EM's Pali Website update

An update to my website.

For technical reasons, it now should be easier for "bad" computers to
read; the data was (laboriously) re-coded from UTF-16 to the lower
standard of UTF-8.

It now states my location as Yunnan, China, rather than Lao P.D.R
--although this is certainly not a permanent residence for me.

A few new tables have been added to the section on pronunciation,
along with the following provocative note on slave labour in the
manuscriptoria of Thailand (I checked with Filliozat before publishing
this to the web):

[Start Quote]  "In Filliozat's catalogue of the Wat Po collection of
manuscripts (viz., poorly copied from Sinhalese sources, into Khom
script, in the second quarter of the 19th century, in Bangkok), she
comments on the confusion of r vs. h as the most peculiar of the
numerous transliteration errors made by the scribes, such as a scribe
reading hemāyavatthu and writing out romāyavatthu. In sum, the abysmal
quality of the MS demonstrates "…that the scribes had no real
understanding of Pāli language or were not paying attention to the
meaning…", but she remarks that confusion of r & h is especially
inexplicable as they "cannot be confused in any script". This only
seems true if the scripts under consideration Khom and Sinhalese only;
however, the confusion is easier to understand if we keep in mind that
the Bangkok court was (at that time) brim-full of educated slave
labour brought back as captives from the total depopulation, sacking,
and incineration of Vientiane in 1828. (This may also give some
context to the lack of zeal on the part of the scribes!) Even if they
were put to the task of copying Sinhalese into Khom, "r" in the latter
would have resembled "h" in the script they were most familair with
--viz., Lao. [See: The Pāli Manuscript Collection Kept in the Vat Phra
Jetuphon Vimol Mangklaram (Vat Po) the Oldest Royal Monastery of
Bangkok, Jacqueline Filliozat, École Française d'Extrême-Orient,
2002-2003]."   [End Quote]

And, for the first time, a photo of myself appears on the website.
This photograph was taken by Bhadanta Nyanatusita, also a list member,
and manages to make the Pali manuscripts surrounding me glitter with
the reflected images of the surrounding temple and statues.

http://pali.pratyeka.org/#Mazard

I note this as many of the members of this list have never met me, and
probably assume that I resemble the young Richard Hayes.

Probably about two months from now I'll release my final update to
Narada's Pali course (more corrections, new tables in place of old,
etc.).

E.M.