Re: Further Pali Grammatica

Very briefly:

   (1) I examined the Buddhist Cultural Center reprints of the BJT
today --they are as good or better than the first edition in quality,
HOWEVER, please remind yourself of how crappy the originals really
were.  You may have forgotton just how bad the shine-through, binding,
etc., were in the original BJT; this edition is a photo-reduplication,
with better binding, and somewhat better paper, and print that is as
legible (and as consistent) as the original --i.e., not impressively
so, but very easy to work with.  Nyanatusita insists that as a
photocopy the quality can "never" be considered better ... and so far
as the type/text _per se_ is concerned this is true.  However, if your
expectations are based on the first edition, you won't be
disappointed.

    The entire tripitaka runs a little more than U.S.$300, and the
suttapitaka alone is circa $200.  Recall that this includes both the
Pali & the 10th century Sinhala translation ... thus, double the
weight for shipping that you might expect.

(2) We found an intact copy of Tha Do Oung's grammar at the Royal
Asiatic Society (SL) --among other gems.  We will try to digitally
photograph the volume tomorrow; only the first 200 pages will be of
direct interest, as they are followed by a kind of dictionary of
roots, and then a treatise on metre (well... perhaps this will
interest you).  However, only the first two volumes directly follow
Kacc. in their organization, and explanation of rules.

In reply to Rett: Yes, it is in English.

Note: library catalogues may use any of Tha Do Oung's three names as
the family name.  The RASSL uses "Tha" as the family name / last name,
i.e., following the pattern for Chinese names; I have no idea how this
applies to Arakanese!

Re:
> One advantage of Sinhalese editions is that the Sinhalese syllabary contains a lot of redundancy in the characters (a trait not shared by modern fonts which have removed some of the flourishes).

I think you complained about the opposite not too long ago, e.g.,
Sinh. "n" vs. "t".  However, there are ornate forms of the Burmese/Mon
family in print, such as Lao-Dhamma --and those scripts have their
fans, even on this very list!  Most Burmese editions compensate for
the simplicity and density of the script with large type-size ... and
for many westerners, this is probably an advantage.  What we now call
"modern Burmese script" is basically a highly simplified "average" of
a wide variety of script forms that grew out of Mon in the region; old
printed editions and MS have lots of the flourishes / "redundancy"
that you're talking about.  Enjoy!

E.M.