SV: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Rett,

I am in possession of quite a few of Helmer Smith's books. I wonder if you
could give me an idea of what is still "in the market" so to speak. When I
took over the CPD office in Copenhagen many years ago, I found in a corner
of the office the dilapidated volumes of Smith's copy of Fausbøl's Jaataka
edition. I had them bound immediately. They contain invaluable infomation.
In addition I had access to a select number of Burmese editions of tiikas in
Smith's annotated copies, that were not available in any other edition.
Mysteriously Smith had access to Trenckner's transcriptions. For instance, I
have not yet been able to find out how Trenckner's Anguttara transcription
ended up in the British Library, because Smith must have had access to it.
However, I thought that Trenckner sent his transcript to Morris who edited
Anguttaranikaya for Pali Text Society. This evidently was not the whole
story.

Best regards,

Ole Holten Pind

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] På vegne
af rett
Sendt: 2. oktober 2005 18:09
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [palistudy] 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







------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get
fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/GP4qlB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->


Yahoo! Groups Links