Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text "found" in Lao

The _Muulakamma.t.thaana_ is (apparently) a Pali text that has ceased
to be extant in the original, but has survived in a Lao translation.

The translation dates from king Khelaga of Lampang (I could not find a
date for this in Hans Penth's book ... perhaps Dr. McDaniel has a
timeline of Lampang monarchs?) --and the opinion that it is indeed a
translation from a (lost) Pali original is maintained by both G.
Coedes and H. Saddhatissa.  I take their opinions fairly seriously
--although it is possible that the latter is simply repeating the
opinion of the former without re-examining the evidence.

Above all else note this: it is a manual of meditation, and (thus)
falls into the same rare class of Pali litterature as _Yogaavacara's
Manual_, translated as Rhys-Davids' & Woodward's _Manual of Mystic_.
[I note that the Pali original of the latter is not yet available as
an etext; the copyright has certainly lapsed on the 19th century
edition --perhaps I could acquire a xerox copy of it while I'm in Sri
Lanka and then type it out for "public consumption"?]

In any case, the salient information here is that there is a "new"
(or: relatively unknown) Theravada work on meditation that was
catalogued by Coedes (and presumably exists either in Laos or in the
Thai collections of Lao materials in Bangkok) ... and could perhaps be
decoded back into Pali, or translated _ad sensum_ into Pali & English.
  I would think that a reconstructed Pali text of this sort would be
quite valuable; perhaps I am mistaken about this, too.

No one has ever attempted to assign a date to the (hypothetical)
"original Pali".

To avoid confusion (as I myself was confused about this) let me state
that the _Muulakamma.t.thaana_ is NOT the same text as _Yogaavacara's
Manual_, (ed. T.W. Rhys Davids, 1896) --the two seem to be COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT TEXTS ON MEDITATION.  I note that the latter originates in
Sri Lanka (and has a classical Sinhalese commentary/translation?)
--whereas the former is only extant in Lao translation.  However, H.
Saddhatissa's footnote (presumably suggesting that one should make a
comparative reading of the two texts) is rather confusing --I was
myself quite confused about this until yesterday.

Perhaps Coedes further described this text in a salient survey of Lao
& Lanna MS?  Perhaps Dr. McDaniel already knows something further
about this text, or where its extant MS might be?

E.M.