Re: Phra Maha Nimitr's intro

Dear Bhante,

Thank you for the information on the Saddasa`ngaha.

Ven. Pandita wrote:

> If a grammarian, pioneer or not, sets out a book in the form
> of suttas, he is founding an independent and self-contained
> system of grammar to describe the Pali language. He may be
> heavily influenced by his predecessors yet he has full
> liberty to differ from them if he chooses.
>
> Viewed in this way, there are altogether four Pali
> grammatical systems, namely, Kaccaayana, Moggallaana,
> Saddaniiti and Saddasa`ngaha. They are called "major"
> grammars.

I see. If a grammar being arranged in the form of suttas is
all that is required for it to be classed as "major", I'm a little
surprised that there are *only* four. I wonder, were others
written and later lost?

> "Raajadhammasa`ngaha" is a book on political theory. I have
> never heard of "Bagshawe", the translator, but the preface
> author Maung Htin seems to be Dr. Htin Aung, the late rector
> of Rangoon University; he had doctorates in English and law
> from Oxford.

His real name is U Htin Fatt. From Bagshawe's account he
does not seem to be the same as the person you mention:

"U Htin Fatt, on the other hand, has little to say about
himself, and an introduction is called for. He has been a
prominent feature of the Burmese literary scene for most of
his long life, mainly under his usual pen name of "Maung
Htin" Born in 1909, he started his literary career at the
Rangoon University, as an undergraduate, writing in both
Burmese and English for various magazines. He continued to
write after leaving the University in 1934, as well as
performing the duties of a township officer for the
government. When the war came, he served as Deputy Secretary
in the Information Section of Dr. Ba Maw's Foreign office,
where he wrote a play on a story provided by U Nu, the
future Prime Minister. With the war's end, he shared the
responsibility of organizing the broadcasting service. The
great success of his novel Nga Hpa and other stories,
published in 1947 gave a promise of a more interesting
livelihood than government service and in 1949 he turned to
full-time literary work, joining the staff of the Hanthawadi
newspaper. Since then his literary production has been
large, including short stories and translations from English
into Burmese - Lafcardio Hearn, H.G.Wells, and Swift's
"Gulliver's Travels" - and he has given much service to
literary and historical commissions."

> Anyway, he was not a Pali scholar. This fact has distorted
> his translation of technical Burmese used in religious
> literature.

When quoting the passage I left out a footnote in which either
the writer or the translator admits ignorance in this area:

"I am not fully conversant with the grammatical terms in
this passage and may have misunderstood."

But the footnotes are all a mess -- there's no indication of
which are Maung Htin's and which are Bagshawe's, though it's
evident both have contributed to them.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando