Hi Eisel,
What word is used for "king" in the colophon? What Yuan are
you transliterating "Khelaga" from? I think you are referring
to a local Lampang lord, but I want to make sure about your
spelling first. I think I know most No.Thai/Lanna royal lines
pretty well. I think I know who you are talking about, but
want to confirm the spelling first.
As for Saddatissa, be very careful of this article in general
(you are right he is mostly copying Coedes withoug review or
new research). Also, what he calls "Laos" is actually
No.Thailand (this was common). Still, it is a very useful
guide and he did add to Coedes (he just did not improve on
what Coedes has already done).
The Mul Kammatthana is a genre more than a single text. There
are many different versions. For example, there are
manuscripts with this title in Bangkok as well (taken from
Laos) and many in Cambodia. I have looked at a good number of
them and they all differ from each other, some quite
significantly. Bizot has written a book on them in Cambodia
(Figuier a cinq branches, 1976) and I mention their connection
to funerals real briefly in a forthcoming publication.
Lagirarde also wrote an article on these manuscripts in
Northern Thailand and Cambodia in 1994. I recently (2004) gave
a "criticism" to Bizot's 1976 reading of this text, especially
his interpretation of its origin at a talk in Chicago. My
criticism was light though considering he did write in his
book that his findings were speculative and tentative. His
speculation has added much to the field and he shouldn't be
criticized for a subject that has so little evidence. He
suggests that the mul kammathana tradition of meditation and
the generation of new ephemeral bodies might have originated
with the Abhayagiri school in SL. We just do not have any
proof of that and it further creates a false division between
the Mahavihara (in fact, the Mahavihara is not one "school")
and the Abhayagiri that has been over-estimated it seems.
Still, his work is groundbreaking on this extremely turgent
genre of manuscripts and rituals.
As for the Manual of a Mystic, Eisel is right, they are
different texts, but the problem does not stop there. These
texts can't be compared one-to-one, but they are, one could
say, part of a genre of texts related to forms of "esoteric"
meditation (which is a code word for non-Vippassana meditation
it seems -- Vippassana has become "orthodox" over the past 150
years in much of urban SE Asia). These texts are related
generically under Bizot's rubric "Yogaavacara"
meditation/ritual manuals. In fact, that was the name of
Rhys-Davids 1896 edition of the text that was later translated
as "Manual of a Mystic." Mettanando Bhikkhu, Lance Cousins,
Galkatiyagama Ratanajoti have more information on these
traditions. Kate Crosby knows much about this tradition as
well. These meditation texts are more prevalent in SL it seems
that Laos, the tradition in Laos is much more closely related
to funerary rites than meditation practices (although death
and meditation are often related in Laos). The SL tradition
may have been influenced by Siamese monks in the mid-18th century.
There is much more on this topic, but these are just what I
can say off the top of my head. I am at home with a sick child
today and do not have access to my books and my memory is suspect.
Best,
jm
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:15:57 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@...>
>Subject: [palistudy] Muulakamma.t.thaana: lost Pali text
"found" in Lao
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com, Mme Filliozat
<KFilliozat@...>
>
>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.
>
>
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______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@...