Hi Jim and Folks,

>
>The Thai Budsir refers to a cd-rom disk I bought in 1996. It contains
>the Thai version of the Pali Tipitaka with the Atthakathas (115 vols).
>Budsir is an acronym for BUDdhist Scriptures Information Retrieval. It
>cost me a lot of money ($300 usd), but you can have access to an
>online one for free at www.budsir.org/program/ and it is searchable.
>It takes a while to get set up as your computer will have to download
>some files (about a megabyte on a PC). I think you should be able to
>access it with your Mac.

Thanks, I'll try this out.

>
>I'm interested in working with just about anything written in Pali.
>Some of the texts I've been working on lately are the Visuddhimagga
>and the Kaccayanavyaakara.na. I'm also interested in other native Pali
>grammars such as the Saddaniti. I also like to compare Pali and
>Sanskrit words and this involves working with Panini's Sanskrit
>system. I first got interested in Pali in 1973 and began studying it
>with Warder's Introduction to Pali in 1976. Even though I've spent
>about 27 years and tens of thousands of hours studying the language
>and the texts, I still have a long way to go.

I know the feeling. This language seems never-ending. And I think I
still have a long way to go to get to your level. I hope you'll be
around if I have more questions :-) Anyhow it sounds like you are
reading some very challenging material. The closest thing I'm looking
at that might resemble your current interests is the Nettipakarana,
which by tradition is also by Kaccayana.

The reason I'm reading the Dhp-a is that I enjoy stories, and the
narratives aren't too hard (for the most part) so it feels like good
practice at trying to build up reading comprehension and speed. I
keep waiting for the day when I'll just be turning pages like a
bed-time novel in English. When will it happen?

best regards,

--Rett