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THE PALI LITERATURE OF BURMA

(idiom of Magadha)[1] or mūlabhāsā ('the original language'),[2] but this identification of Pali with the spoken dialect of Magadha is now known to be incorrect. It seems needless to add any remarks about the Pali literature, since its capacities have been described and, better still, proved by the authors of scholarly and beautiful translations which everyone nowadays has an opportunity of reading.[3] But a few words on the classical books may be in place.


The Tripiṭaka.

The Tripiṭaka (Pali, Tipiṭaka), to use the now familiar Buddhist name for the three great groups of canonical texts, the Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma piṭakas ('baskets'), is known in Burma in the Pali recension consecrated in Ceylon.


The Abhidhamma and Sutta Piṭakas.

For some remarks on the last of the three collections, the Abhidhamma, the reader is referred to Chapter IV of this essay. As to the Suttapiṭaka, the first thing we observe on looking into characteristic collections of Pali-Burmese MSS. and books is that of the great Nikāyas claiming to be the word of the Buddha (the Aṅguttara, Majjhima, Dīgha, Saṃyutta, and Khuddaka) the Dīghanikāya is the best known, the most studied, the most frequently to be found.[4] On the reason for this preference we can only risk a guess. The Dīghanikāya, though containing the long (dīgha) discourses, is the smallest of the collections and hence the easiest to study. It is a principle of the Burmese to avoid all unnecessary pains

  1. ↑ The ancient kingdom of Magadha was the region now called Bihar.
  2. ↑ The late lamented Professor Pischel (in a valuable paper on fragments of the Buddhist canon found in Chinese Turkestan) speaks of the tradition that the Magadhi was the language of the first age of the world and spoken by the Buddhas: 'Es ist begreiflich dass man später die Māgadhi mit dem Pāli identifizierte. Dass aber der Pālikanon Spuren eines älteren Māgadhīkanons aufweist is längst erkannt worden' (R. Pischel, Sitzungsberichte der königl. preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Mai, 1904, p. 807). See also Oldenberg's edition of the Vinayapitakam, Introduction, and the Preface to Professor E. Müller's Pali Grammar.
  3. ↑ See Bibliography.
  4. ↑ This is confirmed by information Mr. Shwe Zan Aung has kindly sent me.
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