Dear Eisel,
Sorry for the delay, I have been busy finishing my grading and
working ith students. Taking long walks in the beautiful
winter weather here too:)
To answer a few of your great questions and the comments by
Mme Filliozat: Mme Filliozat is absolutely correct. There are
lots and lots. There are also
Mul Kammatthana in the middle of other manuscripts with a
variety of titles like Dhammaratray, Saddavimala, Pansakul,
Abhidhamma Chet Gambhi, among others. There are even some
connections between learning Pali grammar and "esoteric
meditation." It is a long-term project of mine. I have written
a bit on this subject and will be orking on it a lot more this
summer. Bizot, Tep, Becchetti, Lagirarde, Crosby, de Bernon,
Swearer, Anuson, Skilling, and von Hinueber have uncovered
much, but there is still much to be done.
SL seems the best place to start if one is interested
in origins (although this tradition as heavily influenced by
Siamese monks in the 18th ce). Bizot has traced many things
there, but much of it is also native to Cambodia. Laos seems
to have gotten its tradition from a mixture of Khmer and No.
Thai sources and also developed unique traditions in its own
Wats. I have an article coming out this year in Tai Culture
about the Laos-Northern Thai overlapping traditions and the
fact that most observers and locals in Northern Thailand
referred to themselves, it seems, as "Lao," before the 20th
century. You read an early version of this piece and I can
send the final version once the publisher sends me the final
proofs. I also have another article coming out on the French
influence on Lao-Pali education systems if you are interested.
At this point, in regards to the origins of these manuscripts
, looking for an Ur Text or even asking the Pali-Vernacular
question is pre-mature I think. I think we need to see how the
texts are read and treated in the living tradition. Read for
content first, examine the features of the text as we have it.
From there, the long search for origins and stemma can begin.
This, of course, depends on what we are reading mss. for -- to
discover the "real" Buddhavacana, which is a noble endeavor of
course, or to discover how monks today or at any particular
socio-historic point read a particular text. Of course, both
can be done, but in terms of these meditation manuals, the
origin question is not very important to most pratitioners I
work with. Most do not care if there is a Pali, Sinhala, Khmer
, etc. version. Most do not care where a particular ms. came
from as long as their own teacher recommended it. These
questions arise, of course, in the Lao tradition, but, these
are not the first questions it seems to me. At this point, e
need to just sit and read lots of manuscripts first to see
what the texts tell us. Then compare synchronically and trace
diachronically. Of course, the primary way to read these texts
is as a manual to actually perform the rites and practice the
meditation. However, one danger is that we will reconstruct a
meditation system that was an ideal and never actually
practiced in that way. Your idea of getting editions on the
web is great so these texts can be worked on by a number of
people. Your Pali grammatica talents would help us in looking
at the SL manuscripts since the Lao mss. are mostly
vernacular. In fact, I am sure you know that Bizot and
Lagirarde (1996, Saddavimala, la purete par les mots) mention
the funny connection between Kaccayana and this meditation
system. I think I sent you what I wrote on that already.
As you know, I am trying to trace this tradition in regards to
funeral rites. There is a piece on this coming out soon and I
will send it to you. I plan to write a longer history of the
mul kammatthana in Lao/N.Thai and Siamese traditions starting
in the summer. I have a number of these manuscripts (paper
copies) collected from various monastic and scolarly archives
collected beteen 1998-2004, I will add to these and send
updates as I get through them. This, of course, is slow work,
which is always happily interupted by my playful son and good
music.
Have fun in SL.
Best,
justin
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:21:12 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@...>
>Subject: [palistudy] Filliozat: Muulakamma.t.thaana
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>... And the last word goes to Mme. Filliozat, who wrote to me
as follows.
>-----------
>Cher Monsieur,
>[...]
>Sorry to interfere with my French feminine frank habit
>in your Pali study Yahoo group. I have a few remarks
>to tell you . Those who cannot remember the past are
>condemned to repeat it
I mean that instead of arguing
>about "the Muulakamma.t.thaana(apparently) a Pali text
>that has ceased to be extant in the original, but has
>survived in a Lao translation
"
>you had better to check the texts you look for in all
>catalogues available of Pali manuscripts and also in
>catalogues for Singhalese and Indochinese collections.
>You'll be surprised to find many. Not only a Lao
>translation has survived! Consult Fran.ois Bizot from
>EFEO and collection of mss. he has done on kammatthan
>(he is back in Chiang Mai and lives there permanently
>now bizo@...). Our colleague Olivier de Bernon
><femc.efeo@...> from EFEO-FEMC Phnom Penh
>has recently submitted a brilliant thesis on
>Kammatthan in Paris, in French of course. You could
>consult, with a lot of documents in Khmer, Pali, thai
>his bibliography could help you to learn that since
>Coed.s and Saddhatissa some progress has been done in
>studying further and deeply the new mss. found in the
>specialized monastic libraries.
>Before declaring that a text is lost, we have to look
>all the data existing. I do not keep for me the
>privilege of cataloguing mss. come and help, you'll
>find at least one new text in Pali out of every 100
>mss. bundles catalogued. I think that many texts
>supposed lost are just forgotten in a corner and
>neglected. There is no inventory for the thousands
>mss. (in a mess, spoiled by bats, rodents, road dust
>pollution, insects) kept in Vat Rajasiddharam,
>Thonburi, a famous meditation school, you could find
>there copies of various Mulakammatthan versions and
>traditions? Myself I can find in my catalogues few
>items never studied.
>French catalogued collections offer many from Khmer
>tradition (see Au Chhieng catalogue for BnF).In
>Bangkok, Manuscript House Fragile Palm leaves see
>No.99 Pali-Burmese ka-ga complete;1681Pali-Burmese
>ka-gha complete; 2766 Pali incomplete (no end).
>Contact curator Peter Skilling <peski@...>
>Hope you'll get replies, if not, tell me please.I'll
>strongly interfere because I do not agree with the way
>the curators keep the documents for themselves while
>they are government servants and supposed to open the
>libraries and not keep the mss. in secret. All the
>collections I mention should be opened to scholars's
>consultation.
>With best wishes.
>J.F.
>
>
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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@...