Dear Nina, Jim, George, Mahinda and friends,

this is to continue the discussion from a previous post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/message/13130

We will have to iron out a plan for the study of Saddaniiti
(Saddaniti). So far, we have already seen Jim and George posted on
this classical text of Pali grammar, which we shall regard as part of
the series.

We have agreed that the study shall be conducted at an appropriately
slow pace, given the anticipated difficulty of the text. This is
possible by reviewing the text in small portions. The principle
outcome of this study is the learnings for each participating member,
everything else being secondary. As it goes with an European (Dutch?)
saying, "it is not how much we cover, but how much we uncover". So,
the main objective is on discovery and learning from the text - a
focus on quality.

In earlier discussions, we had a brief look at the available
references for this study. I will summarise and provide these and
other background information on a project page to be set up on
tipitaka.net.

The main source of the text is tipitaka.org. Pali passages and terms
are best to be in Velthuis encoding. The reasons have been discussed
on this list and summarised here:
http://www.tipitaka.net/forge/pdf/page01.htm I have the required tools
to easily convert Unicode on tipitaka.org into Velthuis we can use,
and I am happy to provide the Velthuis text to anyone participating in
the study, and save you time in typing and editing.

The methodology of study remains to be discussed. We have so far
agreed that each posting should contain no more than a small portion
of the original Pali text. I suggest that each posting to include the
following as minimum:

1. a line-by-line English translation of the original Pali
2. discussion and commentary by the poster to summarise the contents,
and highlight any difficult words for discussion

Further, each posting shall only deal with 10% or less of any of the
Pali chapters.

Work can be divided among ourselves in one of many possible ways, but
we have to decide on one method to get started. I would just discuss
two possible methods, but better suggestions are welcomed.

(a) round-robin: I used this with Nina for the translation of MN62:
Maharahulovada Sutta. We took turn to translate a portion of the sutta.

For Padamaalaa, we can work out a queue order, and each person on the
queue takes turn to post on a section of the text.

(b) batching: I used this with Florent for the exercises in The New
Pali Course Part II. Basically, Florent posts solutions for the Pali
sentences, while I post solutions for the English ones. In addition,
we modified the process to match the book's organisation.

For Padamaalaa, each participant can be tasked one of the fourteen
chapters, and then post on a regular basis the results of his study
for group discussion. Note, technically, we have to work on the
earlier chapters first.

I think (b) is a better method for this case, but I like to hear your
opinions before we make a decision together.

Documentation will be provided, initially, via a project page, to be
set up on tipitaka.net, with links to postings. This will be expanded
in the future to include complete translations and commentaries by
members.


metta,
Yong Peng.