Re: Meeting with Peter Skilling; Lampang

Hi Everyone:
I'm very pleased to hear that the Burmese Pali teacher is still alive.
I was there for 6 months in the mid 1970's.  At that time, the place
was the only Pali centre in Thailand, teaching the language using the traditional
method.  I think we used Kaccaya as a textbook.
Every novice/monk had to learn the whole text by heart before allowing to attend
classses in the temple.  In these classes, these students recieved instructions
on how to use the grammatical rules they have memoried.
That is, to derive the so-called surface forms from the so-called
underlying forms, they have to learn how to chose
certain sets of rules and how to apply these rules in predescribed sequential manners.
tadao




--- navako <navako@...> $B$+$i$N%a%C%;!<%8!'(B
>
>
> Just reporting that I met for a few hours with Peter Skilling.  He was kind
> enough to give me a free copy of his recent book (Pali & Vernacular sources
> from Central Thailand, etc.) and also of a recent survey of Pali manuscripts
> in Cambodia under the same imprint (under his editorship, perhaps?).  In
> return, I could only offer him a few pages of my "forthcoming" book (we had
> a few jokes about the use of the word "forthcoming" in this line of
> work...).
>
> Skilling told me that the major concentration of (living) Pali grammaticians
> (among Thai monks) was centred around a single Vihara in Lampang (Northern
> Thailand, East of Chiang-Mai).  He reported that there was a very learned
> Burmese monk there (now in his 80s) who "speaks English well, but with a
> very heavy accent" --and he is responsible, Skilling says, for the revival
> of interest in Pali grammar in the present generation.  Skilling said he
> doubted that there was a single expert in Pali grammar (among monks) in
> Thailand who had not been his student, in Lampang, at some point; however,
> Skilling stated that he did not know which books or which methods were used
> there.
>
> Sounds worth investigating.  If anyone knows more of this, I would be glad
> to learn.  I could see Lampang on my way to Nan at the end of this month.
>
> One further note: Skilling recalled to me what he knew about interlinear and
> other adaptations of Kaccayana, and stated that there was a locally-adapted
> version (of some kind) in Cambodia called "Kaccayana Me-Sutra" (the "Me" is
> the same syllable as in "Mekong", i.e., "Mother Sutra") but he was not sure
> what the nature of the book was, except that it had become the pre-eminent
> hand-book for monks learning Pali in Cambodia for many centuries.  It may be
> the same Pali original with a Khmer commentary, or perhaps a revision of the
> book entire.  It is listed in the survey of Khmer texts that Skilling
> provided me as extant in manuscript form at various libraries.  Again, if
> anyone knows ought of this, I would be glad to hear more.
>
> E.M.
>
>
> --
> A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
> Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
> Irrigators lead the water; fletchers fashion the shaft; carpenters carve the
> wood; the wise discipline themselves.
> Random Dhammapada Verse 80
>
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