The Thai edition of Tipitaka (*SIGH*)

In recent days I had a detailed discussion with a man (here to be
treated as anonymous) who worked for years (directly) with the
"Supreme Patriarch" of Thailand's Thammayut Nikay (viz., Dhammayuttika
Nikaya), and had empirical experience with the preparation of the
official editions Pali texts at their headquarters and allied
institutions.

He both "saw" and was involved in the preparation, error-checking,
etc., for the main canon, over a period of years, and described the
failings of this procedure to me, and also commented on various
arrangements and problems pertaining to specific texts as illustrative
examples.

This was highly instructive for me, but, even given my own prior
awareness of fundamental problems in the religious establishment and
the texts it produces, this was nevertheless shocking in its
implications, and horrifying in its details.  I do not think it would
be appropriate for me to repeat those details, in part because it
simply isn't my story to tell.

The news is made worse in that each of the institutions involved is
heavily funded ("drowning" in donations); they have huge quantities of
money coming in, and significant expenditures going out (e.g., in
salaries for dubious appointments), yet what they are accomplishing is
worse than nothing.

I have generally avoided using any of the Thai editions, due to
problems that I was (heretofore) already aware of; this "interview"
opened my eyes to problems I was not formerly aware of, and I can only
offer a very serious warning that all the Pali editions in Thai glyphs
are to be regarded as purely decorative --viz., their purpose here in
Thailand being the adornment of temple walls, nothing more, I lament
to report their contents are not suited to any other purpose besides.

In the contest for "worst edition" of the suttas, I can only say this:
the Cambodians may have some tough competition here in Thailand.

On a more factually neutral note: I did not know that the "yellow
edition" (viz., Thammayut) has been produced in isolation from the
"blue edition" (viz., Mahanikay --the other sect in Thailand).
Reportedly, they really are based on a different Pali source, with an
entirely separate committee of editors (etc.), and all of the typing,
etc., was carried out in mutual-isolation (and with redundancy) --to
similarly abysmal standards.  For reasons of sect patronage (rather
than sectarianism, _per se_) there is no common source to the two Thai
editions, except the Burmese edition --and the blue tomes (reportedly)
are more directly derivative of the Burmese than the yellow.

I would here mention, in passing, that I have yet to hear/read a
scholarly appraisal of the Mon edition of the Tipitaka (viz., typeset
in Pali characters, orthographically 90% identical to Burmese, i.e.,
if you can read Burmese-script-Pali, you could learn Mon-Pali in a
single day's work).  I believe I reported to this list my horror at
finding that the copy of this rare (printed) edition held at Bangkok's
National Library was rotting away to pieces, and soon would be no
longer extant; however, Filliozat reassured me somewhat that there is
a complete set of these texts preserved in Paris --and "preserved"
rather than rotting.

As with other "bad news" I've lately received, I'm left to reflect on
the "diminishing returns" of these various projects to produce more
and more editions (digital & paper) that rely on nothing more than
comparing Fausboll's work (and old PTS editions generally) to the
Burmese edition --and the comparison is rarely conducted by scholars
with the means to do anything more than note differences where they
find them.

Does the 21st century have so little interest in original manuscript
research that we are left with nothing to do nothing but re-hash the
findings of the 19th?

E.M.