Re: pali books in sinhalese script from BPS

Dear Bhante Nyanatusita,

Thanks for the heads-up about the two versions of the message. Here
are some quick responses to parts I didn't see until now.

> Are you connected to a university or are you building up a
> private collection?

It's for my private collection. I'm a student at the University of
Stockholm and am also loosely connected with Uppsala University (as in
taking an evening class there). My long-term goal is to get as good at
Pali as I can and help promote Pali and Tipi.taka studies in Sweden.
This will probably need to take place through informal networks,
since, as Ole mentioned, Pali is not especially 'trendy' in the
universities here at this time.

> So to read the lines one needs to switch pictures and
> scholars don't like this.

I have a question about this. In the absence of a better solution,
would it be satisfactory to graft the two halves together in an
image-processing program? I could give it a try if you can put a
couple of 'halves' up for download, though I'm not much of a tecchie.
The halves would need to be straight, and exactly the same size. This
could probably be easily accomplished if the camera is on a tripod and
the mss can be slid laterally along a small shelf or straightedge
fixed on the table-surface.

Just an idea. It might be more of a fiddle than it's worth.

> I will send you a copy of the Concise List of Pali Literature that I
> am working on. It might be of use to you.

Thank you, that sounds interesting.

About trying to decide where to start, I don't have any knowledge
about the mss tradition at all. I would need to do a special study
just to start being able to read handwritten Pali in Sinhalese script.
I'm still spending most of my time trying to improve my reading
ability in the language and printed Sinhalese script.

best regards,

/Rett