Dear Mahinda, Ardavarz, and all;

Thank you Mahinda for that note about the Baalavaataara.
I didn't realise how important it was.
Looks like the only English script version is from the
nineteenth century (edited and translated by L. Lee,
The Orientalist, 2, 1892, from Norman's Pali Literature)

Since Pali was a central piece of monastic education these recent
books and articles by Pali scholar Justin McDaniel at UC Riverside
might be of use at least in learning how the Thai Sangha has handled
learning Pali in the past:

1. Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Intertextuality and Buddhist
Monastic Education in Laos and Northern Thailand, Seattle: University
of Washington Press, August, 2008
http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Leaves-Lifting-Words-Histories/dp/0295988487

2. "The Curricular Canon in Northern Thailand and Laos," Manusya:
Journal of Thai Language and Literature Special Issue 4, 20-59, 2002.

http://www.facultydirectory.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/pub/public_individual.pl?faculty=2320

I also deposited a copy of Justin's unpublished PhD dissertation on
Pali nissaya at the Siam Society in Bangkok but it is not on the
shelves yet.

I also recently noticed that Abhidhamma is being added as a subject to
the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy (Sapir-Whorf for some reason
is not part of it.)

For those interested in Pali verse and meter,
Collin's book also has a good summary on this,
and I also came across an interesting review
of Norman's revised translation of the Theragaathaa
that the PTS published in 2007 in the Bulletin of
SOAS 71, 3 (2008).

With metta,
Jon Fernquest