Re: Muulakamma.t.thaana

Many thanks (to Dr. McDaniel) for a very informative reply.

I am a bit surprised that I have not heard of this genre of MS before
(Muulakamma.t.thaana) --but perhaps this is because they are not
considered "Pali" in the general history of the literature?  What I
mean to ask here is, are these basically specimens of a vernacular
genre that have had the misfortunte to be translated into Pali?

> What word is used for "king" in the colophon? What Yuan are
> you transliterating "Khelaga" from?

All of this is from Coedes via H. Saddhatissa --I have not seen any
colophon on this matter myself.  Thus, the translation is not from
Lao, but from "Coedesese".

> Also, what he calls "Laos" is actually
> No.Thailand (this was common).

And, if we're talking about a Lan Xang era text, the area of Northern
Thailand in question may well have been "Lao" at the time.

> Still, it is a very useful
> guide and he did add to Coedes (he just did not improve on
> what Coedes has already done).

I was able to find that article in the scorching hot Thai National
Library last summer.  [Veering off topic for a moment ... ] I'm
currently in Ayuthaya, on my way to Sri Lanka.  I will never know why
they located their capitals on such easily assailable, low plains,
with unbearable temperatures --rather than, say, Phu Kra Dung
(unassailable and cool).  The more we know about traditional city
plans and architecture here, the more it seems that ritual
considerations completely prevailed over practical concerns --most
notably, defence.  On this subject: I was amused to read of Michael
Vickery's refutation of several long-standing theses on Angkor --among
them, e.g., the notion that the (now proven (?) to be purely ritual)
water tanks somehow improved local rice cultivation.

> 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.

You do not mention if any of these texts are in Pali --or if it is
credible to assume that any of them devolve from a Pali original.
This is, from my perspective, the key issue of interest from Coedes,
etc.

> ... 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.

Indeed; this is a recurring issue.  Lineage-organizations and
philosophic schools are not one and the same; the increasing
centralization of ordination rituals (i.e., "lineage-organization")
over time severely reduced the scope for doctrinal differences to be
reflected in lineage.  As I mentioned earlier, about the only sure
thing we know about the Dhammaruciya monks is that their robes were
blue, reflecting an almost universal feature of attempts to recreate
the history of Buddhist thought, i.e., that differences in discipline
have proven more durable than differences in doctrine (in the historic
record...).

> 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 ...

I think that all of the non-Vipassana passages/works on meditation are
in dire need of re-reading and re-translation. Beyond the quality &
quantity of translation [more on this below...], it seems to me that
in some cases, sutta material that seems to pertain to meditation has
been passed over, whereas other material that seems to me
"content-driven" has been read as if it were a guide to meditative
praxis (with dubious results).  Well, the same translators who managed
to interpret the A.P.'s Yamaka as a manual of psychology could
probably interpret su~n~nata as the particle physics of a black hole
...

> ... Vippassana has become "orthodox" over the past 150
> years in much of urban SE Asia).

The past 15 years, surely!

> These texts are related
> generically under Bizot's rubric "Yogaavacara"
> meditation/ritual manuals. In fact, that was the name of
> Rhys-Davids 1896 edition ...

Yes, and, as I understand it, Rhys-Davids wrote important
introductions both to the Pali & the translation ("Manual of a
Mystic") that established many of the categories (of Jhana, etc.) that
western scholars relied upon in evaluating meditational texts in the
Theravada tradition for some time thereafter (i.e., possibly including
what you call "Bizot's rubric 'Yogaavacara'").  Now I *have not* read
these introductions by Rhys-Davids (to these two editions) --however,
I am eager to do so (and possibly prepare an e-text, as mentioned).  I
would assume that they reflect an 1896 understanding of Theravada
meditation --i.e., doubtless they are flawed in at least several
important aspects.  [I am refraining from using any examples as to
just how fallible Rhys-Davids proved he could be, as this was a touch
issue when it last was mentioned in this place.]

A re-examination of these arguments and how they have influenced
translation into English would be a desideratum.  The last time I made
observations of this kind as to how early arguments by the PTS may
have pre-formed some of the word choices (and inherent
value-judgements) now found in English translations resulted in some
very acrimonious e-mail being sent back to me --but this kind of
evaluation is not suggested as any particular insult to the dead
scholars in question.  I am not suggesting a Theosophical conspiracy
to misinterpret the texts --but rather a reliance upon the (seemingly
convincing) work of early scholars in subsequent evaluations of texts
that can uncritically preserve both ideologically loaded and _ad hoc_
decisions of interpretation made by those scholars.  The historical
fact that some of those scholars were variously raving racists,
Theosophists, etc., may or may not give us further pause for doubt
--but I think the earlier discussion was diverted from the real
substance of the issue by the salaciousness of these latter
illustrations.

In the province of Philosophy _per se_, such minute examinations of
how terms have shifted is taken very seriously and is carried out
without any implied insult to the sources.  To use a stray example
(from Karl Popper's _Conjectures & Refutations_) when Francis Bacon
speaks of "interpretation" (in English translation) he actually means
a completely non-subjective pronouncement about an evident fact, as
the latin term was still primarily used in Bacon's day to mean
"reading a text aloud" (i.e., to others in the room).   However, when
the modern English word "interpretation" is read in translations of
Bacon's work today, we impute a subjective evaluation with no one
definitive truth attached to it.  If/when we examine english
translations of Pali meditation material with this degree of
"Philosophic scrutiny" we find many horrendous problems of
"interpretation" indeed.  The English word "meditate" is itself highly
problematic, and has only Christian usage as a guide; obversely, in
recent decades, the American Zen usage of the term has been very
influential --and, as a result, there are many who read the term in
translations of Theravada texts and then suppose that it is something
quite opposed to "thinking", or is even a forced halting of thought.
(A non-academic illustration: the composer Phillip Glass has lamented
at length that the word "meditate" is misunderstood to mean
"completely unfocused thought" when he would prefer to render it as
"highly focused" or "perfectly focused thought" --both when it is
applied to a subject of meditation and otherwise.)  Even "the four
noble truths" are problematic in this way, as they are, in fact, "the
four facts known to the noble ones" (i.e., nobility does not inhere in
the truths, but rather those who know them are dubbed "arya", whatever
that means...) --but these various texts are insistently preaced as
being simple, clear, and "self-evident" in their English translations,
with such fine points ignored.

In the context of texts on meditation especially, I think that one
needs a very fine sensitivity to the use of English words, and a very
philosophic level of rigour in evaluating the Pali texts to begin
with.  I recently read an argument that "Jhana" should be translated
as "ecstacy" as per the Greek _ekstasis_ --but this rendering would
have had one set of problems for Rhys-Davids in the 19th century, and
another for ourselves.

E.M.