Textual criticism of Pali writings

Dear Friends,

Vis a vis Ven. Yuttadhammo's discussion on textual forms, is anyone aware of any academic work done on the subject of Pali textual criticism - i. e. the origin and nature of the texts that have come down to us, the relation and differences between them, the process of oral and written textual transmission, reconciliation of variants, etc?

In the field of the Jewish/Christian bible, an enormous amount of work has been done in this area, but they have manuscripts dating back to the 2nd and 3rd century BC, whereas most of our manuscripts are quite recent. I believe the oldest Pali manuscript is only about 450 years old, although we have recensions of the Dhammapada from the first and/or second century A. D. written in Gandhari.

If anyone knows any scholarly work done on this subject I would appreciate a reference(s),

Thanks,

Bryan





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