pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

Thanks for the interesting info and the tip about BPS bookshop. As an
odd coincidence, just this week I ran across (the first I've seen) a
used volume of the Hevavitarane edition of the commentaries (to the
Udaana). It's one of Helmer Smith's many old books that are in the
shops these days in Sweden. I can see why this edition is regarded
highly.

You asked about what sorts of texts I'm looking for. Well, everything
really, but for the moment, apart from grammatical literature like
Saddaniiti etc, I'm interested in titles like:

mahaava.msa
mahaava.msa.tiika
va.msatthakathaa (same as above?)

dhammapadatthaka (I have gunasena's but it's falling apart)

upaasakajanaalankaara

dasa(daana)vatthuppaakara.na
rasavaahinii.tiika (not the basic text)
siiha.lavatthuppakara.na

And of course good editions of the canon, and suttapi.taka in
particular, are the most central texts. A lot depends on the prices,
as I'm sure you can imagine.

I'll start of course by contacting BPS directly, but also appreciate
your offer to help facilitate book purchases if they don't have
certain titles in stock. It makes sense that they would be easiest to
order from, as I guess they are used to international orders. Are you
directly connected with BPS?

>There are many old editions of Pali texts
>sitting in dusty (monastery) libraries here which could be digitally
>scanned or photographed and made available on the internet.

This sounds very interesting, as does the similar idea with
manuscripts (like suttanipata-sanne). Hosting would also be an issue,
I suppose, since high quality images would take a lot of space and
cost in terms of bandwidth for downloads. I suppose they could also
be put onto CD-roms. I'll ask around to see if any of the (few,
unfortunately) people I know in a position to donate would be
interested. Perhaps someone could put together a 'teaser'. A few
pages of high-res manuscript photos, for example, just enough to show
people what you had in mind. I'm a firm believer in preserving rare
manuscripts with photography.

best regards,

/Rett