Re: Meeting with Peter Skilling; Lampang

Hi Tadao,

>  When I firts visited the temple, I felt very odd to see (and hear)
>young novices memorizing the entire Pali grammar book without undestanding
>even a single word in it. However, it is the traditional Indian
>method, which is quite effective in a long run.

This is very interesting stuff. I hope we will get to hear more about
it from you. It's been 30 years, but do you remember if they recited
the number of each sutta? And was the recitation fast and continous,
or was there a pause between the suttas? Did they recite the vutti as
well?

I also believe memorization is very helpful, and that the many Pali
texts memorized by the Bhikkhus must go a long way towards teaching
them the language. Even as a layman, the short texts like the 'iti pi
so', that we recited, without even knowing what they meant, became
like a condensed reference grammar later. When I first learned the
declesions of nouns ending in consonant stems I suddenly remembered
'kaayena vacaa cittena' and understood vacaa for the first time. From
then on I couldn't forget it. It still happens that I 'look up' a
declension in my mind by thinking of those short texts we used to
chant at temple. The Indian system seems to have developed this
method to a very high level.

best regards

/Rett