Re: Buddha Jayanthi Tipitaka being scanned in as picture files

Ven. Nyanatusita wrote:
> For your information. A volunteer at the BPS has started to scan in the
> Pali of the Buddha Jayanthi Tipitaka. The picture files will be put as
> PDFs on the internet. In this way the original text can be accessed by
> scholars who know Sinhala script.
> As you might already know, the typed in version which was put online
> some years ago was for the most part not properly proofread.
>  
Actually much of the Tipitaka itself is not too bad. I sometimes do
simultaneous searches in the BJT, VRI, PTS and BUDSIR versions of the
Canon and it is rare for the search not to find the corresponding passages.

But of course a scanned version of the BJT will only be of great value
when it is linked to a digitalized version so that it can be searched.
But that comes later.

Ven. Nyanatusita also wrote:
> The DN has already been scanned in. The whole Tipitaka might take quite
> a while, it takes about a book a week, but after it is finished we hope
> to continue with scanning in the Simon Hewawitarne
> edition of the commentaries, and also the Tikas and other Pali texts
> published in Sri Lanka. Some old, 19th century, editions of Pali texts
> have never been reprinted and are in danger of being lost because the
> books are disintegrating.
>  
I think this is all very valuable and important. Also some of the older
sanne. Much of this material one never consults because it requires (at
best) a library trip, often a rail trip (in my case to London) and (too
often) a journey to Sri Lanka, which is usually out of the question.
Once it is available on line, this material will be much more frequently
utilized by scholars from elsewhere.

Lance Cousins