Dear Suan,

> I do not see the point of getting permission from him as my posting here
> is
> purely objective and academic

Actually, it's a breach of netiquette which would have had your msg rejected
by many moderated academic lists. They have this old-fashioned idea that
you should not reproduce discussions from another list without permission
from the partcipants.

> who would find discussion of the Pali commentaries to be useful,
> and would not object to it at all, unlike you who seem to have
> an issue with discussion of them? :-).

Actually, I have no problem with discussing them. My problem is when
statements in certain commentaries are treated as ipso factor true.
Commentaries are very useful tools -- I use them all the time -- but I just
don't happen to believe that any one particular commentator from any one
tradition should be given any more weight than another from another
tradition. As I have mentioned here from time to time, I am working on
Asanga's thematic commentary on the Samyukta-aagama and have been struck by
the lack of common exegetical ground between his comments and those of, say,
Buddhaghosa, even when commenting on an identically worded sutra. That
Asanga and Buddhaghosa are roughly contemporaneous and yet have such a
disparity of opinions suggests to me that both are following an exegetical
tradition that has evolved and diverged over many centuries and that both
should be valued for their insights.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge