Hi Piya,
I like your proposed scheme for sutta reference abbreviations, and I agree
with the annoying roman numeral stuff like xxxviii. I hope the sensible
scheme is adopted, but the realist in me knows that actual standards that
get adopted are just a hodge podge of things done for political reasons,
legacy reasons, and just general stupidity.
The USA still has not adopted the metric system. This is not just an
inconvenience, lives are lost. For example, space shuttles blowing up, many
other catastrophic engineering mistakes are due to conversion errors between
metric and American system.
My point is, even with lives being lost, America will not switch to
metric. In the Pali world, with no fatalities to induce reform, there's
probably even less reason for people to want to change. :)

Getting very old and jaded,
-fk


-----Original Message-----
From: Pali@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Pali@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Piya
Tan
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 7:40 PM
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Pali] Re: AN1: Niivara.nppahaana Vagga

Dear John,

Only a few days ago I emailed John Bullitt about his Unified Tipitaka
Reference
System, which is a very useful effort towards some form of standards
standards. (See
his Access to Insight website for thise.) Here is the portion I wrote to him
that is
also relevent to our discussion:

My main rationale has been simplicity and readability, transmuting the oral
tradition
into a reading audience so that they do not find the Suttas too formidable.

For example, I use 1 letter for the Nikayas: D, M, S, A. & books of the Kh
where
possible (such as B = Buddha,va.msa, C = Cariyaa,pi.taka).
2 letters for other "2nd level" works: Dh, Sn, Pm.
In the case of the Niddesa, there is a bit of problem: I think it is
advantageous to
put the main part of the title at the head, viz:

Nm = Maha Niddesa
Nc = Cuu.la Niddesa

This is not perfect but it works for an internal system like the Sutta
Discovery
series.
3 letters for Abhidhamma, and other "3rd level" works: Vbh, Dhs, etc.
4 letters or more for the works (please refer to attached Textual
Conventions).
In this way, the Commentaries' initials would appear neat, eg DA MA SA AA
DhA SnA PmA
VbhA, etc

I also use a lot of headings and sub-heading, and footnotes for terms and
concepts
that I think the regard may come across for the first time. These
translations are
actually teaching notes.

> Your comment re the sutta referencing is very wise. My only
> additional comment would be to put the PTS page number in roman
> numerals since that is the way it is so often done, and it helps
> differentiate it, thus avoiding confusion with Nipaata number, etc.

While roman numbers do stand out distinctly against Arabic (or Indian)
numbers, they
become unwieldy (to the eye and mind), when it comes to large numbers. For
example,

Dukkara Sutta: S XXXVIII.16 or S xviii.16/4:260 (here obviously S
38.16/4:260 is
simpler).
I use a dor to separate the sa.myutta and the sutta number, and use a colon
to
separate vol:page. This applies mutatis mutandis to Anguttara citations. I
suppose
the roman numbers work better with Anguttara nipaatas as there are only 11
(xi) of
them, but for the sake of consistency, it is good to use arabic for all.

>
> Also, in the Anguttara, it is common to show the vagga number as well
> as the sutta number for the first 2 nipaatas. Thus for the first
> vagga - AN1.1.1-10/I 1-2, and for the second one - AN1.2.1-10/I 3-5.
> What do you think?

Yes, this part is sometimes confusing for some, as a lot of short suttas are
packed
together. To aggravate matters, there are occasions (thankfully rare) where
the
sections numbers etc are not given or in error. Sometimes I find the PTS
numbering
and Bodhi's number for example, differ.

Anyway to answer your question: yes, it is very good idea to cite the first
2
nipaatas as "A nipaata.vagga.sutta/vol:page" in full, or either as "A
nipaata.vagga.sutta<.section>" or simply as "A vol:page".

I still feel that roman numerals should be interred with Caesar, so to
speak. Anyway,
I still say we should use what we are comfortable with, as in the final
analysis
these are all tools for awakening.

I have also worked on my own Textual Conventions (which I have been using
for the
past decades). I am willing to share with anyone wishing to look at it or
help to
improve it, or even merge it with a better system.

Sukhi

Piya




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