Dear Yong Peng,
I have no idea what would be the best approach for working through the 14
chapters of the Padamaalaa on the list. Personally, I prefer a less
structured approach in contrast to the more structured and systematic one
you're suggesting where a participating member commits to taking on a whole
chapter which can range anywhere from less than 10 to about 50 pages. For
personal reasons, I don't wish to take on a whole chapter at this time but
am willing to contribute in small ways to the discussions on the Saddaniiti.
It would be helpful to put together a detailed summary of the contents of
the Padamaalaa. In Smith's edition, there is no table of contents given at
the beginning. I have a list of 28 chapter headings of the entire Saddaniiti
that I put together many years ago. However, I think it's also important
that the chapters be further divided into smaller sections for a more
detailed table of contents. I have done some work on this but much more
still needs to be done.
Best wishes,
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ong Yong Peng" <palismith@...>
To: <Pali@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 3:52 AM
Subject: [Pali] Pali Study Series H: Saddaniiti (Saddaniti) - Padamaalaa
Pre-Start
> 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.
>
>
> ------------------------------------
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