn that I've been wrong
--it's a sure sign that I'm learning something.

E.M.

1577 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Thu Dec 8, 2005 6:56am 
Subject: Re: Glossary for Narada Thera & grammatical terms 	

Hi E.M.

Nobody would come to you to provide you with research money
if you do not apply for it.
I think your research deserves financial supports from the 
Governmental funding agencies.

tadao


--- Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> Υå
> Hello,
> 
> I do not currently have a grant of any kind --I have never applied for
> a grant, and have never receieved one.
> 
> I have been thinking of devoting more of my time to learning Lao, and
> perhaps producing a Pali-Lao-English glossary, along with some really
> basic comparative grammar (and examples) from the three languages. 
> This could, possibly, be the basis for a grant application ... I
> honestly have never thought about grants/funding, and have always
> assumed that I would simply earn money to support my own scholarship.
> 
> Perhaps I'm wrong; I'm always delighted to learn that I've been wrong
> --it's a sure sign that I'm learning something.
> 
> E.M.
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1578 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Dec 9, 2005 2:04am 
Subject: Re: Glossary for Narada Thera & grammatical terms 	

However, the vast majority of grant money would never be offered to
me, as I work independently (in Asia) --not as part of a University
staff/program.

The SSHRC (that you mentioned) *only* provides grant money to
Universities (and "University based research") ... with the small
exception of Aboriginal community groups (i.e., because the latter
really have been excluded from Universities by 400 years of
colonialism).

I am not aware of any organization that would provide money for a
(non-academic) scholar such as myself --aside from Buddhist corporate
charities (e.g., the Numata Foundation in Japan).

Generally, government grant organizations require that you are either
a professor or a PhD candidate; requirements based on formal
qualifications are a poor substitute for actually evaluating the
quality of research --but it is a substitute, and a necessary
substitute for organizations such as the SSHRC (that have no capacity
to actually read, much less criticize, the output of the projects they
fund).

Thus, while I remain open to your suggestion, I think that if you
"give it a second thought", you might agree that institutions such as
these exist for the stated purpose of excluding independent scholars
such as myself --indeed, the restriction of such grants to doctoral
candidates is one of the few justifications for the high price of a
university education.

E.M.

1579 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Dec 9, 2005 7:33pm 
Subject: Re: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Ole,

To come back to the ~Naanodayappakara.na. Can you maybe explain in more
detail why you think that the author of this work must have had access 
to the material on which both Diip and Mhv are based. What kind of 
material would it be? The Siihala a.t.thakathaas or some old sannaya or 
gaetapada?
Is someone going to prepare a roman script edition of this interesting
text? Sinhalese scholars would be keen to see it. If the Thai author has 
made his text digitally then it would be simply a matter of converting 
the font. Maybe the PTS could contact him.
Best wishes,
Bh. NT

>
>
>
>Thank you very much for this imformation. I was completely unaware of the
>edition you mention. Do you think that Dr. Filliozat would have it copied
>and mailed to me? Unfortunately I am unable to read the Thai preface of the
>modern edition that was presented to me in 2004. It contains a lot of
>photos, some in colour. I wonder if anyone has ever studied it. It is a kind
>of saasanava.msa. It contains quotations from Mahaava.msa and the poraa.na,
>some of which are identical with Diipava.msa verses. Whoever wrote it must
>have had access to the material on which both Diipava.msa amd Mahaava.msa
>are based.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Ole 
> 
>

1580 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:32am 
Subject: SV: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Bhante,

>To come back to the ~Naanodayappakara.na. Can you maybe explain in more
detail why you think that the author of this work must have had access to
the material on which both Diip and Mhv are based. What kind of material
would it be? The Siihala a.t.thakathaas or some old sannaya or gaetapada?<

I shall send you as soon as possible a transcript of the part dealing with
the writing down of the Tipitaka. It quotes the poraana and you find here
verses that pop up in an edited version in Mhv and Diip.

>Is someone going to prepare a roman script edition of this interesting
text? Sinhalese scholars would be keen to see it. If the Thai author has
made his text digitally then it would be simply a matter of converting the
font. Maybe the PTS could contact him.

I don't know of any scholar who has ever read the text. I think that would
be a splendid idea to have a roman edition. Personally I would like to be
involved in such a project, having spent quite some time reading the work. I
suppose it must be from the about 12-13. century AD.

Best wishes,
Ole

1581 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005 10:33pm 
Subject: Re: SV: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Ole Holten Pind wrote:

>Dear Bhante,
>
> 
>
>>To come back to the ~Naanodayappakara.na. Can you maybe explain in more
>> 
>>
>detail why you think that the author of this work must have had access to
>the material on which both Diip and Mhv are based. What kind of material
>would it be? The Siihala a.t.thakathaas or some old sannaya or gaetapada?<
>
>I shall send you as soon as possible a transcript of the part dealing with
>the writing down of the Tipitaka. It quotes the poraana and you find here
>verses that pop up in an edited version in Mhv and Diip.
>
> 
>
He might have had access to the Sihala Atthakathas which, according to 
some, were still around in the Polonaruva period, i.e., the 12-13th 
century, to which you date this work.

>>Is someone going to prepare a roman script edition of this interesting
>> 
>>
>text? Sinhalese scholars would be keen to see it. If the Thai author has
>made his text digitally then it would be simply a matter of converting the
>font. Maybe the PTS could contact him.
>
>I don't know of any scholar who has ever read the text. I think that would
>be a splendid idea to have a roman edition. Personally I would like to be
>involved in such a project, having spent quite some time reading the work. I
>suppose it must be from the about 12-13. century AD.
> 
>
A first step would be to try to find out who the Thai editor is and 
where he lives. Maybe one of the members of this group living in 
Thailand could contact him and find out whether he is willing to help 
with making a roman edition of his work.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1582 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2005 2:17am 
Subject: Sutta quotation, re: cause of war

I was recently given an English paraphrase of a suttapitaka quotation
to the effect that "all war is caused by sensual desire, only sensual
desire".

Although I've read a few essays that (claim to) gather the salient
quotations on warfare, I don't recall this one.

Does anyone know the Sutta that contains this quote? It would
interesting me to find the original Pali (in context) --but I would
have trouble searching through the computer record of every sutta that
contains the phrase "Sensual desire"!

E.M.

1583 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:09am 
Subject: Re: SV: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear Interested parties,
A friend in Thailand informed me that a roman copy might
already have been made of the Nyanodayapakarana a few years
ago. I am waiting to hear a confirmation of this. I can't find
my Thai edition, I thought I bought one about three years ago,
but not in any of the old boxes. In Thai it is called the
"Khamphi Yanothai" (Gambhira Nyanodaya). I am having one sent
from bkk.
More soon on this and more on the Mangala-attha-dipani. I will
try to write up a basic history of this text and a basic
bibliography for research into it for those interested.
It is the last week of classes here and I am a bit overwhelmed
with students and last minute projects.
Best,
jm

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:33:38 +0600
>From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
>Subject: Re: SV: SV: [palistudy] Nyanodayapakarana 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>Ole Holten Pind wrote:
>
>>Dear Bhante,
>>
>> 
>>
>>>To come back to the ~Naanodayappakara.na. Can you maybe
explain in more
>>> 
>>>
>>detail why you think that the author of this work must have
had access to
>>the material on which both Diip and Mhv are based. What kind
of material
>>would it be? The Siihala a.t.thakathaas or some old sannaya
or gaetapada?<
>>
>>I shall send you as soon as possible a transcript of the
part dealing with
>>the writing down of the Tipitaka. It quotes the poraana and
you find here
>>verses that pop up in an edited version in Mhv and Diip.
>>
>> 
>>
>He might have had access to the Sihala Atthakathas which,
according to 
>some, were still around in the Polonaruva period, i.e., the
12-13th 
>century, to which you date this work.
>
>>>Is someone going to prepare a roman script edition of this
interesting
>>> 
>>>
>>text? Sinhalese scholars would be keen to see it. If the
Thai author has
>>made his text digitally then it would be simply a matter of
converting the
>>font. Maybe the PTS could contact him.
>>
>>I don't know of any scholar who has ever read the text. I
think that would
>>be a splendid idea to have a roman edition. Personally I
would like to be
>>involved in such a project, having spent quite some time
reading the work. I
>>suppose it must be from the about 12-13. century AD.
>> 
>>
>A first step would be to try to find out who the Thai editor
is and 
>where he lives. Maybe one of the members of this group living in 
>Thailand could contact him and find out whether he is willing
to help 
>with making a roman edition of his work.
>Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1584 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2005 2:06pm 
Subject: Re: Sutta quotation, re: cause of war

Hi Eisel,

> I was recently given an English paraphrase of a suttapitaka quotation
> to the effect that "all war is caused by sensual desire, only sensual
> desire".

> Although I've read a few essays that (claim to) gather the salient
> quotations on warfare, I don't recall this one.
>
> Does anyone know the Sutta that contains this quote? It would
> interesting me to find the original Pali (in context) --but I would
> have trouble searching through the computer record of every sutta that
> contains the phrase "Sensual desire"!

I don't know of a passage that says precisely that, but the
Mahaa- and Cu.la-dukkhakkhandhasuttas (MN 13 & 14), and some
of the Theriigaathaa verses of Subhaa (Thig. 338-365) come pretty
close.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

P.S. I came back to Bangkok last week and am presently catching
up with all the messages posted during the rains retreat. Your rosetta
stone file is much appreciated. I'm presently working on something
similar for the Lanna script.

1585 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:31am 
Subject: Lanna script; observation on ".l" in Pyuu script

Bhante,

Re: Lanna script & the rosetta stone ...

I will (eventually) create a file showing the differences (and
similarities) for the Lanna, Lao, and Burmese scripts. I will
probably create a separate page for Lao-Pali resources --and I think
that the only printed resources explaining how the various scripts
used for Pali on this span of the earth (from Sipsongpanna &
Shan-Burma to Cambodia, with Lao & Lanna in the middle) are obscure
Thai publications.

One of the reasons that I intend to do this is with the hope of
influencing font & typeface designers ... sadly, most of the Lanna &
Lao-Dhamma type that now exists incorporates simplifications from the
late 19th century.

To return to a question that the list mused about some weeks ago:

I note that the Pyuu script has very closely related orthography for
".d", "d", and ".l" --it seems that the three are all variations on a
single glyph (whereas the aspirates ".dh" & "dh" are not so similar
...). What is especially interesting is that the figure for ".l"
alone remains unchanged into much later (Lao) scripts --while ".d" &
"d" are very much transformed with the passage of time. The
resemblance of these three in modern standard Burmese-Pali seems to be
because the three Pyuu glyphs were consistently rendered into the
modern script by adding a semi-circle to the top portion --but the
bottom half of each of these still resembles the old Pyuu somewhat.
In any case, this is consistent with my earlier observations about
various Khmer scripts ... it often seems that the orthography for ".l"
was created by a modification of either "d" or ".d". This is very
clear in old Pyuu --and, most likely because the ".l" had no
vernacular equivalent, we still find roughly the Pyuu ".l" in various
Lao/Lanna scripts.

E.M.

1586 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:14am 
Subject: SV: SV: SV: Nyanodayapakarana

Dear JM,

I am looking forward to your next post.

Best,
OP

1587 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Dec 13, 2005 0:12am 
Subject: Re: Sutta quotation, re: cause of war

Dear Eisel,

This seems to be a distortion of the statements by the Buddha in the 
Kalahavivaadasutta (Sn 862ff) and the Mahaanidaanasutta (DN 15 para 9f).
NT

Eisel Mazard wrote:

>I was recently given an English paraphrase of a suttapitaka quotation
>to the effect that "all war is caused by sensual desire, only sensual
>desire".
>
>Although I've read a few essays that (claim to) gather the salient
>quotations on warfare, I don't recall this one.
>
>Does anyone know the Sutta that contains this quote? It would
>interesting me to find the original Pali (in context) --but I would
>have trouble searching through the computer record of every sutta that
>contains the phrase "Sensual desire"!
>

1588 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Dec 14, 2005 0:55am 
Subject: Re: Sutta quotation, re: cause of war

Thanks very much to both Dhammanando & Nyanatusita --I will "follow
up" these citations when I return from Sri Lanka.

Off-topic: I heard a bit of Pali chanted at a Lao wedding ceremony
today. A few words of Pali were recognisable --such as "prajna" and
"muni".

E.M.

1589 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Dec 16, 2005 1:15am 
Subject: Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text "found" in Lao 	

The _Muulakamma.t.thaana_ is (apparently) a Pali text that has ceased
to be extant in the original, but has survived in a Lao translation.

The translation dates from king Khelaga of Lampang (I could not find a
date for this in Hans Penth's book ... perhaps Dr. McDaniel has a
timeline of Lampang monarchs?) --and the opinion that it is indeed a
translation from a (lost) Pali original is maintained by both G.
Coedes and H. Saddhatissa. I take their opinions fairly seriously
--although it is possible that the latter is simply repeating the
opinion of the former without re-examining the evidence.

Above all else note this: it is a manual of meditation, and (thus)
falls into the same rare class of Pali litterature as _Yogaavacara's
Manual_, translated as Rhys-Davids' & Woodward's _Manual of Mystic_. 
[I note that the Pali original of the latter is not yet available as
an etext; the copyright has certainly lapsed on the 19th century
edition --perhaps I could acquire a xerox copy of it while I'm in Sri
Lanka and then type it out for "public consumption"?]

In any case, the salient information here is that there is a "new"
(or: relatively unknown) Theravada work on meditation that was
catalogued by Coedes (and presumably exists either in Laos or in the
Thai collections of Lao materials in Bangkok) ... and could perhaps be
decoded back into Pali, or translated _ad sensum_ into Pali & English.
I would think that a reconstructed Pali text of this sort would be
quite valuable; perhaps I am mistaken about this, too.

No one has ever attempted to assign a date to the (hypothetical)
"original Pali".

To avoid confusion (as I myself was confused about this) let me state
that the _Muulakamma.t.thaana_ is NOT the same text as _Yogaavacara's
Manual_, (ed. T.W. Rhys Davids, 1896) --the two seem to be COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT TEXTS ON MEDITATION. I note that the latter originates in
Sri Lanka (and has a classical Sinhalese commentary/translation?)
--whereas the former is only extant in Lao translation. However, H.
Saddhatissa's footnote (presumably suggesting that one should make a
comparative reading of the two texts) is rather confusing --I was
myself quite confused about this until yesterday.

Perhaps Coedes further described this text in a salient survey of Lao
& Lanna MS? Perhaps Dr. McDaniel already knows something further
about this text, or where its extant MS might be?

E.M.

1590 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Dec 16, 2005 4:57pm 
Subject: Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text "found" in Lao 	

Hi Eisel,

What word is used for "king" in the colophon? What Yuan are
you transliterating "Khelaga" from? I think you are referring
to a local Lampang lord, but I want to make sure about your
spelling first. I think I know most No.Thai/Lanna royal lines
pretty well. I think I know who you are talking about, but
want to confirm the spelling first.

As for Saddatissa, be very careful of this article in general
(you are right he is mostly copying Coedes withoug review or
new research). Also, what he calls "Laos" is actually
No.Thailand (this was common). Still, it is a very useful
guide and he did add to Coedes (he just did not improve on
what Coedes has already done).

The Mul Kammatthana is a genre more than a single text. There
are many different versions. For example, there are
manuscripts with this title in Bangkok as well (taken from
Laos) and many in Cambodia. I have looked at a good number of
them and they all differ from each other, some quite
significantly. Bizot has written a book on them in Cambodia
(Figuier a cinq branches, 1976) and I mention their connection
to funerals real briefly in a forthcoming publication.
Lagirarde also wrote an article on these manuscripts in
Northern Thailand and Cambodia in 1994. I recently (2004) gave
a "criticism" to Bizot's 1976 reading of this text, especially
his interpretation of its origin at a talk in Chicago. My
criticism was light though considering he did write in his
book that his findings were speculative and tentative. His
speculation has added much to the field and he shouldn't be
criticized for a subject that has so little evidence. He
suggests that the mul kammathana tradition of meditation and
the generation of new ephemeral bodies might have originated
with the Abhayagiri school in SL. We just do not have any
proof of that and it further creates a false division between
the Mahavihara (in fact, the Mahavihara is not one "school")
and the Abhayagiri that has been over-estimated it seems.
Still, his work is groundbreaking on this extremely turgent
genre of manuscripts and rituals. 

As for the Manual of a Mystic, Eisel is right, they are
different texts, but the problem does not stop there. These
texts can't be compared one-to-one, but they are, one could
say, part of a genre of texts related to forms of "esoteric"
meditation (which is a code word for non-Vippassana meditation
it seems -- Vippassana has become "orthodox" over the past 150
years in much of urban SE Asia). These texts are related
generically under Bizot's rubric "Yogaavacara"
meditation/ritual manuals. In fact, that was the name of
Rhys-Davids 1896 edition of the text that was later translated
as "Manual of a Mystic." Mettanando Bhikkhu, Lance Cousins,
Galkatiyagama Ratanajoti have more information on these
traditions. Kate Crosby knows much about this tradition as
well. These meditation texts are more prevalent in SL it seems
that Laos, the tradition in Laos is much more closely related
to funerary rites than meditation practices (although death
and meditation are often related in Laos). The SL tradition
may have been influenced by Siamese monks in the mid-18th century.

There is much more on this topic, but these are just what I
can say off the top of my head. I am at home with a sick child
today and do not have access to my books and my memory is suspect.

Best,
jm
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:15:57 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text
"found" in Lao 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com, Mme Filliozat
<KFilliozat@Yahoo.com>
>
>The _Muulakamma.t.thaana_ is (apparently) a Pali text that
has ceased
>to be extant in the original, but has survived in a Lao
translation.
>
>The translation dates from king Khelaga of Lampang (I could
not find a
>date for this in Hans Penth's book ... perhaps Dr. McDaniel has a
>timeline of Lampang monarchs?) --and the opinion that it is
indeed a
>translation from a (lost) Pali original is maintained by both G.
>Coedes and H. Saddhatissa. I take their opinions fairly
seriously
>--although it is possible that the latter is simply repeating the
>opinion of the former without re-examining the evidence.
>
>Above all else note this: it is a manual of meditation, and
(thus)
>falls into the same rare class of Pali litterature as
_Yogaavacara's
>Manual_, translated as Rhys-Davids' & Woodward's _Manual of
Mystic_. 
>[I note that the Pali original of the latter is not yet
available as
>an etext; the copyright has certainly lapsed on the 19th century
>edition --perhaps I could acquire a xerox copy of it while
I'm in Sri
>Lanka and then type it out for "public consumption"?]
>
>In any case, the salient information here is that there is a
"new"
>(or: relatively unknown) Theravada work on meditation that was
>catalogued by Coedes (and presumably exists either in Laos or
in the
>Thai collections of Lao materials in Bangkok) ... and could
perhaps be
>decoded back into Pali, or translated _ad sensum_ into Pali &
English.
> I would think that a reconstructed Pali text of this sort
would be
>quite valuable; perhaps I am mistaken about this, too.
>
>No one has ever attempted to assign a date to the (hypothetical)
>"original Pali".
>
>To avoid confusion (as I myself was confused about this) let
me state
>that the _Muulakamma.t.thaana_ is NOT the same text as
_Yogaavacara's
>Manual_, (ed. T.W. Rhys Davids, 1896) --the two seem to be
COMPLETELY
>DIFFERENT TEXTS ON MEDITATION. I note that the latter
originates in
>Sri Lanka (and has a classical Sinhalese commentary/translation?)
>--whereas the former is only extant in Lao translation. 
However, H.
>Saddhatissa's footnote (presumably suggesting that one should
make a
>comparative reading of the two texts) is rather confusing --I was
>myself quite confused about this until yesterday.
>
>Perhaps Coedes further described this text in a salient
survey of Lao
>& Lanna MS? Perhaps Dr. McDaniel already knows something further
>about this text, or where its extant MS might be?
>
>E.M.
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1591 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Fri Dec 16, 2005 7:30pm 
Subject: Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

Hello,

Has any research been done on the Arakan and Chittagong Pali textual
traditions? Do they use different scripts than the Burmese script? It is
possible that there are texts or recensions of texts preserved in this
area which are unknown elsewhere. In a book on the Theravada Sangha
called Banner of the Arahants I found the following interesting information:

``Bangladesh has a considerable Buddhist minority with a Sangha divided
between two traditions. One is a small group of bhikkhus, the Mahaathera
Nikaaya, who claim to be descended from bhikkkhu fleeing from Bihar at
the time of the Moslem invasions. It is reported that thery were
corrupted in the course of time in their new home but refused the chance
of re-ordination by Burmese bhikkhus. This was taken by the great
majority who now form the Sangharaja nikaya. In fact the latter group
alone can claim to be Theravada although the other group has reformed
itself and is hardly distinguishable now.''

The author, Bhikkhu Khantipalo, must be referring the Chittagong hill
area that borders the Arakan area. I don't know anything about the 
history and ethnography of these areas, but the Mahaathera nikaya might 
also have existed in Arakan.

The bhikkhus who came to Sri Lanka to reintroduce the Upasampada in the 
early and late 17th centuries came from Rakkhangadesa, i.e. Arakan, 
according to the Mahavamsa.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1592 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Fri Dec 16, 2005 9:56pm 
Subject: Re: Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

Jacques Leider has written on this tradition. Michael Charney
also works on the region (more politics and history though).
There are epigraphic records and chronicles as well.
Manuscript evidence is not as prevalent, but there are
Arakanese mss. William Pruitt, Catherine Raymond and Lilian
Handlin know more about this than I ever could. They have
worked closely with Burmese scholars who often work under
distress there. The subject of a separate "Arakanese
Tradition" is not promoted by the present government.
Best,
jm 

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 06:30:43 +0600
>From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions 
>To: Pali Study Group <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Hello,
>
>Has any research been done on the Arakan and Chittagong Pali
textual
>traditions? Do they use different scripts than the Burmese
script? It is
>possible that there are texts or recensions of texts
preserved in this
>area which are unknown elsewhere. In a book on the Theravada
Sangha
>called Banner of the Arahants I found the following
interesting information:
>
>``Bangladesh has a considerable Buddhist minority with a
Sangha divided
>between two traditions. One is a small group of bhikkhus, the
Mahaathera
>Nikaaya, who claim to be descended from bhikkkhu fleeing from
Bihar at
>the time of the Moslem invasions. It is reported that thery were
>corrupted in the course of time in their new home but refused
the chance
>of re-ordination by Burmese bhikkhus. This was taken by the great
>majority who now form the Sangharaja nikaya. In fact the
latter group
>alone can claim to be Theravada although the other group has
reformed
>itself and is hardly distinguishable now.''
>
>The author, Bhikkhu Khantipalo, must be referring the
Chittagong hill
>area that borders the Arakan area. I don't know anything
about the 
>history and ethnography of these areas, but the Mahaathera
nikaya might 
>also have existed in Arakan.
>
>The bhikkhus who came to Sri Lanka to reintroduce the
Upasampada in the 
>early and late 17th centuries came from Rakkhangadesa, i.e.
Arakan, 
>according to the Mahavamsa.
>
>Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1593 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:30am 
Subject: Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana

Many thanks (to Dr. McDaniel) for a very informative reply.

I am a bit surprised that I have not heard of this genre of MS before
(Muulakamma.t.thaana) --but perhaps this is because they are not
considered "Pali" in the general history of the literature? What I
mean to ask here is, are these basically specimens of a vernacular
genre that have had the misfortunte to be translated into Pali?

> What word is used for "king" in the colophon? What Yuan are
> you transliterating "Khelaga" from?

All of this is from Coedes via H. Saddhatissa --I have not seen any
colophon on this matter myself. Thus, the translation is not from
Lao, but from "Coedesese".

> Also, what he calls "Laos" is actually
> No.Thailand (this was common).

And, if we're talking about a Lan Xang era text, the area of Northern
Thailand in question may well have been "Lao" at the time.

> Still, it is a very useful
> guide and he did add to Coedes (he just did not improve on
> what Coedes has already done).

I was able to find that article in the scorching hot Thai National
Library last summer. [Veering off topic for a moment ... ] I'm
currently in Ayuthaya, on my way to Sri Lanka. I will never know why
they located their capitals on such easily assailable, low plains,
with unbearable temperatures --rather than, say, Phu Kra Dung
(unassailable and cool). The more we know about traditional city
plans and architecture here, the more it seems that ritual
considerations completely prevailed over practical concerns --most
notably, defence. On this subject: I was amused to read of Michael
Vickery's refutation of several long-standing theses on Angkor --among
them, e.g., the notion that the (now proven (?) to be purely ritual)
water tanks somehow improved local rice cultivation.

> The Mul Kammatthana is a genre more than a single text. There
> are many different versions. For example, there are
> manuscripts with this title in Bangkok as well (taken from
> Laos) and many in Cambodia. I have looked at a good number of
> them and they all differ from each other, some quite
> significantly.

You do not mention if any of these texts are in Pali --or if it is
credible to assume that any of them devolve from a Pali original. 
This is, from my perspective, the key issue of interest from Coedes,
etc.

> ... and it further creates a false division between
> the Mahavihara (in fact, the Mahavihara is not one "school")
> and the Abhayagiri that has been over-estimated it seems.

Indeed; this is a recurring issue. Lineage-organizations and
philosophic schools are not one and the same; the increasing
centralization of ordination rituals (i.e., "lineage-organization")
over time severely reduced the scope for doctrinal differences to be
reflected in lineage. As I mentioned earlier, about the only sure
thing we know about the Dhammaruciya monks is that their robes were
blue, reflecting an almost universal feature of attempts to recreate
the history of Buddhist thought, i.e., that differences in discipline
have proven more durable than differences in doctrine (in the historic
record...).

> As for the Manual of a Mystic, Eisel is right, they are
> different texts, but the problem does not stop there. These
> texts can't be compared one-to-one, but they are, one could
> say, part of a genre of texts related to forms of "esoteric"
> meditation (which is a code word for non-Vippassana meditation
> it seems ...

I think that all of the non-Vipassana passages/works on meditation are
in dire need of re-reading and re-translation. Beyond the quality &
quantity of translation [more on this below...], it seems to me that
in some cases, sutta material that seems to pertain to meditation has
been passed over, whereas other material that seems to me
"content-driven" has been read as if it were a guide to meditative
praxis (with dubious results). Well, the same translators who managed
to interpret the A.P.'s Yamaka as a manual of psychology could
probably interpret su~n~nata as the particle physics of a black hole
...

> ... Vippassana has become "orthodox" over the past 150
> years in much of urban SE Asia).

The past 15 years, surely!

> These texts are related
> generically under Bizot's rubric "Yogaavacara"
> meditation/ritual manuals. In fact, that was the name of
> Rhys-Davids 1896 edition ...

Yes, and, as I understand it, Rhys-Davids wrote important
introductions both to the Pali & the translation ("Manual of a
Mystic") that established many of the categories (of Jhana, etc.) that
western scholars relied upon in evaluating meditational texts in the
Theravada tradition for some time thereafter (i.e., possibly including
what you call "Bizot's rubric 'Yogaavacara'"). Now I *have not* read
these introductions by Rhys-Davids (to these two editions) --however,
I am eager to do so (and possibly prepare an e-text, as mentioned). I
would assume that they reflect an 1896 understanding of Theravada
meditation --i.e., doubtless they are flawed in at least several
important aspects. [I am refraining from using any examples as to
just how fallible Rhys-Davids proved he could be, as this was a touch
issue when it last was mentioned in this place.]

A re-examination of these arguments and how they have influenced
translation into English would be a desideratum. The last time I made
observations of this kind as to how early arguments by the PTS may
have pre-formed some of the word choices (and inherent
value-judgements) now found in English translations resulted in some
very acrimonious e-mail being sent back to me --but this kind of
evaluation is not suggested as any particular insult to the dead
scholars in question. I am not suggesting a Theosophical conspiracy
to misinterpret the texts --but rather a reliance upon the (seemingly
convincing) work of early scholars in subsequent evaluations of texts
that can uncritically preserve both ideologically loaded and _ad hoc_
decisions of interpretation made by those scholars. The historical
fact that some of those scholars were variously raving racists,
Theosophists, etc., may or may not give us further pause for doubt
--but I think the earlier discussion was diverted from the real
substance of the issue by the salaciousness of these latter
illustrations.

In the province of Philosophy _per se_, such minute examinations of
how terms have shifted is taken very seriously and is carried out
without any implied insult to the sources. To use a stray example
(from Karl Popper's _Conjectures & Refutations_) when Francis Bacon
speaks of "interpretation" (in English translation) he actually means
a completely non-subjective pronouncement about an evident fact, as
the latin term was still primarily used in Bacon's day to mean
"reading a text aloud" (i.e., to others in the room). However, when
the modern English word "interpretation" is read in translations of
Bacon's work today, we impute a subjective evaluation with no one
definitive truth attached to it. If/when we examine english
translations of Pali meditation material with this degree of
"Philosophic scrutiny" we find many horrendous problems of
"interpretation" indeed. The English word "meditate" is itself highly
problematic, and has only Christian usage as a guide; obversely, in
recent decades, the American Zen usage of the term has been very
influential --and, as a result, there are many who read the term in
translations of Theravada texts and then suppose that it is something
quite opposed to "thinking", or is even a forced halting of thought. 
(A non-academic illustration: the composer Phillip Glass has lamented
at length that the word "meditate" is misunderstood to mean
"completely unfocused thought" when he would prefer to render it as
"highly focused" or "perfectly focused thought" --both when it is
applied to a subject of meditation and otherwise.) Even "the four
noble truths" are problematic in this way, as they are, in fact, "the
four facts known to the noble ones" (i.e., nobility does not inhere in
the truths, but rather those who know them are dubbed "arya", whatever
that means...) --but these various texts are insistently preaced as
being simple, clear, and "self-evident" in their English translations,
with such fine points ignored.

In the context of texts on meditation especially, I think that one
needs a very fine sensitivity to the use of English words, and a very
philosophic level of rigour in evaluating the Pali texts to begin
with. I recently read an argument that "Jhana" should be translated
as "ecstacy" as per the Greek _ekstasis_ --but this rendering would
have had one set of problems for Rhys-Davids in the 19th century, and
another for ourselves.

E.M.

1594 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:12am 
Subject: Re: Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

It is certainly true that there are a number of separate (small)
Buddhist communities that survived in Bengaladesh up to the present
day. NB: they are not one Buddhist community, but fragments of
several ethnically different communities --and I've seen some confused
(and confusing) scholarship about this (although it did not go much
beyond comparing ancient records to modern demographics).

I had a most revealing chat about Bengladeshi Buddhist matierals
(including inscriptions) with Pratyap Pal. The latter assured me that
a huge volume of art, inscriptions, and architectural elements had
been "liquidated", distributed on the free market, and (anon) some
fraction of it was showing up in Musem collections. In his opinion it
was moral for Museums and private collectors to purchase this stuff as
"the inhabitants now are all Muslim; if they do not sell it, they will
destroy it". Thus, in reference to Chittagong, the current dark age
of looting may (in Pratyap Pal's estimation) give rise to a golden age
of scholarship in these materials --i.e., art and inscriptions that
were not much known so long as they remained in the field. A similar
(sad) pattern could be ascribed to materials from Swot, Pakistan --now
found everywhere except Swot, Pakistan.

I was utterly horrified when (recently) I saw Prayap Pal's catalogue
of Buddhist Art in a certain California Museum --much of it
anonymously donated after being mysteriously acquired in Cambodia,
Central & North-Eastern Thailand in the 1970s --i.e., areas where U.S.
forces were stationed. There were a few striking Lopburi pieces --and
I wondered if there are any alive in Lopburi who could remember what
the statue that once stood in the empty alcove down at the temple used
to look like?

The Museum world is a den of thieves; but the sad fact is that so few
of the thieves can actually read the inscriptions on the bases of
these things, etc., that historical work is obfuscated --and, of
course, work in private collections is prone to remain very private
indeed.

How did I veer onto this subject? Please disregard if this bores you
--I promise to write only about grammar for at least the next 30 days.

E.M.

1595 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:37am 
Subject: SV: Muulakamma.t.thaana

<Even "the four noble truths" are problematic in this way, as they are, in
fact, "the four facts known to the noble ones" (i.e., nobility does not
inhere in the truths, but rather those who know them are dubbed "arya",
whatever that means...>

Yes, indeed. Cf. my posts on this problem. Arya/ariya "noble" is
problematic. The Danish linguist Herman Mller, the inventor of the laryngal
theory of Indoeuropean Reconstruction suggested in 1906 that the word is
related to a semitic root denoting free people as opposed to slaves. I tend
to think that this is correct. It is probably a semitic loan word, like the
word for seven. 

<In the context of texts on meditation especially, I think that one needs a
very fine sensitivity to the use of English words, and a very philosophic
level of rigour in evaluating the Pali texts to begin with. I recently read
an argument that "Jhana" should be translated as "ecstacy" as per the Greek
_ekstasis_ --but this rendering would have had one set of problems for
Rhys-Davids in the 19th century, and another for ourselves.>

I agree. I would like to add that some of the translations of crucial texts
on meditation like the satipatthana present quite a few problems that
inevitably cause problems for its exegesis. I have already mentioned the
adverb parimukha.m and its interpretation in the commentarial lit. At the
time of the composition of Vajracchedika it had been turned into an
adjective qualifying smrtim. This interpretation is already en vogue in
Pa.tis. which indicates that no one knew how to interpret parimukha.m any
longer.

OP
OP

E.M.

1596 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:42am 
Subject: Re: SV: Muulakamma.t.thaana 	

Hi OP:

I didn't know that the word "seven" is a semitic borrowing.
I am wondering if you do not mind listing (a few pieces of) evidence
for the above claim.
Thank you in advance.

tadao


--- Ole Holten Pind <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> Υå
> <Even "the four noble truths" are problematic in this way, as they are, in
> fact, "the four facts known to the noble ones" (i.e., nobility does not
> inhere in the truths, but rather those who know them are dubbed "arya",
> whatever that means...>
> 
> Yes, indeed. Cf. my posts on this problem. Arya/ariya "noble" is
> problematic. The Danish linguist Herman M?ller, the inventor of the laryngal
> theory of Indoeuropean Reconstruction suggested in 1906 that the word is
> related to a semitic root denoting free people as opposed to slaves. I tend
> to think that this is correct. It is probably a semitic loan word, like the
> word for seven. 
> 
> <In the context of texts on meditation especially, I think that one needs a
> very fine sensitivity to the use of English words, and a very philosophic
> level of rigour in evaluating the Pali texts to begin with. I recently read
> an argument that "Jhana" should be translated as "ecstacy" as per the Greek
> _ekstasis_ --but this rendering would have had one set of problems for
> Rhys-Davids in the 19th century, and another for ourselves.>
> 
> I agree. I would like to add that some of the translations of crucial texts
> on meditation like the satipatthana present quite a few problems that
> inevitably cause problems for its exegesis. I have already mentioned the
> adverb parimukha.m and its interpretation in the commentarial lit. At the
> time of the composition of Vajracchedika it had been turned into an
> adjective qualifying smrtim. This interpretation is already en vogue in
> Pa.tis. which indicates that no one knew how to interpret parimukha.m any
> longer.
> 
> OP
> OP
> 
> E.M.
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1597 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:54am 
Subject: SV: SV: Muulakamma.t.thaana

<I didn't know that the word "seven" is a semitic borrowing.
I am wondering if you do not mind listing (a few pieces of) evidence for the
above claim.
Thank you in advance.>

Cf. the material collected in Thomas Gamkrelidze, Indoeuropean and the
Indo-Europeaans, 1995. and 
Saul Levin, Semitic and Indoeuropean: the principal eymologies, 1995.

OP

1598 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:43am 
Subject: SV: Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

Dear Bhante and group,

I have been asked to write a section on Buddhism to be included in a Danish
handbook of History of Religion. Any information on the history of Buddhism
in Bangladesh and adjacent areas will be much appreciated.

Best regards,

Ole Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] P vegne
af nyanatusita
Sendt: 17. december 2005 01:31
Til: Pali Study Group
Emne: [palistudy] Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

Hello,

Has any research been done on the Arakan and Chittagong Pali textual
traditions? Do they use different scripts than the Burmese script? It is
possible that there are texts or recensions of texts preserved in this area
which are unknown elsewhere. In a book on the Theravada Sangha called Banner
of the Arahants I found the following interesting information:

``Bangladesh has a considerable Buddhist minority with a Sangha divided
between two traditions. One is a small group of bhikkhus, the Mahaathera
Nikaaya, who claim to be descended from bhikkkhu fleeing from Bihar at the
time of the Moslem invasions. It is reported that thery were corrupted in
the course of time in their new home but refused the chance of re-ordination
by Burmese bhikkhus. This was taken by the great majority who now form the
Sangharaja nikaya. In fact the latter group alone can claim to be Theravada
although the other group has reformed itself and is hardly distinguishable
now.''

The author, Bhikkhu Khantipalo, must be referring the Chittagong hill area
that borders the Arakan area. I don't know anything about the history and
ethnography of these areas, but the Mahaathera nikaya might also have
existed in Arakan.

The bhikkhus who came to Sri Lanka to reintroduce the Upasampada in the
early and late 17th centuries came from Rakkhangadesa, i.e. Arakan,
according to the Mahavamsa.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1599 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 0:59pm 
Subject: SV: Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

Dear E.M.

<It is certainly true that there are a number of separate (small) Buddhist
communities that survived in Bengaladesh up to the present day. NB: they
are not one Buddhist community, but fragments of several ethnically
different communities --and I've seen some confused (and confusing)
scholarship about this (although it did not go much beyond comparing ancient
records to modern demographics).

I had a most revealing chat about Bengladeshi Buddhist matierals (including
inscriptions) with Pratyap Pal. The latter assured me that a huge volume of
art, inscriptions, and architectural elements had been "liquidated",
distributed on the free market, and (anon) some fraction of it was showing
up in Musem collections. In his opinion it was moral for Museums and
private collectors to purchase this stuff as "the inhabitants now are all
Muslim; if they do not sell it, they will destroy it". Thus, in reference
to Chittagong, the current dark age of looting may (in Pratyap Pal's
estimation) give rise to a golden age of scholarship in these materials
--i.e., art and inscriptions that were not much known so long as they
remained in the field. A similar
(sad) pattern could be ascribed to materials from Swot, Pakistan --now found
everywhere except Swot, Pakistan.

I was utterly horrified when (recently) I saw Prayap Pal's catalogue of
Buddhist Art in a certain California Museum --much of it anonymously donated
after being mysteriously acquired in Cambodia, Central & North-Eastern
Thailand in the 1970s --i.e., areas where U.S.
forces were stationed. There were a few striking Lopburi pieces --and I
wondered if there are any alive in Lopburi who could remember what the
statue that once stood in the empty alcove down at the temple used to look
like?

The Museum world is a den of thieves; but the sad fact is that so few of the
thieves can actually read the inscriptions on the bases of these things,
etc., that historical work is obfuscated --and, of course, work in private
collections is prone to remain very private indeed.

How did I veer onto this subject? Please disregard if this bores you --I
promise to write only about grammar for at least the next 30 days.>

No! Please continue. In Paris last year around this time Nolle and I
strolled along one of the more posh areas on the left bank (or was it the
right, I forget). There is a whole district there with shops selling the
most incredible "exotica." One of them had a large exhibit of Buddhist art
from Gandhara (sic!). I gasped because I was not prepared for that, and I
instantly wondered where does all this come from.

Regards,

OP
E.M.

1600 
From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:07pm 
Subject: Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana

For some reason I do not seem to have received any earlier messages 
in this thread.

Perhaps it will be helpful to mention the detailed survey in:
Crosby, Kate, "Tantric Theravaada: a bibliographic Essay on the 
writings of Franois Bizot and others on the Yogaavacara Tradition," 
_Contemporary Buddhism. An Interdisciplinary Journal_, 1, 2, 2000, 
pp. 141-193.

This is valuable in its own right, but would be particularly useful 
to anyone who does not read French.

Lance Cousins


>Many thanks (to Dr. McDaniel) for a very informative reply.
>
>I am a bit surprised that I have not heard of this genre of MS before
>(Muulakamma.t.thaana) --but perhaps this is because they are not
>considered "Pali" in the general history of the literature? What I
>mean to ask here is, are these basically specimens of a vernacular
>genre that have had the misfortunte to be translated into Pali?
>
> >


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1601 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:08pm 
Subject: Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana

I mentioned Kate Crosby in the original e-mail that began the
thread. I also mentioned your work ("Esoteric Southern
Buddhism" from the Curzon collection in 1990?). I gave a tralk
on the subject of the Theravada Tantra" recently. It is a
difficult, but fruitful subject.
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:07:30 +0000
>From: "L.S. Cousins" <selwyn@ntlworld.com> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Muulakamma.t.thaana 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>For some reason I do not seem to have received any earlier
messages 
>in this thread.
>
>Perhaps it will be helpful to mention the detailed survey in:
>Crosby, Kate, "Tantric Theravaada: a bibliographic Essay on the 
>writings of Franois Bizot and others on the Yogaavacara
Tradition," 
>_Contemporary Buddhism. An Interdisciplinary Journal_, 1, 2,
2000, 
>pp. 141-193.
>
>This is valuable in its own right, but would be particularly
useful 
>to anyone who does not read French.
>
>Lance Cousins
>
>
>>Many thanks (to Dr. McDaniel) for a very informative reply.
>>
>>I am a bit surprised that I have not heard of this genre of
MS before
>>(Muulakamma.t.thaana) --but perhaps this is because they are not
>>considered "Pali" in the general history of the literature?
What I
>>mean to ask here is, are these basically specimens of a
vernacular
>>genre that have had the misfortunte to be translated into Pali?
>>
>> >
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1602 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:17pm 
Subject: Re: Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions

You refer to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA. A very
large collection, but mostly South Asian Art. Very few Khmer
pieces and many fewer Lao and Thai. There are three volumes by
Pal covering this collection. He also bought a large
collection of Henry Moore statues and Indian miniatures. It
has become a large research center. Theft, though, is indeed
rampant in the Art world. However, in Cambodia's case, I am
glad many pieces were "stolen" before the Khmer Rouge used
them for target practice. Stealing statues, of course, was a
common practice of abbots, kings, princesses, thieves, maw
duu, etc. before colonialsim, but at least they were stolen in
the past for ritual, soteriological and cosmological purposes
versus purely financial!
Best,
justin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 18:12:04 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Arakan and Chittagong Pali traditions 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>It is certainly true that there are a number of separate (small)
>Buddhist communities that survived in Bengaladesh up to the
present
>day. NB: they are not one Buddhist community, but fragments of
>several ethnically different communities --and I've seen some
confused
>(and confusing) scholarship about this (although it did not
go much
>beyond comparing ancient records to modern demographics).
>
>I had a most revealing chat about Bengladeshi Buddhist matierals
>(including inscriptions) with Pratyap Pal. The latter
assured me that
>a huge volume of art, inscriptions, and architectural
elements had
>been "liquidated", distributed on the free market, and (anon)
some
>fraction of it was showing up in Musem collections. In his
opinion it
>was moral for Museums and private collectors to purchase this
stuff as
>"the inhabitants now are all Muslim; if they do not sell it,
they will
>destroy it". Thus, in reference to Chittagong, the current
dark age
>of looting may (in Pratyap Pal's estimation) give rise to a
golden age
>of scholarship in these materials --i.e., art and
inscriptions that
>were not much known so long as they remained in the field. A
similar
>(sad) pattern could be ascribed to materials from Swot,
Pakistan --now
>found everywhere except Swot, Pakistan.
>
>I was utterly horrified when (recently) I saw Prayap Pal's
catalogue
>of Buddhist Art in a certain California Museum --much of it
>anonymously donated after being mysteriously acquired in
Cambodia,
>Central & North-Eastern Thailand in the 1970s --i.e., areas
where U.S.
>forces were stationed. There were a few striking Lopburi
pieces --and
>I wondered if there are any alive in Lopburi who could
remember what
>the statue that once stood in the empty alcove down at the
temple used
>to look like?
>
>The Museum world is a den of thieves; but the sad fact is
that so few
>of the thieves can actually read the inscriptions on the bases of
>these things, etc., that historical work is obfuscated --and, of
>course, work in private collections is prone to remain very
private
>indeed.
>
>How did I veer onto this subject? Please disregard if this
bores you
>--I promise to write only about grammar for at least the next
30 days.
>
>E.M.
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1603 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:25pm 
Subject: Re: SV: SV: Muulakamma.t.thaana 	

Hi OP:
Thank for the information. I will check if our libr. has these books.
tadao


--- Ole Holten Pind <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> Υå
> 
> <I didn't know that the word "seven" is a semitic borrowing.
> I am wondering if you do not mind listing (a few pieces of) evidence for the
> above claim.
> Thank you in advance.>
> 
> Cf. the material collected in Thomas Gamkrelidze, Indoeuropean and the
> Indo-Europeaans, 1995. and 
> Saul Levin, Semitic and Indoeuropean: the principal eymologies, 1995.
> 
> OP
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1604 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:21am 
Subject: Filliozat: Muulakamma.t.thaana

... And the last word goes to Mme. Filliozat, who wrote to me as follows.
-----------
Cher Monsieur,
[...]
Sorry to interfere with my French feminine frank habit
in your Pali study Yahoo group. I have a few remarks
to tell you . Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it I mean that instead of arguing
about "the Muulakamma.t.thaana(apparently) a Pali text
that has ceased to be extant in the original, but has
survived in a Lao translation"
you had better to check the texts you look for in all
catalogues available of Pali manuscripts and also in
catalogues for Singhalese and Indochinese collections.
You'll be surprised to find many. Not only a Lao
translation has survived! Consult Franois Bizot from
EFEO and collection of mss. he has done on kammatthan
(he is back in Chiang Mai and lives there permanently
now bizo@wanadoo.fr). Our colleague Olivier de Bernon
<femc.efeo@forum.org.kh> from EFEO-FEMC Phnom Penh
has recently submitted a brilliant thesis on
Kammatthan in Paris, in French of course. You could
consult, with a lot of documents in Khmer, Pali, thai
his bibliography could help you to learn that since
Coeds and Saddhatissa some progress has been done in
studying further and deeply the new mss. found in the
specialized monastic libraries.
Before declaring that a text is lost, we have to look
all the data existing. I do not keep for me the
privilege of cataloguing mss. come and help, you'll
find at least one new text in Pali out of every 100
mss. bundles catalogued. I think that many texts
supposed lost are just forgotten in a corner and
neglected. There is no inventory for the thousands
mss. (in a mess, spoiled by bats, rodents, road dust
pollution, insects) kept in Vat Rajasiddharam,
Thonburi, a famous meditation school, you could find
there copies of various Mulakammatthan versions and
traditions? Myself I can find in my catalogues few
items never studied.
French catalogued collections offer many from Khmer
tradition (see Au Chhieng catalogue for BnF).In
Bangkok, Manuscript House Fragile Palm leaves see
No.99 Pali-Burmese ka-ga complete;1681Pali-Burmese
ka-gha complete; 2766 Pali incomplete (no end).
Contact curator Peter Skilling <peski@inet.co.th>
Hope you'll get replies, if not, tell me please.I'll
strongly interfere because I do not agree with the way
the curators keep the documents for themselves while
they are government servants and supposed to open the
libraries and not keep the mss. in secret. All the
collections I mention should be opened to scholars's
consultation.
With best wishes.
J.F.

1605 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:51am 
Subject: Re: Stolen art & inscriptions

Well, as I have been encourgaged by Dr. Pind ...

(1) Dr. McDaniel is correct that the Californian Museum collection I
was thinking of was the Norton Simon Museum --however, based on the
catalogue I have recently read, I would not agree with his estimate of
"very few Khmer ... and many fewer Lao and Thai" works in the
collection. Their Sinhalese pieces are few and minor, but they have
very significant Khmer and Thai holdings, including one pre-Angkor
piece of a large size (it is a "Harihara" as I recall --i.e.,
vertically bifurcated). Every pre-Angkor statue "counts" for quite a
lot in the history of Cambodia --many styles and periods have just one
or two examples still in the kingdom. The pre-Angkor Harihara (held
by the Norton Simon) should be returned to Cambodia --and, no doubt,
many of the other pieces could be traced to their "modern origin" in
Thailand, and returned.

(2) The two biggest clearing houses for Buddhist art are currently
Hong Kong and Bangkok --although I am not at all sure where
Bengaladeshi works are currently sold. In terms of legality, the
Swiss remain an important stop-over, with most works bound for Europe
technically acquired in Zurich, and remaining in Swiss territory for
30 days (or so) to be officially deemed "imported from Switzerland"
[i.e., into the E.U.] with no paper-trail leading back to the dealers
in Asia. In any case, if you "hang out" in Zurich, you can find
whatever you're looking for, or will be directed as to where to look;
the trade is fairly overt as most of it is technically legal.

(3) In reply to Dr. McDaniel, the Khmer Rouge also liquidated and sold
entire temples --i.e., breaking off statues and selling them-- so
their reputation as iconoclasts in this regard has to be tempered with
an awareness of their own mercenary inclinations. The complicating
factor here is the active collaboration of U.S. forces with the Khmer
Rouge circa 1978 - 1994 (yes, that's correct: the Americans were on
the same side as Pol Pot from at least the hour of the Vietnamese
invastion until very recently --a fact too often omitted in the BBC
version of history). The involvement of U.S. armed forces in
air-lifting huge quantities of Asian art has a long history
--including the U.S. Marine Corps evacuating the collection of the
National Palace Museum from mainland China to Taipei on behalf of the
KMT. I really don't know to what extent U.S./C.I.A. hauled Buddha
statues along with Heroin in their nightly flights --but, if art
smuggling was half as profitable as heroin smuggling, I would expect
that quite a few statues came out of Cambodia by this route.

The sheer weight of Khmer art is difficult to exaggerate; many
would-be temple looters in Cambodia today give up while trying to load
a statue into a truck, leaving a ruined temple, and a half-smashed
stone statue 30 m away from it. In any case, a team of soldiers with
a helicopter are at a distinct advantage over a farmer with a truck;
and, in all of Cambodia east of the Mekong (code-named "freedom deal")
the badly organized assortment American armed forces and intelligence
services were at their liberty to loot whatever they didn't bomb into
oblivion during the overt period of the war. Thereafter, the active
role of collaboration (on the ground) that evolved between the U.S.
and the Khmer Rouge (probably starting before 1978, and continuing
into the 1990s, as mentioned) would then have made direct guides to
these sites in the remote jungle even more likely.

E.M.

1606 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2005 3:14am 
Subject: sundry

I was at the Norton Simon last week. They have a few pieces
including the Harihara and several other significant pieces.
It is just not a large collection compared to the South Asian
collection there which is massive. I guess it matters what you
count as a big collection. Some beautiful and sacred pieces.
Too bad one can't offer flowers, oil, and incense in the museum.

The Americans, the French, the British, the Germans, the
Japanese should return everything. It wouldn't solve much I
imagine. Chinese, Malaysian and Thai business people would
steal it again:) I recently spoke (April 2005) at the seminar
for the King of Siam Art Exhibition which is the largest
traveling exhibition of Siamese Art in history. Very nice
show. It took 8 years to arrange (I was not part of this
phase) because the Ministry of Fine Arts in Thailand wanted to
keep most pieces in the basement of the museum. Most are never
seen and are not returned to temples either. There is internal
"stealing" as well. Sadly an old story.

I wrote a 250 page thesis when I was 19 years old on the
American involvement with the Khmer Rouge and the U.S. bombing
which was one of the main contributing factors to their
ability to rise to power and rule. Americans acting badly is
an old story. Stealing images is the least of the problem. The
sad thing is that every country that develops power needs or
think it needs to defend that power and thus in that defense
there is offense and everyone loses. An old story. I have
grown less angry in my old age or perhaps just more depressed:)

Best:)
justin


---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:51:02 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Stolen art & inscriptions 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>Well, as I have been encourgaged by Dr. Pind ...
>
>(1) Dr. McDaniel is correct that the Californian Museum
collection I
>was thinking of was the Norton Simon Museum --however, based
on the
>catalogue I have recently read, I would not agree with his
estimate of
>"very few Khmer ... and many fewer Lao and Thai" works in the
>collection. Their Sinhalese pieces are few and minor, but
they have
>very significant Khmer and Thai holdings, including one
pre-Angkor
>piece of a large size (it is a "Harihara" as I recall --i.e.,
>vertically bifurcated). Every pre-Angkor statue "counts" for
quite a
>lot in the history of Cambodia --many styles and periods have
just one
>or two examples still in the kingdom. The pre-Angkor
Harihara (held
>by the Norton Simon) should be returned to Cambodia --and, no
doubt,
>many of the other pieces could be traced to their "modern
origin" in
>Thailand, and returned.
>
>(2) The two biggest clearing houses for Buddhist art are
currently
>Hong Kong and Bangkok --although I am not at all sure where
>Bengaladeshi works are currently sold. In terms of legality, the
>Swiss remain an important stop-over, with most works bound
for Europe
>technically acquired in Zurich, and remaining in Swiss
territory for
>30 days (or so) to be officially deemed "imported from
Switzerland"
>[i.e., into the E.U.] with no paper-trail leading back to the
dealers
>in Asia. In any case, if you "hang out" in Zurich, you can find
>whatever you're looking for, or will be directed as to where
to look;
>the trade is fairly overt as most of it is technically legal.
>
>(3) In reply to Dr. McDaniel, the Khmer Rouge also liquidated
and sold
>entire temples --i.e., breaking off statues and selling them-- so
>their reputation as iconoclasts in this regard has to be
tempered with
>an awareness of their own mercenary inclinations. The
complicating
>factor here is the active collaboration of U.S. forces with
the Khmer
>Rouge circa 1978 - 1994 (yes, that's correct: the Americans
were on
>the same side as Pol Pot from at least the hour of the Vietnamese
>invastion until very recently --a fact too often omitted in
the BBC
>version of history). The involvement of U.S. armed forces in
>air-lifting huge quantities of Asian art has a long history
>--including the U.S. Marine Corps evacuating the collection
of the
>National Palace Museum from mainland China to Taipei on
behalf of the
>KMT. I really don't know to what extent U.S./C.I.A. hauled
Buddha
>statues along with Heroin in their nightly flights --but, if art
>smuggling was half as profitable as heroin smuggling, I would
expect
>that quite a few statues came out of Cambodia by this route.
>
>The sheer weight of Khmer art is difficult to exaggerate; many
>would-be temple looters in Cambodia today give up while
trying to load
>a statue into a truck, leaving a ruined temple, and a
half-smashed
>stone statue 30 m away from it. In any case, a team of
soldiers with
>a helicopter are at a distinct advantage over a farmer with a
truck;
>and, in all of Cambodia east of the Mekong (code-named
"freedom deal")
>the badly organized assortment American armed forces and
intelligence
>services were at their liberty to loot whatever they didn't
bomb into
>oblivion during the overt period of the war. Thereafter, the
active
>role of collaboration (on the ground) that evolved between
the U.S.
>and the Khmer Rouge (probably starting before 1978, and
continuing
>into the 1990s, as mentioned) would then have made direct
guides to
>these sites in the remote jungle even more likely.
>
>E.M.
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1607 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2005 3:54am 
Subject: SV: sundry

Dear Justin and Eisel,

I am horrified. I was not aware of the American involvement with the Khmer
Rouge. Stealing images, sculptures etc. is an international and lucrative
business. I don't know much about pilfering valuable ms.s from Buddhist
monastic libraries, but it seems to be organised by dealers too. Here in
Copenhagen of all places I once found in a well-known shop selling "exotica"
a beatifull copy of the Mahaaniddesa dated 1824, a fascicle of the Jataka at
least 250 years old and a lot more. I later found out that they had been
stolen from Sinhalese monastic libraries by greedy monks with the assistance
of antique dealers.

Best
Ole



I was at the Norton Simon last week. They have a few pieces including the
Harihara and several other significant pieces.
It is just not a large collection compared to the South Asian collection
there which is massive. I guess it matters what you count as a big
collection. Some beautiful and sacred pieces.
Too bad one can't offer flowers, oil, and incense in the museum.

The Americans, the French, the British, the Germans, the Japanese should
return everything. It wouldn't solve much I imagine. Chinese, Malaysian and
Thai business people would steal it again:) I recently spoke (April 2005) at
the seminar for the King of Siam Art Exhibition which is the largest
traveling exhibition of Siamese Art in history. Very nice show. It took 8
years to arrange (I was not part of this
phase) because the Ministry of Fine Arts in Thailand wanted to keep most
pieces in the basement of the museum. Most are never seen and are not
returned to temples either. There is internal "stealing" as well. Sadly an
old story.

I wrote a 250 page thesis when I was 19 years old on the American
involvement with the Khmer Rouge and the U.S. bombing which was one of the
main contributing factors to their ability to rise to power and rule.
Americans acting badly is an old story. Stealing images is the least of the
problem. The sad thing is that every country that develops power needs or
think it needs to defend that power and thus in that defense there is
offense and everyone loses. An old story. I have grown less angry in my old
age or perhaps just more depressed:)

Best:)
justin

1608 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:20am 
Subject: Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text "found" in Lao -- Sinhalese Esoteric Vidarshana Meditation Manuals

Dear Justin,

A few remarks with regards your message of a few
days back,

> 
> As for Saddatissa, be very careful of this 
> article in general (you are right he is mostly 
> copying Coedes withoug review or new research).
> Also, what he calls "Laos" is actually 
> No.Thailand (this was common). Still, it is a 
> very useful guide and he did add to Coedes (he 
> just did not improve on what Coedes has already
> done).
> 
Do you think that it is worthwhile to republish
Saddhatissa's collected essays called Buddhism in 
Southeast Asia?
I have a digital file with it and it would be easy
for the BPS to republish it. I was thinking about 
republishing it together in one volume with the 
Pali Literature of Burma (Bode) and
Pali Literature of Ceylon (Malalasekera)
or Handbook of Pali Literature by Somapala
Jayawardhana. All these are somewhat outdated and 
to be replaced, but until someone comes forth to
write new ones it might be worthwhile to reprint 
them.

> As for the Manual of a Mystic, Eisel is right, 
> they are different texts, but the problem does 
> not stop there. These texts can't be compared 
> one-to-one, but they are, one could say, part 
> of a genre of texts related to forms of 
> "esoteric" meditation (which is a code word for
> non-Vippassana meditation it seems
> --Vippassana has become "orthodox" over the
> past 150 years in much of urban SE Asia).

I am not sure whether it is so new. The Siamese
teacher Visuddhacaara who came to teach
meditation to the Asgiriya monks in 1756 was
called a vidars~ana aacariya. Some of the
esoteric kamma.t.thaana manuals composed around
that period are called vidars~ana pot.

> These meditation texts are more prevalent in SL
> it seems than Laos, ... The SL tradition may 
> have been influenced by Siamese monks in the 
> mid-18th century.

This seems quite likely. Before vidars~ana 
aacariya Visuddhacaara gave his first public 
sermon, during which the king was to be 
assasinated, a book he had brought from Siam was
paraded through the streets of Kandy. Maybe this 
book was a Vidarsana Pot.
According to the colophon of of the Asgiriya
copy of the Vidars~anaPota/Karma.s.thaana- 
dhyaana-bhaavanaa, its compiler, Rambukavele 
Ratanajoti was asked to do so by the Siamese theras.
The monasteries where these esoteric vidars~ana 
manuals are found are Asgiriya branch Siam Nikaya 
monasteries. After the revival of the Upasampadaa 
the Asgiriya vihara monks specialised in 
meditation and founded forest meditition 
monasteries like Bambaragala
where the MS of the ``Yogaavacara Manual'', i.e.,
Bambaragalee Vidars~ana Pot, was
found. However, Somadasa notices in the Catalogue
to the Hugh Nevill Collection that some words used 
in the text are archaic and there might be an 
influence from the Kurunegala period. Bechert, 
Sinhalesischen Handschriften II p. 53ff, notices a
Burmese influence in the Pali formulas at the 
start of the Bambaragalee Vidarsana Pota.
An little known meditation manual written in the
12th century by Sariputta Mahaasaami is
called Kamma.t.t.haana Diipanii or Kamma.t.thaana
Sangaha. It is mentioned in the Pi.taka
Samuin and the Lankaawee Puskola Pot Naamavaaliya,
but, as far as I know, no edition exists nor
has any research been done on it. It might be
identical with the Duvidha-kamma.t.thaana which
appears to be a condensed version of the
Dvidha-vutta-kamma.t.thaana, which in turn is a 
prose version of the 
Ratana-amatakara.na-va.n.nanaa/ 
Yogajanakanta-vimuttimagga.
There is also a Sinhalese work on meditation 
called Vimukti-san.graha, written in the
14th century by Lan.kaasenavirat Pirivena 
Adhipatti, and a Pali work called
Vimutti-san.gaha. I am wondering whether I am the 
first one to draw the link between Sariputta's 
work and the other kamma.t.thaana works. Bechert, 
Somadasa, and Nevill don't mention anything about 
it. It would be worthwhile for some Sinhalese 
scholar to find out which one is Sariputta's work, 
if it still exists, but there is little interest 
in doing MSS research here.

I was wondering why the Duvidhaa Kamma.t.thaana MS 
is called so and it occured to me that in the 
British Library MS, Or. 6601(85), two texts are 
given: the first is the Amatakara.nava.na.naa in 
13 chapters of Pali verse which is followed by a 
prose Pali text which follows exactly the same 
chapter division. Thus duvidhaa, written as 
dvidhaa vutta in the colophon of this MS, might 
refer to the text or topic being said both in 
verse and prose, the latter being an illucidation 
of the first.

Bechert has written an article called
``Vimuttimagga and Amataakarava.n.nanaa'', Amaala 
Praj~naa: Aspects of Buddhist Studies, Prof. P.V. 
Bapat Felicitation volume, ed.
N.H. Samtani, Delhi 1989, p. 11-14.
I hope to find this article some time.

My excuses if the format of my messages appears
funny. I have not figured out yet how to set the 
margins on my Thunderbird e-mail editor and 
apparently they are much too wide. I
now put manual linebreaks, but that might come out 
funny too.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1609 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Tue Dec 20, 2005 0:49pm 
Subject: Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text "found" in Lao 	

Dear Justin,

A few remarks with regards your message of a few days back,

> 
> As for Saddatissa, be very careful of this article in 
> general (you are right he is mostly copying Coedes 
> withoug review or new research). Also, what he calls 
> "Laos" is actually No.Thailand (this was common). Still,
> it is a very useful guide and he did add to Coedes (he 
> just did not improve on what Coedes has already done).
> 
Do you think that it is worthwhile to republish
Saddhatissa's collected essays called Buddhism in Southeast
Asia?
I have a digital file with it and it would be easy for the
BPS to republish it. I was thinking about republishing it
together in one volume with the Pali Literature of
Burma(Bode) and Pali Literature of Ceylon (Malalasekera).


> As for the Manual of a Mystic, Eisel is right, they are 
> different texts, but the problem does not stop there. 
> These texts can't be compared one-to-one, but they are, 
> one could say, part of a genre of texts related to forms
> of "esoteric" meditation (which is a code word for 
> non-Vippassana meditation it seems --Vippassana has 
> become "orthodox" over the past 150 years in much of 
> urban SE Asia).

I am not sure whether it is so new. The Siamese teacher
Visuddhacaara who came to teach
meditation to the Asgiriya monks in 1756 was called a
vidars~ana aacariya. Some of the
esoteric kamma.t.thaana manuals composed around that period
are called vidars~ana pot.

> These meditation texts are more prevalent in SL it seems
> than Laos, ... The SL tradition may have been influenced
> by Siamese monks in the mid-18th century.

This seems quite likely. Before Visuddhacaara gave his
sermon during which the king of SL was to be assasinated, a
book he had brought from Siam was paraded through the
streets. Maybe this was a Vidarsana Pot. According to the
colophon of of the Asgiriya copy of the Vidars~ana
Pota/Karma.s.thaana-dhyaana-bhaavanaa, its compiler,
Rambukavele Ratanajoti was asked to do so by the Siamese
theras. The monasteries where these Vidars~ana manuals are
found are Asgiriya branch Siam Nikaya monasteries. After the
revival of the Upasampadaa the Asgiriya vihara monks
specialised in meditation and founded forest meditition
monasteries like Bambaragala where the MS of the
``Yogaavacara Manual'', i.e., Bambaragalee Vidars~ana Pot,
was found. However, Somadasa notices in the Catalogue to the
Hugh Nevill Collection that some words used in the text are
archaic and there might be an influence from the Kurunegala
period. Bechert, Sinhalesischen Handschriften II p. 53ff,
notices a Burmese influence in the Pali formulas at the
start of the Bambaragalee Vidarsana Pota.

A little known meditation manual written in the 12th century
by Sariputta
Mahaasaami is called Kamma.t.t.haana Diipanii or
Kamma.t.thaana Sangaha. It is mentioned in the Pi.taka
Samuin (there appears to a MS in the National Library of
Rangoon) and the Lankaawee Puskola Pot Naamavaaliya, but, as
far as I know, no edition exists nor has any research been
done on it. It might be identical with the
Duvidha-kamma.t.thaana which appears to be a condensed
version of the Dvidha-vutta-kamma.t.thaana, which in turn is
a prose version of the
Ratana-amatakara.na-va.n.nanaa/Yogajanakanta-vimuttimagga.
There is also a Sinhalese work on meditation called
Vimukti-san.graha, written in the 14th century by
Lan.kaasenavirat Pirivena Adhipatti, and a Pali work called
Vimutti-san.gaha.

I am wondering whether I am the first one
to draw the link between Sariputta's work and the other
kamma.t.thaana works. Bechert, Somadasa, and Nevill don't
mention anything about it. It would be worthwhile for some
Sinhalese scholar to find out which one is Sariputta's work,
but there is little interest in doing MSS research here.


Bechert has written an article about called ``Vimuttimagga
and Amataakarava.n.nanaa'', Amaala Praj~naa: Aspects of
Buddhist Studies, Prof. P.V. Bapat Felicitation volume, ed.
N.H. Samtani, Delhi 1989, p. 11-14. I hope to find a copy of
this article some time.

My excuses if the format of my
messages appears funny. I have not been able to figure out 
yet how to
set the margins on my Thunderbird e-mail editor and
apparently they are much too wide.

Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita

1610 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:43pm 
Subject: Re: Filliozat: Muulakamma.t.thaana

Dear Eisel, 

Sorry for the delay, I have been busy finishing my grading and 
working ith students. Taking long walks in the beautiful 
winter weather here too:) 

To answer a few of your great questions and the comments by 
Mme Filliozat: Mme Filliozat is absolutely correct. There are 
lots and lots. There are also 
Mul Kammatthana in the middle of other manuscripts with a 
variety of titles like Dhammaratray, Saddavimala, Pansakul, 
Abhidhamma Chet Gambhi, among others. There are even some 
connections between learning Pali grammar and "esoteric 
meditation." It is a long-term project of mine. I have written 
a bit on this subject and will be orking on it a lot more this 
summer. Bizot, Tep, Becchetti, Lagirarde, Crosby, de Bernon, 
Swearer, Anuson, Skilling, and von Hinueber have uncovered 
much, but there is still much to be done. 

SL seems the best place to start if one is interested 
in origins (although this tradition as heavily influenced by 
Siamese monks in the 18th ce). Bizot has traced many things 
there, but much of it is also native to Cambodia. Laos seems 
to have gotten its tradition from a mixture of Khmer and No. 
Thai sources and also developed unique traditions in its own 
Wats. I have an article coming out this year in Tai Culture 
about the Laos-Northern Thai overlapping traditions and the 
fact that most observers and locals in Northern Thailand 
referred to themselves, it seems, as "Lao," before the 20th 
century. You read an early version of this piece and I can 
send the final version once the publisher sends me the final 
proofs. I also have another article coming out on the French 
influence on Lao-Pali education systems if you are interested. 

At this point, in regards to the origins of these manuscripts 
, looking for an Ur Text or even asking the Pali-Vernacular 
question is pre-mature I think. I think we need to see how the 
texts are read and treated in the living tradition. Read for 
content first, examine the features of the text as we have it. 
From there, the long search for origins and stemma can begin. 
This, of course, depends on what we are reading mss. for -- to 
discover the "real" Buddhavacana, which is a noble endeavor of 
course, or to discover how monks today or at any particular 
socio-historic point read a particular text. Of course, both 
can be done, but in terms of these meditation manuals, the 
origin question is not very important to most pratitioners I 
work with. Most do not care if there is a Pali, Sinhala, Khmer 
, etc. version. Most do not care where a particular ms. came 
from as long as their own teacher recommended it. These 
questions arise, of course, in the Lao tradition, but, these 
are not the first questions it seems to me. At this point, e 
need to just sit and read lots of manuscripts first to see 
what the texts tell us. Then compare synchronically and trace 
diachronically. Of course, the primary way to read these texts 
is as a manual to actually perform the rites and practice the 
meditation. However, one danger is that we will reconstruct a 
meditation system that was an ideal and never actually 
practiced in that way. Your idea of getting editions on the 
web is great so these texts can be worked on by a number of 
people. Your Pali grammatica talents would help us in looking 
at the SL manuscripts since the Lao mss. are mostly 
vernacular. In fact, I am sure you know that Bizot and 
Lagirarde (1996, Saddavimala, la purete par les mots) mention 
the funny connection between Kaccayana and this meditation 
system. I think I sent you what I wrote on that already. 

As you know, I am trying to trace this tradition in regards to 
funeral rites. There is a piece on this coming out soon and I 
will send it to you. I plan to write a longer history of the 
mul kammatthana in Lao/N.Thai and Siamese traditions starting 
in the summer. I have a number of these manuscripts (paper 
copies) collected from various monastic and scolarly archives 
collected beteen 1998-2004, I will add to these and send 
updates as I get through them. This, of course, is slow work, 
which is always happily interupted by my playful son and good 
music. 

Have fun in SL. 

Best, 
justin 


---- Original message ---- 
>Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:21:12 +0700 
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
>Subject: [palistudy] Filliozat: Muulakamma.t.thaana 
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com 
> 
>... And the last word goes to Mme. Filliozat, who wrote to me 
as follows. 
>----------- 
>Cher Monsieur, 
>[...] 
>Sorry to interfere with my French feminine frank habit 
>in your Pali study Yahoo group. I have a few remarks 
>to tell you . Those who cannot remember the past are 
>condemned to repeat it I mean that instead of arguing 
>about "the Muulakamma.t.thaana(apparently) a Pali text 
>that has ceased to be extant in the original, but has 
>survived in a Lao translation" 
>you had better to check the texts you look for in all 
>catalogues available of Pali manuscripts and also in 
>catalogues for Singhalese and Indochinese collections. 
>You'll be surprised to find many. Not only a Lao 
>translation has survived! Consult Fran.ois Bizot from 
>EFEO and collection of mss. he has done on kammatthan 
>(he is back in Chiang Mai and lives there permanently 
>now bizo@wanadoo.fr). Our colleague Olivier de Bernon 
><femc.efeo@forum.org.kh> from EFEO-FEMC Phnom Penh 
>has recently submitted a brilliant thesis on 
>Kammatthan in Paris, in French of course. You could 
>consult, with a lot of documents in Khmer, Pali, thai 
>his bibliography could help you to learn that since 
>Coed.s and Saddhatissa some progress has been done in 
>studying further and deeply the new mss. found in the 
>specialized monastic libraries. 
>Before declaring that a text is lost, we have to look 
>all the data existing. I do not keep for me the 
>privilege of cataloguing mss. come and help, you'll 
>find at least one new text in Pali out of every 100 
>mss. bundles catalogued. I think that many texts 
>supposed lost are just forgotten in a corner and 
>neglected. There is no inventory for the thousands 
>mss. (in a mess, spoiled by bats, rodents, road dust 
>pollution, insects) kept in Vat Rajasiddharam, 
>Thonburi, a famous meditation school, you could find 
>there copies of various Mulakammatthan versions and 
>traditions? Myself I can find in my catalogues few 
>items never studied. 
>French catalogued collections offer many from Khmer 
>tradition (see Au Chhieng catalogue for BnF).In 
>Bangkok, Manuscript House Fragile Palm leaves see 
>No.99 Pali-Burmese ka-ga complete;1681Pali-Burmese 
>ka-gha complete; 2766 Pali incomplete (no end). 
>Contact curator Peter Skilling <peski@inet.co.th> 
>Hope you'll get replies, if not, tell me please.I'll 
>strongly interfere because I do not agree with the way 
>the curators keep the documents for themselves while 
>they are government servants and supposed to open the 
>libraries and not keep the mss. in secret. All the 
>collections I mention should be opened to scholars's 
>consultation. 
>With best wishes. 
>J.F. 
> 
______________ 
Dr. Justin McDaniel 
Dept. of Religious Studies 
2617 Humanities Building 
University of California, Riverside 
Riverside, CA 92521 
909-827-4530 
justinm@ucr.edu

1611 
From: <justinm@ucr.edu> 
Date: Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:53pm 
Subject: Re: SV: sundry

Dear Ole,
That is a terrible story about the Mahaanidessa. I once found
a very short (physically short -- only 4 inches long)
manuscript in a shop in Laos (down the street from the
Bibliotheque Nationale and across from Wat Ong Teu). I openned
the manuscript and as struck how the sentences kept starting
and ending abruptly. It looked as if parts had been cut. It as
definately a kammavaca ms., but much as missing. I asked the
shopkeeper why she was selling a ms. and how it had been
damaged. She replied, "Baw hoo" (I don't know). Then she asked
if I wanted anymore mss. I said that I would like to see all
the mss. she had. She brought out four mss. identical to the
one on display. She had cut one ms. into five pieces so that
she could make a profit selling five mss. instead of just
one!! I reassembled these five, copied them, and gave them to
the preservation department at the BN in Vientiane. I told the
BN staff to watch this shop, but a member of the BN staff
might have been the person ho originally sold her the hole
intact mss.!
Best for a happy holiday and better new year,
justin 
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:54:36 +0100
>From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
>Subject: SV: [palistudy] sundry 
>To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>Dear Justin and Eisel,
>
>I am horrified. I was not aware of the American involvement
with the Khmer
>Rouge. Stealing images, sculptures etc. is an international
and lucrative
>business. I don't know much about pilfering valuable ms.s
from Buddhist
>monastic libraries, but it seems to be organised by dealers
too. Here in
>Copenhagen of all places I once found in a well-known shop
selling "exotica"
>a beatifull copy of the Mahaaniddesa dated 1824, a fascicle
of the Jataka at
>least 250 years old and a lot more. I later found out that
they had been
>stolen from Sinhalese monastic libraries by greedy monks with
the assistance
>of antique dealers.
>
>Best
>Ole
>
>
>
>I was at the Norton Simon last week. They have a few pieces
including the
>Harihara and several other significant pieces.
>It is just not a large collection compared to the South Asian
collection
>there which is massive. I guess it matters what you count as
a big
>collection. Some beautiful and sacred pieces.
>Too bad one can't offer flowers, oil, and incense in the museum.
>
>The Americans, the French, the British, the Germans, the
Japanese should
>return everything. It wouldn't solve much I imagine. Chinese,
Malaysian and
>Thai business people would steal it again:) I recently spoke
(April 2005) at
>the seminar for the King of Siam Art Exhibition which is the
largest
>traveling exhibition of Siamese Art in history. Very nice
show. It took 8
>years to arrange (I was not part of this
>phase) because the Ministry of Fine Arts in Thailand wanted
to keep most
>pieces in the basement of the museum. Most are never seen and
are not
>returned to temples either. There is internal "stealing" as
well. Sadly an
>old story.
>
>I wrote a 250 page thesis when I was 19 years old on the American
>involvement with the Khmer Rouge and the U.S. bombing which
was one of the
>main contributing factors to their ability to rise to power
and rule.
>Americans acting badly is an old story. Stealing images is
the least of the
>problem. The sad thing is that every country that develops
power needs or
>think it needs to defend that power and thus in that defense
there is
>offense and everyone loses. An old story. I have grown less
angry in my old
>age or perhaps just more depressed:)
>
>Best:)
>justin
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@ucr.edu

1612 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:52pm 
Subject: Abhidhamma-vibhavini

Dear Friends,

Since the CSCD doesn't contain the Abhidhamma-vibhavini, is it possible to find this text elsewhere in digital edition?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1613 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:19pm 
Subject: E.M. arrived in Kandy

Just a short message --I am alive and well and living in Sri Lanka.

I have "checked in" to the Burmese Rest House (that's on "Old Matale
Road", Kandy) and, in theory, that rest house can be contacted by
telephone. The monks who operate the rest house are indeed Burmese
--thus, they do speak some English, but I do not know if any of them
understand Sinhala.

It seems that I will be meeting Premasiri and a few other professors
at the university today --i.e., I may remain difficult to contact for
the next 24 hours. In the near future I should make a telephone call
to the Forest Hermitage --perhaps tomorrow or the next day.

I have barely had 4 hours of sleep since I arrived here, and therefore
abstain from comment on the interesting discussion ongoing on the list
these days.

E.M.

1614 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:32am 
Subject: Re: E.M. arrived in Kandy

Hi E.M.

I am wondering if you do not mind writing a bit about the Forest Hermitage
since I do not know anything about it.
I stayed in the Island Hermitage for almost a year in the 70's. 
I am wondering if it is still "alive/operational" or not.

tadao



--- Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> Υå
> Just a short message --I am alive and well and living in Sri Lanka.
> 
> I have "checked in" to the Burmese Rest House (that's on "Old Matale
> Road", Kandy) and, in theory, that rest house can be contacted by
> telephone. The monks who operate the rest house are indeed Burmese
> --thus, they do speak some English, but I do not know if any of them
> understand Sinhala.
> 
> It seems that I will be meeting Premasiri and a few other professors
> at the university today --i.e., I may remain difficult to contact for
> the next 24 hours. In the near future I should make a telephone call
> to the Forest Hermitage --perhaps tomorrow or the next day.
> 
> I have barely had 4 hours of sleep since I arrived here, and therefore
> abstain from comment on the interesting discussion ongoing on the list
> these days.
> 
> E.M.
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1615 
From: Dhammanando Bhikkhu <dhammanando@csloxinfo.com> 
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:07am 
Subject: Re: Abhidhamma-vibhavini

Bhante,

On 22 Dec 2005, at 9:52 am, Yuttadhammo wrote:

> Since the CSCD doesn't contain the Abhidhamma-vibhavini, is it 
> possible to find this text elsewhere in digital edition?

Yes, that and all of the texts in the Thai Parien syllabus are now 
online:

http://www.learntripitaka.com/Theology2.html

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the grade IX texts.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando

1616 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:23am 
Subject: Re: Abhidhamma-vibhavini

A note to members: Sorry for being so silent this month. I will be mostly
away from my main residence and most of my Pali books until the spring. I
will continue to stay tuned to the list mail. Happy holidays to you all. --
Jim

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

> Since the CSCD doesn't contain the Abhidhamma-vibhavini, is it possible to
find this text elsewhere in digital edition?

Do you mean the Abhidhammatthavibhaavinii.tiikaa? This text is found on the
CSCD in the Abhidhammapi.taka section (3rd from the bottom). It's in the
same file as the Abhidhammatthasa"ngaha.

Best wishes,
Jim

1617 
From: nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> 
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2005 7:58pm 
Subject: Re: E.M. arrived in Kandy

Hello,

The FH is still functioning and I am staying there. Did not know you
stayed a year here. I think we still have some of your notes to the
Suttanipata study by Jayatilaka lying around.
Best wishes,
Bh. Nyanatusita


Miyamoto Tadao wrote:

>Hi E.M.
>
>I am wondering if you do not mind writing a bit about the Forest Hermitage
>since I do not know anything about it.
>I stayed in the Island Hermitage for almost a year in the 70's. 
>I am wondering if it is still "alive/operational" or not.
>
>tadao
>
>
>
>--- Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> Υå
> 
>
>>Just a short message --I am alive and well and living in Sri Lanka.
>>
>>I have "checked in" to the Burmese Rest House (that's on "Old Matale
>>Road", Kandy) and, in theory, that rest house can be contacted by
>>telephone. The monks who operate the rest house are indeed Burmese
>>--thus, they do speak some English, but I do not know if any of them
>>understand Sinhala.
>>
>>It seems that I will be meeting Premasiri and a few other professors
>>at the university today --i.e., I may remain difficult to contact for
>>the next 24 hours. In the near future I should make a telephone call
>>to the Forest Hermitage --perhaps tomorrow or the next day.
>>
>>I have barely had 4 hours of sleep since I arrived here, and therefore
>>abstain from comment on the interesting discussion ongoing on the list
>>these days.
>>
>>E.M.
>>
>
>Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
>GSICS, Tohoku University
>
>Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
>e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
>URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/
>

1618 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:18pm 
Subject: Re: Abhidhamma-vibhavini

Dear Jim,

Honestly, I don't know what I mean :D Ajaan Dhammanando sent me on the chase ;) Thank you, it was thought that the 
text in question wasn't on the CD, I don't know if this is the same text or not.

At any rate, Dhammanando, I found a quote similar to what we were looking at on the E-Sangha, in the section on 
Buddhanussati (VII.5) in the Visuddhimagga:

Aarakaa hi sosabbakilesehi suviduuraviduure .thito maggena savaasanaana.m kilesaana.m viddha.msitattaati aarakattaa araha.m.

I think it is clear that Payutto's quote, "Phra Buddha Jao tao nan la kilet tang mot dai prom tang vaasanaa," is 
somewhere in the commentaries. The Vism. Tiika brings up Pilindavaccha saying:

Saa panassa kilesato duurataa tesa.m sabbaso pahiinattaati dassento aaha maggena kilesaana.m viddha.msitattaati. Nanu 
a~n~nesampi khii.naasavaana.m te pahiinaa evaati anuyoga.m manasi katvaa vutta.m savaasanaananti. Na hi bhagavanta.m 
.thapetvaa a~n~ne saha vaasanaaya kilese pahaatu.m sakkonti, etena a~n~nehi asaadhaara.na.m bhagavato arahattanti 
dassita.m hoti. Kaa panaaya.m vaasanaa naama? Pahiinakilesassaapi appahiinakilesassa payogasadisapayogahetubhuuto 
kilesanihito saamatthiyaviseso aayasmato pilindavacchassa (paaraa. 621) vasalasamudaacaaranimitta.m viya. Katha.m pana 
aarakaati vutte kilesehiiti ayamattho labbhatiiti? Saama~n~najotanaaya visese ava.t.thaanato, visesatthinaa ca 
visesassa anupayojetabbato, aarakaassa honti paapakaa akusalaa dhammaati-aadiini (ma. ni. 1.434) suttapadaanettha 
udaaharitabbaani. Aarakaati cettha aa-kaarassa rassatta.m, ka-kaarassa ca ha-kaara.m, saanusaara.m katvaa niruttinayena 
arahanti padasiddhi veditabbaa. Vuttamevattha.m sukhaggaha.nattha.m so tato aarakaa naamaati gaathaabandhamaaha. 
Tattha sama~njanasiilo sama"ngii, na sama"ngitaa asama"ngitaa asamannaagamo asahavuttitaa.

Maybe it's in this paragraph somewhere; I can only get the gist of the paa.li :)

Melly Kissmat,

Yuttadhammo

Jim Anderson wrote:
> A note to members: Sorry for being so silent this month. I will be mostly
> away from my main residence and most of my Pali books until the spring. I
> will continue to stay tuned to the list mail. Happy holidays to you all. --
> Jim
> 
> Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
> 
>> Since the CSCD doesn't contain the Abhidhamma-vibhavini, is it possible to
> find this text elsewhere in digital edition?
> 
> Do you mean the Abhidhammatthavibhaavinii.tiikaa? This text is found on the
> CSCD in the Abhidhammapi.taka section (3rd from the bottom). It's in the
> same file as the Abhidhammatthasa"ngaha.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Jim
> 

1619 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:20pm 
Subject: Re: Re: Abhidhamma-vibhavini

Ajaan,

Thanks for the link. An invaluable resource for a Thai monk :)

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

Dhammanando Bhikkhu wrote:
> Bhante,
> 
> On 22 Dec 2005, at 9:52 am, Yuttadhammo wrote:
> 
>> Since the CSCD doesn't contain the Abhidhamma-vibhavini, is it 
>> possible to find this text elsewhere in digital edition?
> 
> Yes, that and all of the texts in the Thai Parien syllabus are now 
> online:
> 
> http://www.learntripitaka.com/Theology2.html
> 
> Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the grade IX texts.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Dhammanando
> 

1620 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Fri Dec 23, 2005 0:45pm 
Subject: Re: E.M. arrived in Kandy

Dear Ven. Bhante Nyanatusita:

Thank you for the information.
I looks like that in Sri Lanka there are still 
places where devoed monks can stay and practice
Dhamma "safely".

tadao


--- nyanatusita <nyanatusita@gmail.com> Υå
> Hello,
> 
> The FH is still functioning and I am staying there. Did not know you
> stayed a year here. I think we still have some of your notes to the
> Suttanipata study by Jayatilaka lying around.
> Best wishes,
> Bh. Nyanatusita
> 
> 
> Miyamoto Tadao wrote:
> 
> >Hi E.M.
> >
> >I am wondering if you do not mind writing a bit about the Forest Hermitage
> >since I do not know anything about it.
> >I stayed in the Island Hermitage for almost a year in the 70's. 
> >I am wondering if it is still "alive/operational" or not.
> >
> >tadao
> >
> >
> >
> >--- Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> Υå
> > 
> >
> >>Just a short message --I am alive and well and living in Sri Lanka.
> >>
> >>I have "checked in" to the Burmese Rest House (that's on "Old Matale
> >>Road", Kandy) and, in theory, that rest house can be contacted by
> >>telephone. The monks who operate the rest house are indeed Burmese
> >>--thus, they do speak some English, but I do not know if any of them
> >>understand Sinhala.
> >>
> >>It seems that I will be meeting Premasiri and a few other professors
> >>at the university today --i.e., I may remain difficult to contact for
> >>the next 24 hours. In the near future I should make a telephone call
> >>to the Forest Hermitage --perhaps tomorrow or the next day.
> >>
> >>I have barely had 4 hours of sleep since I arrived here, and therefore
> >>abstain from comment on the interesting discussion ongoing on the list
> >>these days.
> >>
> >>E.M.
> >>
> >
> >Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
> >GSICS, Tohoku University
> >
> >Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
> >e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
> >URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/
> >

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1621 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Dec 25, 2005 0:57am 
Subject: Re: E.M. arrived in Kandy

Hello,

Bhante Nyanatusita (on this list) can write a full reply, as he is the
permanent resident at the forest hermitage (outside of Kandy) where I
am now a "temporary resident". This is indeed the same hermitage
where formerly Bhante Bodhi and the famous succession of German
scholar-monks once were resident.

Although a beautiful and inspiring place, the forest hermitage is
surrounded by hostile monkeys, steep paths, and jungle leeches. This
would be prohibitive for many, and it is a credit to Nyanatusita that
he manages to live at ease in such surroundings --having perfect
equanimity (e.g.) in peeling leeches off of his ankles, fighting off
marauding monkeys, etc.

Nyanatusita informs me that the island hermitage is no longer so
welcoming to foreigners as it once was. I have not (yet) visited it.

E.M.

1622 
From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> 
Date: Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:09am 
Subject: Pali texts recently "discovered", etc.

I was unaware of the Abhidhanappadipika-suuci, and its related
sub-genre of 19th-20th century "-suuci" texts. I stumbled upon one at
the Peradeniya, and then found a bit more information about the genre
in the introduction to a new edition of the Abdhidhanappadipika itself
--this edition has both romanization & Sinhala script Pali (but no
column for English translation, as the old editions have) --however,
the Sinhala font is so horrible, that only the Romanization can be
used.

Thus, I do not provide publication details for the latter, as it seems
to me that either the old Sinhala editions should be used, or the
recent Burmese edition(s) --Jim Anderson showed me his copy of one of
them, and it seemed excellent (NB: Burmese script Pali only, but
typeset nicely with a method of providing the defined word in bold to
make reference easier).

There was not much to report at the BPS, except that they continue to
make the entire Hewaviratine Bequest edition of the commentaries
available / in print. They had current editions of the Balavataro and
the K-Dhatumanjusa (both Sinhala script Pali only) --these are
apparently the only classical Pali grammars that any significant
numbers of monks made use of here. Kacc. _per se_ was not available,
nor Sadd., etc.

The Buddhist Cultural Center has re-printed the BJT edition --but,
N.B., it has not been corrected at all, and is effectively a Xerox
copy of the old BLT.

I met the professors at the Peradeniya, some of whom were involved in
the new Thai (Romanized) Tipitaka --they felt that this was indeed the
greatest edition currently available in print, and was a very
significant "step forward" from the other texts on the market. I note
that this opinion is probably relative to the BJT & PTS editions
--i.e., may not be true (or equally true) relative to the Burmese or
Devanagari editions (or, for that matter, the Khmer edition), i.e.,
editions they do not generally make use of. Jim Anderson tells me
that the Devanagari edition actually has very few errors and is quite
reliable --a fact quite unknown to me. They agreed with me that the
PTS editions were of inadequate quality, and they gasped aloud at the
price of these (and other) European editions.

I am told that these University professors earn US$300 / month or less
--thus, a $100 volume may indeed be considered "out of reach" even for
a University Professor in Sri Lanka.

E.M.

1623 
From: Miyamoto Tadao <professortadaomiyamoto@yahoo.co.jp> 
Date: Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:19am 
Subject: Re: E.M. arrived in Kandy

Hi E.M.

Thank you for your lovely report.
I stayed in the next buidling (i.e., Udawattakera(?spelling?))
for a while. I hope that things haven't been changed so much,
and the surroundings are still intact.
I am wondering if the Buddhist Publication Soceity is doing well or not. 
(If they take any daana, I would wonder if you do not mind
finding and asking the person in charge at the Society for contacting me?)
Please enjoy your stay in Kandy.

tadao


--- Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@gmail.com> Υå
> Hello,
> 
> Bhante Nyanatusita (on this list) can write a full reply, as he is the
> permanent resident at the forest hermitage (outside of Kandy) where I
> am now a "temporary resident". This is indeed the same hermitage
> where formerly Bhante Bodhi and the famous succession of German
> scholar-monks once were resident.
> 
> Although a beautiful and inspiring place, the forest hermitage is
> surrounded by hostile monkeys, steep paths, and jungle leeches. This
> would be prohibitive for many, and it is a credit to Nyanatusita that
> he manages to live at ease in such surroundings --having perfect
> equanimity (e.g.) in peeling leeches off of his ankles, fighting off
> marauding monkeys, etc.
> 
> Nyanatusita informs me that the island hermitage is no longer so
> welcoming to foreigners as it once was. I have not (yet) visited it.
> 
> E.M.
> 

Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/

1624 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Sun Dec 25, 2005 0:59pm 
Subject: Re: Pali texts recently "discovered", etc.

Eisel writes:

> Jim Anderson tells me
> that the Devanagari edition actually has very few errors and is quite
> reliable --a fact quite unknown to me.

Actually I can't point to a single error in the Devanagari script edition
but there must be some error(s) somewhere in the 41 volume set that I have
yet to come across. In the late 70s I was able to order this very cheap
edition (5 rupees per volume) from Motilal Banarsidass and acquired the
whole set minus 1 volume for about $60 including the postage. Eisel tells me
that this edition has since been reprinted in Taiwan. The original edtion
first came out in the late 50s and early 60s and is based on the Burmese 6th
Council printed edition. The general editor was Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap and
I found out more about him in a book by Bhikshu Sangharakshita, the founder
of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. I think the title of the book
was something like _The Thousand Petalled Lotus_ and was about the author's
long pilgrimage all over India on foot in the 50s. In it there is a very
interesting chapter about his experiences in studying Pali with Bhikshu
Kashyap. Apparently Kashyap was well-versed in Kaccaayana's grammar. I also
remember in the book that Kashyap was rather critical of the state of Pali
learning in Sri Lanka at the time.

Best wishes,
Jim

1625 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:15pm 
Subject: SV: Pali texts recently "discovered", etc.

<The original edtion first came out in the late 50s and early 60s and is
based on the Burmese 6th Council printed edition. The general editor was
Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap>

The Devanagari edition reflects faithfully the Burmese edition of the canon.
It is generally very correct, but the Burmese version differs from the
Sinhalese textual tradition on many points, and therefore it cannot be
considered the definite version of the canon, although I do not doubt that
on certain points the readings of the Burmese version are preferable.
However, Burmese scholars used to substitute more well-known terms for
certain archaic terms of the canon, and they also made other changes to the
readings of the canon. Therefore it would be wrong to consider the Burmese
version superior to other versions. Sorting out the relationship between the
different versions and deciding which reading is preferable will take a
century, at least.

Ole Pind

1626 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:37am 
Subject: Disappearance of 'a' in compounds

Dear Friends,

I am still plugging away at a Javascript Pali Reader, and I have hit upon the problem of recognizing words like 
"aacariyantevaasika" and "dosantara". I am not sure about the second, but in the first, it looks like the aa has become 
a. I wonder if anyone has any information on when this occurs. Are there any rules (eg before "nt")? The program 
currently will recognize "aacariya-antevaasika", but not "aacariya-ntevaasika".

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1627 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Tue Dec 27, 2005 8:55am 
Subject: SV: Disappearance of 'a' in compounds

"aacariyantevaasika." This spelling is correct as Pali disallows long
vowels before any given consonant cluster.

"dosantara" is therefore correct too. 

However, "aacariya-antevaasika" is an incorrect spelling, whereas
"aacariya-ntevaasika" is correct.

Best wishes,

Ole Pind

1628 
From: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@yahoo.ca> 
Date: Tue Dec 27, 2005 2:31pm 
Subject: Re: Disappearance of 'a' in compounds

Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,

<< I am still plugging away at a Javascript Pali Reader, and I have hit upon
the problem of recognizing words like "aacariyantevaasika" and "dosantara".
I am not sure about the second, but in the first, it looks like the aa has
become a. I wonder if anyone has any information on when this occurs. Are
there any rules (eg before "nt")? The program currently will recognize
"aacariya-antevaasika", but not "aacariya-ntevaasika". >>

Kaccaayana's sandhi rule no. 12 (saraa sare lopa.m) applies to both of your
examples. It states that vowels obtain elision before a following vowel.
Hence, the final 'a' of 'aacariya' is elided before the initial 'a' of
'antevaasika'. However, the following 'a' becomes long (Kc 15 diigha.m) in
such cases as 'tatraaya.m'. Here, rule 12 still applies: tatra > tatr before
'aya.m' but there is a further step whereby the initial 'a' of 'aya.m'
becomes long. Usually, vowel lengthening does not obtain before a consonant
cluster (sa.myoga) but it does occur in such cases as 'saattha.m'
(sa+attha.m > s+attha.m > s+aattha.m > saattha.m)

Best wishes,
Jim

1629 
From: Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@sirimangalo.org> 
Date: Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:38pm 
Subject: Re: Disappearance of 'a' in compounds

Thanks for the help. Of course, I knew that "aacariyaantevaasika" was the wrong spelling, but my program doesn't. It 
catches words, and doesn't understand sandhi yet (it is still young :) ). Once it finds "aacariya", it cuts that part 
off and looks for "ntevaasika", which it finds only because I plugged an equation in as "ntevasika" = "antevaasika". 
But I'm looking for a general rule to use, so as to include "dosantara", etc. without having to plug in each example I 
find. Is it possible to determine whether the elision occurs always in certain cases (eg "nt...")?

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

1630 
From: "Ole Holten Pind" <oleholtenpind@mail.dk> 
Date: Wed Dec 28, 2005 4:23am 
Subject: SV: Disappearance of 'a' in compounds

As a rule vowels are short before consonant clusters. The example mentioned
by Jim is canonical and occurs invariably in the same context. It is easy to
understand why the early compilers of the canon preferred saattha to the
expected form sattha because the latter would be indistinguishable from
sattha < Sanskrit s.astra "knife, sword." Another interesting example is
sadattha < Sanskrit sva + artha. Pali disallows the cluster sv and elides
/v/ because /s/ stands higher in the hierarchy of sonorities than /v/. The
expected result would therefore be sa + attha > sattha. For the sake of
semantic distinctiveness speakers preferred to maintain sa + attha and
inserted an onglide /d/ before attha. The onglide /d/ is frequent in the
canon, cf. e.g. the noun phrase ya.m ya-d-(f.acc. sic!) eva.

Ole Pind
