dear Piya, Yong Peng, and friends,


Merry Xmas!


Since there's been a bit of chat about it, i might take the time to
expand a little on some the ideas i've been tossing around for the
early Buddhist Studies website.

The idea arose out of the difficulties i have found in pursuing my
interest in early Buddhist studies. Not being associated with a
University, i have had to pursue my studies in a totally ad hoc
manner, working with whatever material i happen to stumble across.

The idea is to provide a one-stop-shop for those interested to
pursue study of early Buddhism along comparative and historical
lines.

'Early Buddhism' means, generally speaking, the first 500 years, and
would thus include Sutta (Agama/Nikaya), Vinaya, and Abhidhamma
material. Later material would not be excluded, especially when it
throws light on the early period. But the main focus of interest
would be the shared, pre-sectarian material in the Nikayas/Agamas
and Vinayas.

The site will include its own content, and will also co-ordinate
content found elsewhere on the net. Additionally we hope to promote
feedback, utilizing some of the amazing talents of people such as on
this yahoogroup, and actually generate new content throught the site.

Some of the things we want to do will be quite straightforward. For
example, one section would be for essays on early Buddhism. These
can just be put there as pdf files for anyone to read.

Another section would be for translations. We would not wish to
duplicate efforts done elsewhere, so would not emphasize putting
translations from Pali. The main aim would be to encourage
translations of early materials from Chinese, Skt, and Tibetan.

A further section would be devoted to original texts. Again, we
would not put up Pali or Chinese texts (except in special
circumstances), since these are easily available. We already have a
significant amount of (hybrid) sanskrit versions of the early suttas
in digital format, and would hope to eventually include all the
available Skt material (which is becoming quite a large amount).

A further large-scale project would be to include correspondence
tables. The concordances between the Nikayas and Agamas were first
done by Akanuma in 1929, and his is still the only work available to
English speakers in the subject. It has all the errors one can only
expect from a groundbreaking work of this scope. Rod Bucknell has
compiled an updated concordance, using the revised tables in the
modern Fo Guang edition of the Agamas. But even these have their
errors. Ven Analayo is working through the Majjhima, and in a year
or two will have completed this project, including a thourough
revision of all concordances. I have done a little work on the
Samyutta, enought to convince me that the job needs a more thorough
going-over.

So anyway, these concordance tables can be included in the website.
Now, just to put them up there would already be a great service,
making widely available concordances that are more accurate and easy
to use than the standard edition. But we can do much more than that.

I envisage creating a system whereby each reference in the
concordance can be linked to the actual sutta on the web. So you
look at the concordance under, say, DN 1. You click on the Pali
link, that takes you to the Pali version of the sutta. You click on
the Chinese ref, that takes you to the CBETA site for the Chinese
version. If there is a Skt version, that link takes you there.
Translations can also be included: one click takes you to the
English trans of the Pali, another to the English trans of the
Chinese (which in fact already exists on the web). The system can be
extended to include relevant commentaries, studies, etc.

Obviously we are starting to talk about a big project here. It might
be useful to start out with a manageable chunk as a pilot project.
Perhaps we could do the Digha before proceeding with the other
collections.

I have no idea of the technicalities, and would like to serve as a
motivator and dhamma-overseer, enlisting various technical supports
along the way. There are some of your regular contributors on this
list who have already expressed interest. In addition, we have
received an offer of financial support for this project from a
Penang devotee who works in the IT industry. At this stage, i am
still just throwing ideas around, and would like to hear from anyone
who has any ideas how to make this work, make it work better, or
who would like to contribute.

I am sure many of my ideas are naive or unworkable, but am equally
sure that somehow we can make something really beneficial.

in Dhamma

Bhante Sujato

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Ong Yong Peng" <ypong001@...> wrote:
> --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Piya Tan wrote:
>
> Frankly, from what Ajahn Sujato told me, I think this website if
> successful will contribute greatly to anyone teaching, researching
or
> has any interest in early Buddhism, Pali, Agamas and related
topics.