Hello Ray,

the answers to your questions are,

1. By default, this notational form is more commonly used as a
convention to refer to PTS publications, which can either be the Pali
or its English translation. The roman numeral refers to the volume
number, and the arabic numeral after the period refers to the page number.

2. Yes. However, this format may also be used to refer to the Pali
Tipitaka other than the PTS version. Usually, a distinction is made by
preceding the citation with the abbreviation of the publisher.
Examples of abbreviation of publishers:

PTS: Pali Text Society (London, UK, academic/commercial)
BJT: Buddha Jayanti Tipitaka (Sri Lanka in commemoration of Vesak 2500)
SLTP: Sri Lanka Tipitaka Project (digitisation of BJT)
VRI: Vipassana Research Institute (Igatpuri, India, Burmese Goenka
tradition)
CSCD: Chattha Sangayana CD-ROM (produced by VRI, based on the Burmese
CS version, current CD-ROM version 3.0)
BUDSIR: BUDdhist Scriptures Information Retrieval (CD-ROM followed by
web version produced by Thai Mahidol University)

Note: Digitised/computerised versions no longer contain a volume and
page number. Also, the above list refers to those Tipitaka versions
with a roman-script copy. There is yet any roman-script copy produced
for the Cambodian or Laotian versions, although I do not anticipate
much difference. Other than PTS, all versions of the Pali Tiptaka come
in more than one script.

3. Yes, of course. These texts have been preserved for three millenia.
It is only a matter of putting them in a form recognised by the
computer, a process known simply as digitisation. The following page
probably listed them all.

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/seminar/resource.htm

4. Not the whole, Metta-net has the first four Nikayas in English, but
not yet the Khuddaka Nikaya, and also not the Vinaya and Abhidhamma.

ATI, which is more popular, has the second largest collection of
English translations.

ATI: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/
Metta Net: http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/

Some English translations by Myanmar Pitaka Association is also
available online:

http://www.nibbana.com/tipitaka/tipilist.htm

Last but not least, our group has also done a fair bit of translation.
You can search through the archives for them. Our latest translations
are available from this link:

http://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/spectra/ekaka_nipata

P.S. There are also several online versions of the Dhammapada in
English. A search on Yahoo! or Google would give you a good list of them.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, interpreter_ray wrote:

1. When a citation of a translated (English) passage from the Tipitaka
is given as, for example, Vinaya Pitaka II.253, what does the "II" (2)
stand for and what does the 253 stand for? Do these numbers refer to
the original Pali or to the translated English version?

2. Does this citation format-- roman numeral followed by arabic
numeral-- always or usually indicate that is from the Pali Text
Society version of the Canon?

3. Is there a website where one can access the whole or most of the
Pali Tipitaka?

4. Is there a website where one can access the whole or most of the
Tipitaka in English translation?