Dear Bhante,

Thanks for your response. As near as I can figure out, U Ba Kyaw's work is a translation of the commentaries, not the Vimaanavatthu itself, so it's not of interest to me at this point.

For the time being I will just read the verses, though Dr. Masefield's response still makes me wonder. I know hardly any Pali, but if I get the time maybe I'll take a look at the Pali Vimaanavatthu and see if I can figure out the question.

Also, thanks for the tip about the DPR. I just installed it, will try it out later.

Mudita,

Tharpa

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, BkhPali <bkhpali@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Tharpa,
>
> Yes, I can confirm that only the verses are considered the
> canonical/sutta part of the Vimana stories. Same for the Dhp, Petavathu,
> Theragatha, Therigatha and Jataka. The Snp, Ud, and Itv have mixed prose
> and verse. You can confirm this if you check the DPR.
>
> Personally, I prefered the translation of Pv and Vv in Minor Anthologies
> Vol. IV by I.B. Horner to the more recent translation by U Ba Kyaw,
> although the latter may be more useful academically. At the
> recommendation of the monks I was with at the time, I only read the
> verses and was able to get enough meaning out of them to be useful.
>
> Best wishes,
> BKh
>
>
> Nina van Gorkom wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear Tharpa,
> > I have this in hard cover and also 'Vimaana Stories, the commentary
> > translated by Peter Masefield. When I compare the first Vimaana in
> > Horner's translation with this commentary, the text is the same at
> > the beginning, also the verses, but then there is much more
> > elaboration in the Commentary translated by Masefield.
> > It seems that the verses are the sutta text, because in the separate
> > co. the words of the verses are elaborated on.
> > Actually there is the same problem with the Jaatakas: the stories and
> > the verses, and some say that the verses are the oldest. But I am
> > just concerned with the contents and what I can learn from these
> > texts for my daily life.
> > Nina.
> > Op 6-mrt-2011, om 20:49 heeft Tharpa het volgende geschreven:
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>