| Dear List Members,
Just a brief reminder that our April seminar is being held
this Friday at 5.00 pm.
The presenter will be Primoz Pecenko.
This month the seminar will be hosted at University of Western Sydney,
Superintendents Cottage. Please refer to
Map
(Ref ET) for details.
We do hope you can attend
AABS Executive Committee
Pali texts and their manuscripts: a case of 'lost'
manuscripts mentioned in old Pali bibliographic sources
In this seminar I will discuss my research of the Pali
subcommentaries on the first four Nikayas and show that there
exist two sets of such subcommentaries and not just a single set
which we have in printed form. The works of modern Pali
scholarship, which in this case agree with the Theravada
tradition, also usually mention only one set of the
subcommentaries. However, according to some Pali bibliographic
sources and catalogues of Pali manuscripts held in various
libraries in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, there seem to exists another
set of the subcommentaries on the four Nikayas which has been
ignored/omitted by the Theravada tradition and also considered
either "lost" or "non-existent" by modern Pali scholarship.
My recent discovery of a Pali manuscript of one of the "lost"
subcommentaries in Myanmar gives a completely new perspective on
the historical development of the two sets of the
subcommentaries and in a wider sense also on our understanding
of the available information about the history of Pali
literature. I will attempt to discuss the following important
issues which issued from this discovery:
1. The existence of the "lost" manuscript proves that the
information in some older Pali bibliographic sources-where both
sets are mentioned-is correct and that both the Theravada
tradition as well as modern Pali scholarship ignored the 'lost'
texts and the bibliographic information about them. Why?
2. The analysis of the available printed editions and
catalogued manuscripts also indicates that the information about
the sub-commentaries given in the works of modern Pali
scholarship seems to be influenced by the traditional Theravada
scholarship (both mention only one set)-although the information
about the "lost" texts was available.
3. My discovery of the above mentioned manuscript, which is
listed in the oldest Pali bibliographic text (Saddhammasangaha),
also proves that this oldest bibliographic text-often considered
less reliable by modern Pali scholarship-seems to be much more
reliable than the later bibliographic sources (e.g. Sasanavamsa)
which have been considered a very important source for modern
history of Pali literature. Therefore the sources for the
available "history" of Pali literature as well as the "history"
itself need to be re-examined in the light of the information
given in the older bibliographic texts, catalogues of Pali
manuscripts and the manuscripts which have not been researched
yet.
4. Considering all this, our understanding of the traditional
Theravada transmission of the texts will have to be re-examined
as well.
*
Please email us to submit a News item for distribution to the
AABS list | 