Decline of Pali: a Burmese view

Thanks very much, Jim, E.M., and Nina, for your detailed explanations
and opinions.The facts you have given are wholly new to me and have
given me new food for thought.

Now  I would like to present here my own thoughts and the situation of
Pali in Burma as well.

As we all know, Pali Text Society is a leading institution of Pali
studies in the West. We need not repeat its accomplishments here since
it would have been redundant to do so. However, I think that the very
success of PTS has led to the degradation of Pali in the West.

I know I should explain.

Pali is the language of Theravada Buddhism, and *almost* of nothing
else. It means that potential students of Pali are, excepting a few
philologists like K.R. Norman, those eager to learn Theravada Buddhism.
But when such persons refuse to learn Pali, their reasoning would be
typically like this:

1. Pali is admittedly the language of Theravada Buddhism

2. However, PTS, an institution of high academic standards, has already
published the translations of the whole(?) Canon. We can read and refer
to PTS translations; no sane professor could object to this.

3. It is true that a major part of the commentarial literature has not
been translated yet; but who cares? Commentaries are far from being the
genuine words of the Buddha but only works of monks belonging to later
periods.On the contrary, we can interpret the Canon in our own light,
and may even achieve better results.

4. Then studying Pali means only a bother, a waste of valuable time.

There are, of course, some protests against such an attitude. One of the
protesters is none other than K.R. Norman, who, in one of his papers
(Sorry! I am not able to give references here), warns that PTS
translations, and PED itself, should not be taken too seriously.But
almost no one would hear him.

I'd like to know your opinions. Meanwhile I still have other things to say.

Jim wrote:

>I believe it's the responsibility of those who have long been involved with
>Pali and care enough about it to try and do whatever they can to promote
>interest in the study of the Pali language and its texts and to offer
>support for the continuation of such learning. My preference is for such
>efforts to take place in a supportive religious setting based on solid
>Theravada principles rather than in an academic one involving high tuition
>fees and high salaries for teachers/researchers. My idea is for something
>that operates on the generosity and good will of dhammadaayaadas committed
>to the threefold saasana.
> 
>
A very good idea, Jim, but I doubt whether it is practical enough. I am
speaking from my own experience, for the Buddhist  University where I
studied, namely, State Pariyatti Sasana University (Rangoon), Burma is
such an institution depending wholly on donations. I belong to the third
batch of pre-graduate students; so I experienced the situation in the
early days of the University, which I will relate here.

After the founding of the University, its sponsoring committee rushed to
set up very big and costly buildings instead of seeking out competent
teachers and collecting books for the library. Their explanation is " If
the university is to survive and prosper, we must make way for a steady
stream of donations and maintain it.Tangible things usually attract
donations, and the bigger they are, the better"

As it is, the library was the last to be completed and yet without a
fund for buying books. The librarian had to wait for donated texts. The
donations did come; but only in the form of so many sets of Tipitaka
Canon. The library got so many of them that it met a shortage of
bookshelves. In the meantime, there were not enough sets of commentarial
literature even for around 100 students and other ancillary literature
was almost unavailable. The donors insisted on donating Tipitaka only;
they were afraid they would gain less merit by offering non-Tipitaka books!

I have concluded from my experience that, if an institution of Pali is
to be founded, as Jim said, "in the supportive religious settings", its
community of potential donors must be fairly advanced in its thinking
and visions; otherwise it would be very difficult to succeed, if not
outright hopeless.

E.M. has quoted some portions of ""Conclusions and Recommendations:
Minister's closing speech" from the International Conference on Buddha
Sasana in Theravada Countries (January 2003, Colombo) However, I think
there was no one there to represent Burma, and to give her views because
the following excerpts hardly reflect the situation of Pali studies in
Burma.

>Concerns have been expressed about its preservation as well as its
>circulation nationally and internationally. A grave danger has been
>identified in the dwindling interest in Pali studies in countries where it
>was a language of very great importance.
>
[. . .]

>Underlying all problems in this area is the inadequacy of attention paid to
>Buddhist education. It is certainly disturbing that we do not have a well
>established Buddhist educational system in the region.
>
[. . .]

>One is that the study of Pali language is gradually given less and less
>emphasis owing, mainly, to the overemphasis on job-oriented mode of
>education. It was noted that in many Buddhist countries, Pali was taught as
>a subject in normal school curriculum some time ago but it is no longer the
>case. More than a problem of resources such as teachers and textbooks this
>is a problem of attitudes.
> 
>
[. . .]

>Pali has been an essential aspect in the monastic education. . . . In some Buddhist countries, however, it is getting less and less attention as a result of Buddhist monks opting to study secular subjects.
> 
>
[. . .]


I think the situation of Pali studies in Burma would be interesting
because it is probably different from all other Theravadin countries.
Accordingly, I hope you won't mind my detailed and necessarily boring
account here.

If we are to speak of the Pali studies in Burma, we must divide it into
two parts: the modern (secular) education and the monastic education.
Yes, they are two entirely different worlds; they have different manners
of thinking; they almost speak different languages.

In the secular part, it is in the worst possible plight. In fact, I just
cannot think of how it will find more ways to get worse in future.

Even though Pali is not included in our school curriculum, it is taught
at the universities. We have departments of Oriental Studies (the
official term), which are in fact departments of Pali and Buddhist
studies. (You learn Sanskrit only at MA level)

The main problem is that students cannot choose the subject they wish to
major in, nor to change them. They must apply with a list of choices of
more than 30 subjects---the most popular being the medical profession,
the second one engineering, etc--- and their applications are to be
judged on the merits of their grades in the High School final exam. 
Pali has a low position in the popularity chart and also comparatively
low yearly admission quotas; accordingly a student would need a rare
combination of low grades and bad luck to end up in the Pali department.
Consequently, new students of Pali silently curse their kamma and just
try to get degrees as soon as possible. Of them, only those who have
little hope to get better jobs elsewhere would go on to post graduate
studies at universities.

In such a situation, Pali departments cannot expect students to become
competent scholars. They have to cope by begging already retired
professors to give lectures, and sometimes even by inviting monks, who
are not "educated" in the modern sense of education.

However, it is entirely different in monastic circles. In Burma, monks
are not permitted to work as a wage-earners nor as businessmen; we don't
have even the right to vote --- if an election is held, of course. Thus
we are not to know what the job-oriented culture is.On the other hand,
it means that there is no material incentive in Buddhist studies. A
monk's material circumstances are not directly related to his learning.

Then what are the circumstances that promote Buddhist studies among
monks? It is mainly the social pressure. The primary duty of a young
novice or a young monk is to study. They are *not obliged* to give any
fee for their education; the institutions of monastic education are
supposed to provide students not only education but also food and
lodging. A student's chances of success solely depends on his own merit,
good teachers, and the atmosphere of his monastery. There may be
financial constraints but nothing severe enough to deter a student from
the academic success he deserves. On the other hand, younger monks and
novices are generally not encouraged to meditate nor to give dhamma
talks though they may be "permitted" to do these things provided their
studies are not disturbed.

And Buddhist studies is the only one socially acceptable, and in some
cases the only alternative, for monks in Burma. Secular schools and
universities *cannot officially accept* a novice or a monk as a
student.(The Buddhist University where I studied is solely for monks and
novices)

In such a condition, Buddhist studies in monastic circles cannot but be
strong, for  there is nothing else to learn. (But it has also been badly
hurt by the overall degeneration of the national economy and political
instability)

And the archaic nature of the monastic education is such that Buddhist
scholarship means Pali scholarship at least, with possibly some more
things.  If one has to use translations as the main source, he or she is
viewed as a journalist, possibly a popular writer, but definitely not as
a scholar. Period.

  You would be surprised to know that a typical student of Pali in
Burmese monasteries does not possess a Pali dictionary! Beginners rely
instead on /nissaya/s (word-for-word translations) but their progress is
measured by the extent of their growing independence from /nissaya/s.
One hallmark of scholarship  is the ability to ignore /nissaya/s in
one's daily reading, and to use them only very occasionally as
references when a controversy arises. The typical tools of a Buddhist
scholar that he would daily use are the commentarial literature, classic
grammars, and possibly a compilation of verbal roots such as Saddaniiti
Suttamaalaa, Dhaatvatthasa`ngaha, etc.

It is true that we have published dictionaries. Perhaps you may know
that the comprehensive Tipitaka Pali-Burmese Dictionary has been
published in more than (20) volumes and still not complete. But what is
remarkable here is that its compilers are working for others' sake!

However, there is a real problem with Buddhist scholars of the
traditional background. They are not familiar with modern research
methodology, and they generally do not understand the modern mind-set
since they live in their own world as outsiders of the society. You
might be surprised to know that there is almost no co-operation between
monks and some remaining scholars who are laymen educated in western
universities because mutual understanding is almost nil.

Worse still, they usually concentrate on Pali only; few who would go on
to learn Sanskrit, and even fewer would learn English and other modern
languages.  In fact, the knowledge of English and other modern foreign
languages is generally viewed as an implicit indication of a weakness in
Buddhist scholarship since many of monks studying modern languages
happen to be losers in monastic education.

Consequently, those able to make contributions at the international
level are very rare. And unfortunately, what communications we have had
with the Western academia in the past is not very encouraging ( I think
I shouldn't go into details here because these events are not much
related to what we used to discuss here. I think I should publish them
elsewhere in future, probably at my web log
<http://palithought.blogspot.com>) It means that even the few who are
capable of contributing to International Pali studies won't feel
inclined to do so. And I cannot see any improvement yet in this respect
in near future.

with metta

Ven. Pandita



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