The Mon edition of the Pali canon (AGAIN!)

The Journal of the Siam Society [JSS] for 1983 (vol. 71, pt. 1 & 2)
contains what is, evidently, a very influential article from Hinuber.

On the basis of a cursory examination of two (very fragmentary) old
Lanna manuscripts, his enthusiasm suggests that Northern Thailand
(and, better still, mysterious Laos) may be troves of major new finds
for Pali scholars.

It also contains a very appealing (but, to my mind, purely
conjectural) suggestion as to the Mon version of the Pali canon:
   "Although very little, rather next to nothing, is known about the
early history of the Mon canon in Pali, its origin appears to have
been South Indian rather than Ceylonese, which would account for the
canonical quotations cited by Aggava.msa in his Saddaniiti composed in
1154 ... [etc.]"

This seems to me, very simply, to be an untested hypothesis that is
(still) worth testing.

With about the same degree of [un-]certainty that we may say, "the
S.N. will show greater variance between Sinhalese and non-Sinhalese
editions..." --we may likewise say that the Mon ought to (at least)
preserve significant differences in their Vinaya (viz., resisting
Burmese influence, in comparison to Sinhalese sources, etc.).

However, even this is logical, not empirical, based on historical and
cultural facts, not on any direct MS research (and I would note that
the obliteration of any trace of an independent Pali transmission
among the Shan, in Burma, gives us cause for the utmost caution in
assuming that the Mon were able to keep much of their own Pali textual
continuum, etc. etc.).  The very strength of Burmese orthodoxy that
preserved their own texts so well, served to erase several adjacent
traditions (or very nearly so: Shan, Arakan/Chittagong, Mon, etc.
--I've never even heard talk of a Karen transmission, extant or
non-extant, but...).

In addition to the possibility that Mon texts might be under the sway
of Burmese influence, there is the fact that the printed editions were
(primarily) printed in Thailand, and fit into the unique historical
narrative of Rama IV's patronage of the Mon monks.  [I have posted a
list of the Mon-Pali editions know to me to this list before, again,
many years ago]

It is quite possible that at least some of those Mon editions are just
the same text found in contemporaneous Thai editions, "got up" in Mon
orthography.  However, the fact that Rama IV did directly patronize
the Mon Vinaya exams, holds out some hope that at least Vinaya texts
were preserved separately in that tradition (and, hopefully, that
transmission was kept separate from the Burmese before, etc.).

It is a great shame that Thailand's National Library has sequestered
all the Mon books on the upper floors (they were on the normal book
shelves a few years ago) --as I now cannot get at them without writing
a letter to Parliament (etc.).

I was re-assured by Filliozat that all of the Mon (printed) editions
are preserved at the EFEO in Paris.  I needed re-assurance, as the
copies in Bangkok that I had seen were rotting away before my eyes,
and crumbling in my hands.

At any rate: going to Paris is the only method I now know of
investigating the matter, and this is, perhaps, a task best left to
the numerous Mon residents, who also happen to be Pali scholars,
living and working in Paris.

I have also written to this list, long ago, about my visit to Ko Kret
(the ethnically Mon island, with various MS), etc. etc. --and Peter
Skilling published one issue of Fragile Palm Leaves dedicated to the
Mon even a few years before that.  There was a 2007 conference in
Bangkok on Mon studies, to further raise the importance of this area
of research, and I am presently (STILL) engaged in effort to reprint
(or prepare a new edition of) Ketumati's quadra-lingual textbook for
the Mon language (with distribution to the Mon in refugee camps along
the Thai border in mind, etc.) --in fact, I wrote e-mail to two
different Mon scholars and a third linguist this week about that
(remote possibility though it might be).

But all that stands in rather absurd contrast to the fact that the
basic value of comparative reading of the Mon canon (viz., even the
printed editions, apart from the MS) remains unknown --an untested
hypothesis.

I am agonizing over this now, as I am reviewing all of the available
scholarship as to just how bad the various (available) printed
editions of Pali texts really are --and how the bulk of them just
derive from the same, common stock of MS (either the Burmese council
edition, or Fausboll, smoking his cigars in Copenhagen...).

And, to come back briefly to Lanna: while the particular findings of
Hinuber's article are not in dispute, the fact remains that they are
PARTICULAR.

Having spent quite a lot of time looking around for Pali manuscripts
and talking to other manuscript researchers in Laos and Northern
Thailand (over a period of 3 years), I do not share any of the
optimism that Hinuber felt when, "by chance" (as he puts it) he
happened upon two historically significant (but very fragmentary)
manuscripts.  His "chance" was, in fact, very much augmented by the
cumulative results of Hundius's cataloges and surveys, conducted over
the years before (and continuing afterward).

The article did, extremely briefly, make a favourable mention of the
Hewawitarne Bequest edition (primarily known for the commentaries but
including some, not all, source Sutta texts) --I am trying to
reconcile myself to buying the latter, and hoping that it is superior
to the better-known BJT editions.  Apparently the Hewawitarne ed. had
Malalasekera as an editor, so it may really be, as Hinuber so briefly
mentions, the preferable representative of the Sinhalese tradition (in
print) for comparative readings.

E.M.