Re: Man.galatthadiipanii

Hi Everyone:

In Thiland, it is often the case that monks recite/chant Pali passages
without understanding their meanings. Their general lack of Pali grammatical knowledge
may have been adding some confusion to the issue discussed below.

tadao



--- nyanatusita <nyanatusita@...> $B$+$i$N%a%C%;!<%8!'(B
> Dear Phra Yuttadhammo,
>
> Sorry, but the Mangalatthadiipanii is not a modern work, but a late
> medieaval work written by Siri Mangala in the Lanna Kingdom in 1524.
>
> When things become part of the Asian Buddhist traditions, the borders
> between what is canonical and non canonical often blur. Thailand,
> Cambodia and Laos (i.e. the countries part of old Siam) seem to have a
> fairly strong apocryphal, or what Ole Pind calls a pseudepigraphical,
> tradition, but it also exists to a lesser degree in Burma and Sri Lanka.
>
> Many people here and in Thailand and Burma,even some learned monks,
> actually believe that the Buddha came flying to their countries,
> although the Canon and modern scholarship do not support this in the
> least. To question these beliefs can meet strong resistance. A hilareous
> example is the one about the German monk living in Burma who was
> discussing the Jaataka stories with a Burmese monk. When the German monk
> questioned the literal truth of the image of hare on the moon (found in
> the jaataka in which the  hare/bodhisatta sacrificed himself by jumping
> into the fire, this being so noble that his image appeared on the moon,
> etc.) the Burmese monk accused him of harboring wrong views...
>
> Best wishes,
>                     Bh. Nyanatusita
>
> >Honestly, I don't think it goes quite that far in this case; because of
> >the scholastic background of the monk in question, I would bet that both
> >quotes most likely come from one or another "lakh sutra" (foundation
> >text) for the Thai Pali exams.  It makes sense, therefore, that the one
> >quote exists in the Mangalatthadipani, because it is used as a lakh
> >sutra for level 9 pali studies.  If I am correct, it is a modern work by
> >a Lanna scholar, and supposedly takes parts of the tipitaka and puts
> >them together in a cohesive fashion, based on the maha-mangala sutta.  I
> >am surprised that the quote is in the Mangalatthadipani but not in the
> >tipitaka itself, since it is put in the mouth of the Lord Buddha.  I
> >can't imagine the author of the mangalatthadipani making it up in the
> >modern day and getting away with it.  Unless he took it in turn from one
> >of the more apocryphal Thai texts.
> > 
> >
> nyanatusita wrote:
>
> >>Dear Yuttadhammo,
> >>
> >>There are many Pali texts around in Thailand which are not part of the
> >>Pali Canon and are not found on the CSCD, such as apocryphal jaatakas
> >>(Pa~n~naasa-jaataka, etc), apocryphal suttas, works dealing with relics,
> >>Thai subcommentaries called yojanaas, anthologies, etc. Quite a few of
> >>these texts are little known and some maybe even unknown to western
> >>scholarship. The quotations you  give are likely to come from some of
> >>those texts.
> >>Best wishes,
> >>                         Bh. Nyanatusita
> >>
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> >>Yahoo! Groups Links
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> >Yahoo! Groups Links
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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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Tadao Miyamoto, Ph.D.
GSICS, Tohoku University

Local committee of Brain Connectivity Workshop 2006
e-mail: BCW2006@...
URL: http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/BCW2006/