Dear ven. Pandita
Nothing unusual about a journal rejecting an article entirely on a reviewers recommendation, happens more often than not, I would say.
All articles need some context and Dhammavihari is hardly a household name even inBuddhist circles. it seems fair that the reviewer expects background and doesn'
T rate him as being near buddhaghosa in authority ( I am sure you don'
T either)
with respect
Robert
--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, "bhikkhu" <ashinpan@...> wrote:
>
> Dear members,
>
> One of my papers uploaded here (parivasa_samanera.pdf in Bhikkhu Pandita folder) and sent to a prestigious journal has been rejected. So I have revised it and again uploaded here (parivasa_samanera_ver.2.pdf in Bhikkhu Pandita folder). I am sending it to another journal so, as usual, I must say that all rights are reserved.
>
> The second version uses a different presentation and accordingly has got a new abstract, which is as follows:
> "Titthiyaparivāsa is a particular type of probation in Theravādin monasticism that former ascetics of other heretic groups must undergo if they wish to gain admission to the Buddhist Order. In the extant probation procedure as found in the Pali Vinaya tradition, there is no explicit accounting for the stage of novicehood. Why? This paper attempts to answer that question and incidentally also discovers an unexpected insight into the legally ambiguous status of noviciation."
>
> Besides, what I have found worthwhile to post here is the reviewer's comments on the first version. Why? To the best of my knowledge, the normal procedure of peer-review process should have been like this: (1) the editor would send the reviewer's comments to me and ask for my own comments (2) Depending on my answers to the reviewer's comments, the editor would decide: (a) to publish the paper as it is (b) or to ask me to revise the paper as necessary so that it can be sent to a reviewer again (c) or to reject the paper outright. In this case, however, the editor seemingly had no wish to hear anything from me. He just said, "your paper has been considered by a reviewer with relevant expertise, but I am afraid that it has not been accepted for publication." and the matter was seemingly closed. So I have no choice but to post the reviewer comments that I cannot fully understand and seek to hear from those who are much more experienced than myself in academic writing and publishing.
>
> > The author brings out the development of the ordination rather late;
> > if he did so a bit earlier, Buddhaghosa and Dhirasekera's work can be
> > evaluated better than they are in this article. Instead, the author
> > seems to have given priority to the philological explanation first.
>
> The reviewer's remark above is pure gold. By revising in accord with his advice, I hope I have made the second version much clearer (at least one of my students who has read both versions thinks so).
>
> > The abstract questions Buddhaghosa's assumptions but on Pp. 5 and 6, the
> > author seems to imply that Buddhaghosa's mistake is only apparent in a
> > certain procedure. In other word, taken in the right context,
> > Buddhaghosa's interpretation can be granted.
>
> Actually I didn't mean that Buddhaghosa's interpretation is justified in any context. Yet I think I can't blame the reviewer here. The real culprit must have been my confusing presentation in the first version. The version 2 does much better here.
>
> > I feel the author should have discussed and given some credit to
> > Dhirasekera's work, never mind Buddhaghosa. But his discussion of
> > Dhirasekera's lacks background/ context, given the nature of his
> > argument.
>
> I cannot understand this comment. Dhirasekera (the late Bhikkhu Dhammavihari) has been a well-known figure in the Sri Lankan circles of Buddhist Studies. And his work I quote in my paper, *The Buddhist Monastic Discipline*, was first published in (1982), the 2nd edition came out in (2007) and is found to be cited often by papers on Vinaya, according to Google Scholar. Does such a work need to be introduced? It is not a manuscript that I have just discovered. It should be ok as long as I do not misquote nor quote out of context. Or is it because, as one student of mine remarks sarcastically, ``A book is not a book if it is published in a Third World country."?
>
> Any comment or suggestion from experienced people is welcome.
>
> with metta
>
> Ven. Pandita
>