2000 edition of ADP + commentary

I received my copy of the aforementioned 2000 edition of the ADP ( =
Abhidhanappadipika, 12th century lexicon by Mogg, etc.) direct from
Pune this week.

How positively you regard the book will have more to do with your
opinion of the .Tiikaa than your opinion of the editor. The one
decisive advantage this has over the Burmese edition (of the ADP) is,
obviously, the inclusion of the full text of the commentary; however,
the index is also somewhat better and more exhaustive than the Burmese
(probably because the latter was composed without a computer?).

It is worrying that there are so many (very obvious) typographical
errors in the english text of the introduction, etc. (virtually every
page contains at least one error in the English that would be quite
obvious to an editor) --but, so far, I have not found the same problem
with the Pali. As I say, however, it is worrying as to the reliability
of the edition as a whole, and I have only been using it for two days
now.

At a minimum, this is an excellent addition/augment to the Burmese
edition; however, in part because it is so unwiedly, you would be
unlikely to replace the Burmese with it --and the author does not
reproduce the citations tracing canonical quotes from the Burmese
(although the introduction vaguely suggests that they are included in
one of the numerous appendixes ... ).

The commentary (.tiikaa / va.n.nana) is disappointing in many ways
--and this is, of course, no fault of the editor.  Much of the comm.
is preoccupied with proliferating synonyms that are (1) of less and
less "synonymous" value, and (2) are too often Sanskrit terms given a
Palic spelling, that never appear in the Pali canon, nor are of any
utility to a modern reader.

However, the .tiikaa will doubtless be of historical interest for many
on this list, and the more analytical word glosses that come up are of
some interest --drawing heavily on the Sanskrit tradition, rather than
the Pali comm., as the introduction demonstrates and discusses quite
clearly.

I am rather relieved that someone (other than myself) has gone ahead
and carried out a basic comparative reading of the major published
editions of ADP itself (leaving aside the Comm.) --as I was very much
afraid that after finishing Kacc. I would be obliged to do similar
work on the text, were it not done already.

E.M.