Dear Yong Peng,
op 11-07-2003 17:30 schreef Ong Yong Peng op ypong001@...:>

> Your suggestion for the commentary is perfect. Please do as you see
> fit. Word lists are wonderful, especially for Pali students like
> myself. I think they are generally placed at the end of the text,
> unless we assume the reader is seeing all these words for the first
> time.

N: Yes, it is with the commentaries different: very many unusual words. But
very interesting. I learn about village life in olden times. People gave
expression to their devotion with their decorations, the golden statues and
festoonwork moved along by machinery (yanta). I learn about colours, the
natural coloring, like coloring from red lead. About putting milk in a
conch. About trees I did not know of before, like the coral tree. We should
think of the kusala cittas of the people of old who made such elaborate
decorations. The Commentary gives very impressive similes about the Buddha
and Rahula walking behind as you will see soon. Against the background of
all this gold glittering, gold dusting, festoonwork, the similes come to
life.
You will also see that the Buddha is compared to an elephant, to a lion, a
tiger, a swan, and Rahula is compared to the young animal, going behind. The
animals used in these similes were considered as majestic, awe-inspiring,
and very beautiful. The young animal was also very elegant but only at the
beginning of its growth and development.
I hope you will appreciate the similes.
Y: The CSCD (cd-rom) has a built-in search function, the online PED has

> a good search engine, so do the online BUDSIR.

N: Budsir is difficult if one does not want to be on line long.
But nowadays tipitaka.net works very well for me.

Y: As for the old grammars, can you tell me more about them. Besides

> physically owning a copy, what skills/knowledge are needed to
> understand them.

N: I like to listen to the experts. Jim started with Kaccayaana, on his Pali
study. About the other grammars, maybe he would post something here? I do
not know anything. I only found out that one can easily go wrong without
these old grammars. They elaborate in their examples of the use of words. We
can find out that there is always more to it than we thought at first.
Teng Kee also posted here some info about translations of part Saddaniiti
which is in Pali. Do you have this in Pali? Then you could perhaps give some
texts from it when you give us the word of the week. Several people together
could try to translate the relevant passage.
Nina.