Dear Pali friends--
I was recently looking at the most recent list of issues of the Pali
Text Society and am curious about a number of them. Does anyone own any
of the following, or have information about them?
-- The Saddaniiti (5 vols.) The description says: The greatest of the
extant Pali grammars, written by Aggavamsa of Arimaddana in Burma in
A.D. 1154. I am curious about this work, as I understand it looks
at Pali from the point of view of the roots, which is my preferred way
of studying the language.
-- PTS Journals (Mostly 1882-1927, but revived in 1981)
-- The Collected Papers of K.R. Norman and Oscar v. Hinuber.
-- Margaret Cone. A Dictionary of Pali (A-Kh)
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Lars wrote:
nice to read you also like Ven. Nananandas works so much. He is one of
my favourites. His Dhamma is deep and fresh, of a quality you don't find
so
often. I find he is a good example of the advantages of combined study
and practice. (I was told he was a scholar before ordaining.)
Nice that you met him in Sri Lanka Rene. Does he actually speak English?
Hello Lars--
I noticed immediately at the beginning of my interview with Ven N. that
he doesnt speak English as well as he writes it. This indicated to me
that he probably revises his English carefully before allowing it to be
published. Nevertheless, his spoken English is quite good, much better
than the ordinary Sri Lankans. And once it has been revised, his
written English is even better than that of many native speakers.
Only rarely do I catch an unidiomatic turn of phrase in his books.
In 2001 when I visited Ven. N., he said that translating the Nibbana
lectures were consuming a great deal of his time. Then he was just
starting to translate the lectures into English. I see that two years
later there are still only about 8 out of 40 lectures on the web:
<
http://www.beyondthenet.net/calm/clm_main1.htm> I dont know if the
remaining thirty or so have yet been translated from Sinhala. That would
be a very big project and perhaps he needs help!
Ven. N. is also very interested in the Sutta Nipata, and is not
satisfied with the existing translations in English. When I asked him if
he was interested in doing a new translation, he said yes, but that his
work on the Nibbana lectures didnt permit the time.
Rene