Re: Decline of Pali: reply to Rhett

Well, Rhett, what I said in my previous message has proven to be true; those
who will justify (or turn a blind eye to) British racism and imperialism
will just as easily justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands in our own
times --you have already attempted this in regard to the American wars in
S.E.A.

>>What we have here are two completely different issues.  I don't disagree
>>with what Rhett says about critical editions, but it isn't actually related
>>to what I said about scholars being alienated from indigenous sources,
>>resources, and (above all) persons, because they cannot read the local
>>scripts.
>
> Is it an either/or thing? Must one either have romanized editions or
> indigenous editions, but not both?

No, you have again introduced a spurious issue.  Rhett, you can't be a
scholar of Chinese if (1) you can only read Chinese in Romanized script, and
(2) you can neither speak Chinese in a way that's intelligible to anyone in
China, nor understand it when it's spoken by a native of China.  Doesn't it
seem to you the least bit problematic that the PTS has created a situation
whereby these things are true of the majority of western Pali scholars? 
They can't read native script and can neither speak the local brogue nor
understand it when it's spoken.  _This is a problem_, and it would be a
major change in policies and priorities for the PTS to redress it.  Your
repeatedly stating that something else is a higher priority doesn't deny
that there's a problem, but suggests that you think it unimportant.  I would
be more interested in knowing your reasons for the latter than hearing you
invent postulates that are not mine and then attacking them (the "straw man"
argument).

>>; obviously, knowing Pali in multiple indigenous scripts
>>is better preparation than none at all, but even then the relationship is
>>quite complex.  Thai is, perhaps, the worst of all examples, where "c"
>>becomes "j", final vowels are ignored, etc. etc.
>
> This is all very interesting stuff, but as you mention yourself, the
> indigenous scripts aren't going to help here much more than the Roman
> script here are they?

Yes, they are; the indigenous script (and historical changes in that script
over time, including its interactions with other scripts in the region)
often plays a vital role in the shifting pronounciation of Pali, and is a
far better guide to decoding the relationship between the language and the
local pronounciation.  There are some distinctions in the local script that
do not exist in Romanized text --with Thai this is certainly the case.  So
the answer to your question is: being able to read it like a local does
indeed help you to speak it and hear it like a local, and also to understand
why it's done that way.

> My point was not that nothing whatsoever would have been done. My
> point was that none of the work done by PTS would have happened if
> PTS hadn't existed...

That's certainly a tautology, Rhett; impossible to refute.

>>   Let me be clear: the only people who have this hubris (this
>>perverse notion) that the world of Theravada Buddhism is beholden to
>>the PTS are those who totally rely on Romanized editions, and
>>therefore are unaware of the wealth of
>>resources that come from Asia, or even European organizations other than the
>>PTS.
>
> This opposition between the West and Asia seems to me to be entirely
> unnecessary. You have swallowed a rather dull sort of inverted
> prejudice, hook line and sinker, my friend.

You have again invented a position that is not mine, attributed it to me,
and then attacked it.  I find that rather boring.  Why don't you re-read the
quote from my original message and let me know where you get this reckless
inference that I've created an opposition between West and East here?  What
I've stated is that _if you can only read Romanized texts, etc._ you will be
unaware of the value of non-Romanized sources.  Your _ad hominem_ attack
does not speak to this point at all.

> Granted. But given your wildly extremist position it wouldn't
> surprise me if you said so, at least as a joke. Kind of like
> inscription brahmi being the only truly universal script (universal
> as in equally unintelligible for everyone).

The latter was a joke; and it is also literally true for the reason you
state.  It is alien to all, therefore equally familiar to all.

> When I signed up for my 20% discount I only had to provide a single
> thumbprint in blood and swear eternal alliance to the Rhy-Davids
> aryan conspiracy.

Rhett, that's what you've provided them with anyway: your willing ignorance,
and your contrition in this history of "aryan conspiracy" nonsense.  I'm not
a member of the PTS, and, as of this time of writing, I do not own a single
PTS edition.  Not one.

>>  The U.S. dropped more
>>bombs on Laos alone than it dropped on Germany and Japan combined during
>>WWII; if you take the cash value of the bombs and divide by the number of
>>days of the conflict, it works out to $3 million U.S. dollars EVERY DAY for
>>NINE YEARS.
>
> Yes, but for the most part it dropped them on the same limited parts
> of the country, over and over.

Rhett, you simply do not know what you're talking about; and what you're
saying really is tantamount to holocaust denial.  In addition to bombing
campaigns (and you can get a map of Laos and start colouring in all the
areas that were bombed; not surprisingly it is EVERY PART OF THE COUNTRY
that wasn't occupied by pro-U.S. militias) they were funding ground troops
to the tune of millions of dollars.  The Hmong insurgents are still fighting
against the Laotians to this day, as part of their pact with the C.I.A.; in
2004 the C.I.A. continued to very publicly keep up its end of the bargain
and "patriated" several thousand Hmong fighters, i.e., extended U.S.
citizenship to them, and relocated them to the states from Thailand.  There
was absolutely no part of Laos that was not impacted and/or devastated by
U.S. involvement, and I am egregiously offended by your facile and untrue
statements on this matter.  Unlike Vietnam, the U.S. bombers had absolutely
no "Rules of Engagement" in Laos, and so they could indeed bomb Theravada
temples, exterminate camps of refugees, etc., without no chance of military
discipline.  Besides all of this, we have come a long way from your original
statement, which still very much offends me: you said that the U.S. was not
responsible for the state of Pali studies in Laos.  Rhett, the U.S. *is*
responsible for the fact that there are hardly any books in Laos of any
kind, and that literacy is down at 60%; they visited one of the worst
atrocities in the history of human civilization upon Laos, and if you don't
want to recognise this, you're either willfully ignorant or a holocaust
denier.

> And the fact is, there were wars in progress in SE Asia even
> without US involvement.

Rhett, why don't you take a reputable encyclopedia off the shelf and look up
"Gulf of Tonkin Incident".  The U.S. did start the Vietnam war, and this is
very common knowledge.  Rhett, any respect I ever extended to you is utterly
at an end.  You cannot know how offensive it is to hear you extending facile
justifications to your own country's slaughter of millions.  This is no
different to my ears than were I hearing a German justifying Hitler, or a
Maoist justifying the Cultural Revolution.

> The US got involved, in a very shameful way I
> might add, and made the situation worse than it needed to be in
> several countries. But it was not solely responsible for the fighting.

This claim isn't even made by the U.S.  There's no doubt about the Gulf of
Tonkin incident, and you can read what Nixon himself wrote about Cambodia as
"The Nixon Doctrine in its purest form".  The only justification for U.S.
involvement in Laos was the war in Vietnam –which the U.S. did initiate. 
You're worse than ignorant on these issues.

>>  I'm going to think the best of
>>you here, and attribute your views on the matter to pure ignorance, rather
>>than some impure desire.
>
> Thank you. I'm going to attribute your radicalism and intolerance to
> youthful exuberance.

You're telling me that I'm being intolerant?  Great, Rhett.  Why don't you
see how much ice your arguments can cut when you're wandering around Laos
explaining to people "But you see, we Americans only bombed the rugged,
jungle areas!  It wasn't so bad!"  Yeah, that'll really go over well with a
Laotian audience, as you walk past cities that were reduced to ash, and see
homes that have their lintels made out of bomb fragments with "U.S.A."
printed on them.  But then, you can always fall back on your statement that
you were at a protest at Berkeley.  Wow.  They'll really be impressed by
that, Rhett.  I know I am.

E.M.


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Let him not despise what he has received, nor should he live envying (the
gains of) others. The Bhikkhu who envies (the gains of) others does not
attain concentration.
Random Dhammapada Verse 365