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

Dear Justin,

A few remarks with regards your message of a few days back,

>
> 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).
>
Do you think that it is worthwhile to republish
Saddhatissa's collected essays called Buddhism in Southeast
Asia?
I have a digital file with it and it would be easy for the
BPS to republish it. I was thinking about republishing it
together in one volume with the Pali Literature of
Burma(Bode) and Pali Literature of Ceylon (Malalasekera).


> 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).

I am not sure whether it is so new. The Siamese teacher
Visuddhacaara who came to teach
meditation to the Asgiriya monks in 1756 was called a
vidars~ana aacariya. Some of the
esoteric kamma.t.thaana manuals composed around that period
are called vidars~ana pot.

> These meditation texts are more prevalent in SL it seems
>  than Laos, ... The SL tradition may have been influenced
>  by Siamese monks in the mid-18th century.

This seems quite likely. Before Visuddhacaara gave his
sermon during which the king of SL was to be assasinated, a
book he had brought from Siam was paraded through the
streets. Maybe this was a Vidarsana Pot. According to the
colophon of of the Asgiriya copy of the Vidars~ana
Pota/Karma.s.thaana-dhyaana-bhaavanaa, its compiler,
Rambukavele Ratanajoti was asked to do so by the Siamese
theras. The monasteries where these Vidars~ana manuals are
found are Asgiriya branch Siam Nikaya monasteries. After the
revival of the Upasampadaa the Asgiriya vihara monks
specialised in meditation and founded forest meditition
monasteries like Bambaragala where the MS of the
``Yogaavacara Manual'', i.e., Bambaragalee Vidars~ana Pot,
was found. However, Somadasa notices in the Catalogue to the
Hugh Nevill Collection that some words used in the text are
archaic and there might be an influence from the Kurunegala
period. Bechert, Sinhalesischen Handschriften II p. 53ff,
notices a Burmese influence in the Pali formulas at the
start of the Bambaragalee Vidarsana Pota.

A little known meditation manual written in the 12th century
by Sariputta
Mahaasaami is called Kamma.t.t.haana Diipanii or
Kamma.t.thaana Sangaha. It is mentioned in the Pi.taka
Samuin (there appears to a MS in the National Library of
Rangoon) and the Lankaawee Puskola Pot Naamavaaliya, but, as
far as I know, no edition exists nor has any research been
done on it. It might be identical with the
Duvidha-kamma.t.thaana which appears to be a condensed
version of the Dvidha-vutta-kamma.t.thaana, which in turn is
a prose version of the
Ratana-amatakara.na-va.n.nanaa/Yogajanakanta-vimuttimagga.
There is also a Sinhalese work  on meditation called
Vimukti-san.graha, written in the 14th century by
Lan.kaasenavirat Pirivena Adhipatti, and a Pali work called
Vimutti-san.gaha.

   I am wondering whether I am the first one
to draw the link between Sariputta's work and the other
kamma.t.thaana works. Bechert, Somadasa, and Nevill don't
mention anything about it. It would be worthwhile for some
Sinhalese scholar to find out which one is Sariputta's work,
but there is little interest in doing MSS research here.


Bechert has written an article about called ``Vimuttimagga
and Amataakarava.n.nanaa'', Amaala Praj~naa: Aspects of
Buddhist Studies, Prof. P.V. Bapat Felicitation volume, ed.
N.H. Samtani, Delhi 1989, p. 11-14. I hope to find a copy of
this article some time.

My excuses if the format of my
messages appears funny. I have not been able to  figure out
yet how to
set the margins on my Thunderbird e-mail editor and
apparently they are much too wide.

Best wishes,
                    Bh. Nyanatusita