SV: Khmer edition

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Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] På vegne
af navako
Sendt: 20. september 2005 08:41
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] Khmer edition


> Interesting. I used to have an incomplete Cambodian edition of the canon
in
> my office, before the demise of the CPD project. If I recall correctly it
> was edited sometime in the thirties. Browsing through the volumes one day
> many years ago, I found in one of them a comment on the edition written by
> my illustrious predecessor on the project, Helmer Smith. It ran like this:
> The effort of a royal court-ignoramus!
>
> Ole Pind

Yes, I imagine the attitudes of the French administrators of the "Institute
Bouddhique" was not so different from the early editors at the PTS: "This
may be inadequate, but better this, and better now, than maybe later, and
maybe nothing at all".

The current re-production of that edition has no corrections --it is almost
a "Xerox-copy" of the original, although produced at an impressively low
price.

I would expect that the quality of each volume will vary (it is comprised of

a huge number of fairly small volumes ... not much text per page) --I
imagine just a few people worked on each section of the tipitaka.

All this being said, the Institute Bouddhique in Cambodia was much more
impressive than French colonial scholarship & publications in Laos.

Yes, one gets that impression when visiting the beautifully restored and
enlarged Musée Guimet in Paris. I wonder what the situation is today in
Laos. Presumably better. I am holding in my hands volume three of Textes
Bouddhiques du Laos: La pureté par les mots, introduced, edited, and
translated by F. Bizot/F. Lagirarde, published by École francaise d´Éxtrême
Orient, 1996. I wrote a small paper for this volume on an interesting
historical problem concerning the indigenous interpretation of Kacc 1. You
probably have access to that in Vientiane.

Ole Pind


  The
French efforts to study the people they conquered were rather like their
efforts at building railroads: big dreams that came up short.

The French only built the railway about 40 km from Hanoi to the river; and
they managed about a 9 km track in all of Lao.  Compared to the miles of
track laid by the British in India...

E.M.




--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
View Streaming Dhamma Video http://dharmavahini.tv/
Examining day by day, the wise praise him who is of flawless life,
intelligent, endowed with knowledge and virtue.
Random Dhammapada Verse 229




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