Publication of ‘Materials for the Study of the Tripitaka’ (MST) Series reaches 20-year milestone

The Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation (FPL) celebrates 20 years of publishing its Materials for the Study of the Tripitaka (MST) Series, published jointly with the Lumbini International Research Institute (Lumbini, Nepal).

FPL is a non-sectarian organization that supports the preservation and study of the Buddhist literature of Southeast Asia. FPL aims to preserve Buddhist manuscripts and make them available through replication. Founder and curator Peter Skilling is one of the leading scholars of the Buddhist history and literature of South and Southeast Asia. He reports that, with the help of a grant from Khyentse Foundation, FPL was able to publish more volumes of the series Material for the Study of the Tripitaka this year. The seventeen titles of this series (listed below) that have appeared to date are original studies of Pali and other texts that have never been published before.

Materials for the Study of the Tripitaka (MST) Series. Image courtesy of Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation (FPL)

Vol. 1 Peter Skilling and Santi Pakdeekham, Pāli Literature Transmitted in Central Siam, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2002.

Vol. 2 Peter Skilling and Santi Pakdeekham, Pāli and Vernacular Literature Transmitted in Central and Northern Siam, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2004. 

Vol. 3 Olivier de Bernon, Kun Sopheap, Leng Kok-An, Inventaire provisoire des manuscrits du Cambodge. Première partie, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2004.

Vol. 4 Santi Pakdeekham, Jambūpati-sūtra. A synoptic romanized edition, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2009. 

Vol. 5 Claudio Cicuzza (ed.), Peter Skilling. Buddhism and Buddhist Literature of South-East Asia. Selected Papers, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2009.

Vol. 6 Claudio Cicuzza, A Mirror Reflecting the Entire World. The Pāli Buddhapādamaṅgala or the “Auspicious Signs on the Buddha’s Feet”. Critical Edition with English Translation, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2011. 

Vol. 7 Petra Kieffer-Pülz, Sīmāvicāraṇa. A Pali letter on monastic boundaries by King Rāma IV of Siam, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2011.

Vol. 8 Santi Pakdeekham, Piṭakamālā. ‘The Garland of the Piṭaka’, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2011.

Vol. 9 Claudio Cicuzza (ed.), Peter Nyunt. A Descriptive Catalogue of Burmese Manuscripts in the Fragile Palm Leaves Collection. Volume 1, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2014.

Vol. 10 Claudio Cicuzza (ed.), Peter Nyunt. A Descriptive Catalogue of Burmese Manuscripts in the Fragile Palm Leaves Collection. Volume 2, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2014.

Vol. 11 Claudio Cicuzza (ed.), Peter Nyunt. A Descriptive Catalogue of Burmese Manuscripts in the Fragile Palm Leaves Collection. Volume 3, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2015.

Vol. 12 Daniel Stuart, The Stream of Deathless Nectar. The Short Recension of the Amatarasadhārā of the Elder Upatissa. A Commentary on the Chronicle of the Future Buddha Metteyya with a Historical Introduction, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2017.

Vol. 13 Santi Pakdeekham, Tāṃrā Traipiṭaka. A Handbook of the Tipiṭaka, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2017.

Vol. 14 Claudio Cicuzza (ed.), “Katā me rakkhā, katāme parittā”. Protecting the protective texts and manuscripts. Proceedings of the Second International Pali Studies Week. Paris 2016, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2016.

Vol. 15 Olivier de Bernon, Kun Sopheap, Leng Kok An, Inventaire provisoire des manuscrits du Cambodge (2ieme partie), Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2018.

Vol. 16 Santi Pakdeekham (ed.) History of Pali Scriptures: Sangitiyavamsa by Somdet Phra Phonnarat, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2021.

Vol. 17 Santi Pakdeekham (ed.), The Painted Catalogue of Pali Literature: Uposatha Hall of Wat Thong Nopphakhun, Bangkok, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka, 2021.

Volumes 16 and 17 were published in 2021, the latter beautifully illustrated, to enrich our knowledge and understanding of the Pali literature of Thailand and the history of the Pali scriptures in general.

Volume 17 of the Materials for the Study of the Tripitaka (MST) Series, published in 2021. Image courtesy of Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation (FPL)

The 20-year milestone is not an excuse to slow down FPL’s activities though. Santi Pakdeekham and Peter Skilling are currently working on a volume that contains the Pali texts of several historical works, or “biographies”, of important Buddha images. Another volume is being prepared by General Editor of the series, Claudio Cicuzza, which contains an edition of a Pali text called Vajirasarasangaha by Javier Schnake (Paris). Both volumes will contribute to our knowledge of the little-known Pali texts of Southeast Asia, and, like all previous volumes of the series, these will be valuable additions to research libraries and collections of Southeast Asian Buddhist material across the world.

Stirring and Stilling: Dharma Songs from Cambodia

Cambodia is one of the few countries with over 90% of their population practicing Buddhism. Since around the 5th century, Khmer people began to follow Mahayana Buddhism, and Theravada Buddhism has been the main religion since the 13th century. The only exception was during the Khmer Rouge period which resulted in the destruction and loss of much of the Buddhist cultural heritage of Cambodia. Therefore, the preservation of the surviving cultural treasures of Cambodia is of utmost urgency.

Among these treasures are Buddhist scriptures, classical Khmer literature, poetry, music, dance and theatre. Cambodian religious music includes chanting of certain Buddhist scriptures in Pali and the recitation of poetry rendered by monks and lay people alike. However, Pali (the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism), is rarely understood by the laity. The recitation of religious poems (smot) occupies a position between chanting and singing. Unlike chanting, poetry recitation may be accompanied by a solo instrument such as a flute or string instrument. The main themes of smot recitation are devotional and educational Buddhist texts and the Buddha’s Birth Tales. These poetic texts are composed entirely in Khmer language, or sometimes mixed with some Pali and Sanskrit phrases, but easily understood.

Buddhist procession at Wat Botum Watey Reacheveraram in Phnom Penh, c.1919. Source: Base Ulysse, Archives nationales d’outre mer

Great efforts have been made in recent years to preserve Cambodian manuscripts through digitization and conservation. However, the preservation of oral traditions appears more difficult and is paid less attention to. One rare resource that aims to help to preserve and to publicize Buddhist poetry recitations from Cambodia is the website “Dharma Songs” by Trent Walker. Recordings of recitations in Khmer language with translations into English, performed by Trent Walker, are presented. The website offers a chance to learn about—and listen to—the Cambodian Dharma song tradition, smot. Associated with it is a multimedia online book  with the title “Stirring and Stilling: A Liturgy of Cambodian Dharma Songs” that was originally conceived as a printed book accompanied by a set of CDs. However, the text and recordings have been made available online to enable people from around the world to experience and appreciate this special musical tradition.

Dr Trent Walker, a scholar of Southeast Asian Buddhism, developed the resource based on six years of research into Cambodian Dharma songs as both a student and performer of smot himself. His English translations of sixteen Dharma songs are presented in this resource for the first time. Walker also works with Bangsokol, a multi-disciplinary stage production combining music, film, movement and voice.

 

Revealing Hidden Collections: Buddhist Literature in UK and SE Asian collections

Pre-modern or traditional Theravada is a little understood or researched subject and there are large gaps in our knowledge of Theravada between C5th-3rd BCE canon/C5th CE commentaries and the 18th/19th centuries. In the modern period there were many changes in Buddhism in response to colonialism, modernisation, state formation and the cold war and history is written from the perspective of modernised Theravada. The history of traditional Theravada remains obscure. Elements of traditional Theravada are preserved in some marginalised communities in Southeast Asia and in the manuscript collections of both monastic and university libraries around the world. Information about these texts, however, if it exists at all, is confined to handwritten lists and remains inaccessible to the wider community of Buddhist scholars. Within this project, the focus will be on one particular Tai group, the Shan, since their materials are the least studied and there remains a living tradition of Shan scholars who have the specialist poetic and subject skills necessary to access these materials.

This project, funded by the Dhammakaya Foundation, will catalogue unexamined collections of Shan texts from the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library and from temple libraries in Thailand and Burma, as well as identifying traditional meditation manuals from these places and the British Library in London.

Special attention will be given to widening and deepening our understanding of the diversity of two fields of specialist Theravada literature, meditation techniques and manuals, and secondarily grammatical texts. Searches for manuscripts from these genres in collections of Burmese texts, supplementary fieldwork in Cambodia and Laos and the translation of two important texts from Thai and Sinhala will increase our understanding of how to categorise such material and will in turn inform the cataloguing project.

The project will work with the TEI/XML schema developed for the Fihrist catalogue, which will be enhanced to incorporate descriptive terminology relevant for Shan Buddhist materials. A data entry form will be developed suitable for use by subject specialist cataloguers with no knowledge of the XML schema. Existing descriptions from handwritten catalogues created for Cambridge University Library’s Scott collection and for South East Asian temple collections will be re-keyed into TEI/XML using the data entry form. Original catalogue entries for the Bodleian and other libraries in the UK and South East Asia will be created by entering descriptions directly into the data entry form.

Anticipated Outcomes

• International access to hitherto uncatalogued and inaccessible materials through an online catalogue of Shan manuscripts
• An agreed TEI P5 schema and transliteration scheme for Shan Buddhist manuscripts
• Key tools for future researchers through looking at the literatures of Theravada regions, in particular protecting and recording the endangered literatures of traditional, non-modernised Theravada
• Reference materials to assist researchers working in the historical grammatical and, especially, meditation traditions of Theravada regions.