Dear Dhivan,



Thank you very much for your explanation. Yes, I agree with you about what
Bryan meant and the reason for small variations among different editions of
the Pali canon. The reason I asked about this is that I found the number of
some particular suttas varies in different editions of the Pali canon, i.e.,
PTS, Syamrattha, Buddhajayanti, Burmese and the Thai Khun Tipitaka of Chieng
Tung. A colleague told me that it could be a matter of abbreviation and
probably omission in a particular edition. For example, an edition may omit
or abbreviate the repetitive parts of the suttas, while the other editions
preserve the entire wordings, etc. I was about to collect such information
for my own use and wondered whether anyone has done that so I could use
his/her work as reference.



Best regards,

Chanida





From: Pali@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Pali@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Dhivan
Thomas Jones
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 11:38 PM
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Pali] Re: Comparison of Pali suttas in different versions





Dear Chanida,

My understanding of the Pali canon is that it is fairly fixed in form.
That's to say, although there may be variations between Sri Lankan, Burmese,
Thai etc. versions, probably due to various scribal errors down the
centuries, we do not find differences of the sort you mention, such as
suttas found in one version and not in another. The reason for this is
simple. The Pali canon was pretty much fixed in the 5th c. CE by the
commentators, and the various versions I mention are all later, but they all
relate back to the the canon as the commentators describe it. So there is no
scope for the kind of differences you are thinking might be found. What
Brian was referring to is differences between the Pali version of texts like
the Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta and other versions in Sanskrit, Chinese, etc.

Best wishes,
Dhivan





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