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THE CURRICULAR Introduction: What defines a CANON IN NORTHERN canon?

THAILAND AND In 1983 Charles Keyes wrote:

Justin McDaniel* "the evidence from libraries in Laos and ... reveals that what Abstract constitutes the Theravadin dhamma for people in these areas includes only a small portion ofthe total Tipi~aka, some Nissaya texts are idiosyncratic vernacu• semi-canonical commentaries such as lar notes composed and used by Bud• 's , a large dhist in and number of pseudo-jataka and other Laos between the 16th and early 20th pseudo-canonical works, histories of centuries. They evince a particular rela• shrines and other sacred histories. tionship of the authors with the classi• Liturgical works, and popular commen• cal (.., originally composed in ) taries. Moreover, for any particular scripture of as temple-monastery in Thailand and Laos well as with their intended audie~ce. the collection of texts available to They reflect certain understandings of th~ people in the associated community are the notions of authorship, textual • not exactly the same as those found in thenticity, the possibility of translation, another temple-monastery." 1 and homiletics. A comprehensive study reveals the early development of Bud• Steven Collins used this statement and dhist curricula in the region and a de• the research that supported it to develop tailed study pedagogical methods used his notion of a "ritual canon." The in these texts affords us a way to de• "ritual canon[s]" are the collections of scribe the nature of Buddhist belief and texts used at any particular monastery practice with much greater precision. In in the "actual ritual life in the area con• this paper, I will demonstrate how the cerned." 2 The term "practical canon," choice of source texts by nissaya trans• inspired by the work of Collins, was lators and the commentarial services coined by Blackburne in her 1996 dis• they employ reveal the contours of the sertation on the Saratthadipani from Sri pre-modem Northern Thai and Lao Bud• Lanka and shows how the choice of texts dhist curricula. By focusing on the de• to copy, translate, teach and preserve, velopment of curricula in the region be• both canonical and non-canonical Pali fore the middle of the 19th century, we ' can avoid the vagaries that come with 1 Collins (1990: 103). the application of normative notions of 2 Ibid.: 104; David Carpenter comes to simi• the Theravada Buddhist canon to a re• lar conclusions in his study of the canonic• gion of diverse textual production and ity of the Veda. He states that the Veda was disparate intellectual expression. "largely a symbolic source for the legitima• tion of current practice." The Vedas can only * Asststant . Professor of and be understood as a canon for ritual action and "orthopraxy," not "orthodoxy." The Southeast Asian Studies at Ohio University Vedas as a canon and as texts, at least for its Doctoral Candidate in the Department of and Indian Studies at Harvard commentators like Bhaltfhari, were insepa• rable from "the conditions of their practical University employment." Carpenter (1992: 24-28).

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and vernacular, in any given Theravada stories or the ritual instructions them• community actually must be seen as selves. They also contain linguistic, defining the particular canon of that re• material, and rhetorical features that gion and time period. Derris, providing serve pedagogical purposes. While cer• a succinct overview of this modem trend tain canonical texts written in Pali are in Theravada Studies, demonstrates that found, and sometimes in large numbers texts like the Jatakas, the • and wide-spread across a region, the aqhakatha, the Buddhavarpsa and the texts that were translated (i.e. nissayas) Mailgaladipan1 dominate Southeast seemed to have formed a practical ver• Asian monastic libraries and archives. nacular canon which dominated lan• guage instruction and were the subjects Although, I do not want to simply of sermons at rituals and other commu• create a canon that did not actually exist nity events. The nissayas may be the historically in Northern Thailand or evidence of, what I call, multiple "cur• Laos, I want to add to this current ricular canons." By focusing on what discussion in Theravada Studies by texts were actually taught, copied, and emphasizing a new way to define a translated, we can break away from the "canon" by focusing specifically on scholarly tendency to study Pali texts what Pali texts were most commonly and not their, often quite different, ver• translated and were used in educational nacular translations. These curricular settings.3 I want to expand this idea of canons were not well-copied and beau• a practical canon by, first, looking at tifully illustrated for royalty and wealthy nissaya texts in Laos and Northern Thai• patrons. They did not remain unread and land. Nissayas reveal their pedagogical neglected in the royal libraries or large purpose by the choice of the texts the monastic libraries of Thailand and Laos, authors chose to translate and comment nor were they strictly collections ofPali upon, and the semantic content of the liturgical prayers, protective chants or blessings. Instead, they were individu• ally fashioned lenses through which in• dividual scholars read, translated and 3 1 thank Oskar von Hiniiber for his personal commented on Pali texts in the vernacu• comments on the danger of inventing lar and the individually forged mega• canons that never existed historically or conceptually. phones by which they taught. 4 See the Raicheunangseuporiinliinna ekasiinmaigrofilm kong stiipanwijai What Charles Keyes observed in 1983 chiengmai: 2521-2533 (CatalogueofPalm can be confirmed today with even the Leaf Texts on Microfilm at the Social Re• most cursory inventory of the major search Institute, University: monastic, royal and governmental 1978-1990) (1991); Panchi Maigrofilm manuscript libraries of Laos and North• Kwang Luang Pahang, Haw Papitapa em Thailand.4 Moreover, it was previ• Kwang Luang Pahang, Hongsamut Haeng ously noted (although not extensively St Lao (Catalogues of Palm Leaf Texts on commented on) by Louis Finot in 1917, Microfilm from Luang Pahang, the Museum George Coedes from 1911 to 1935 and of Luang Pahang and from the National Pierre LaFont in 1982.5 Library of Laos) ( 1999). Vernacular narratives and histories or translations and 5 See Finot (1917: 1-218); Coedes (1966); summaries of Pali texts in the vernacular LaFont (1965: 429-545). dominate these collections.

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Generally, the most popular texts were a "common assumption that a closed the anisarp.sas (blessings used in ritual canon had a rigid and inviolable force. "9 and magical ceremonies), (in• Therefore, there is often a distinction cantations for protection), chalongs (cer• made between canonical and apocryphal emonial instructions for both lay and texts that exists in the mind of the religious ceremonies), aprocryphal scholar, but not the members of jatakas (non-canonical birth-stories of individual Theravada communities. the Buddha), kamavacas (ritual instruc• Therefore, following Collins, he notes tions and rules), local folktales, and that: tarnnans (relic, image and temple histo• ries).6 The first three categories of texts "an awareness ofthe special problems have clear reasons for being the domi• which the Theravada faced in nant texts preserved in the region due transmitting a systematic, but complex to their everyday usage in house, buf• doctrine abstracted from a large and falo, temple and bodily blessings or for diffuse literary tradition is important their usefulness in cases ofrevenge, fear, for understanding the continuing and lust (love potions and incantations are included here). The tarnnans are 6 For literature in see mostly, but certainly not exclusively, Skilling (1992: 109-82); for tamnans see my vernacular histories that have political, brief overview in the forthcoming "Trans• formative History: Nih on Ry6 iki and economic, social, aesthetic and educa• Jinaki:ilami:ilipakaral}am," Journal ofth e In• tional reasons for being popular, which ternational Association ofBuddhist Studies I have discussed in another article, but and references cited at the end of this paper. which is largely beyond the scope ofthis 7 For example, I recently made a trip to the paper. I will discuss the aprocryphal rural temple in Baan Nawm Lam Jan of jatakas, folktales and kamavacas below. Savaanakhet Province in Southern Laos. In What is important for my purposes is this temple's rather large collection of manu• that untranslated Pali canonical texts are scripts I found only one canonical text in Pi:ili - the Dhammapada. Although a few of this often in the minority in these collec• temple's manuscripts had been removed for tions.7 Therefore, in 1990 Steven Collins microfilming by the National Library of wrote: Laos, the catalogue of the temple's collec• "we need empirical research into each tion held by the library had very few canoni• individual case, not a simple deduction cal texts and very few in Pi:ili. It also may be from the existence ofth e closed tripi!aka noted that the Pali Dhammapada held by the produced by the . We need temple was not complete and clearly, by its more research, for example, historical placement in the closet (ru) and the dust on and ethnographic, on the actual posses• its cover had not been untied or read in years sion and use of texts, in monastery li• (probably since the National Library's sur• vey in 1993, since the label had been tied to braries and elsewhere, and on the con• the binding cord and neither seemed as if tent of sermons and festival presenta• they had been tampered with). Furthermore, tions to the laity, to establish more the abbot, Luang Pii Pommi:i, was unaware clearly than we currently can;just what that he had a Pali Dhammapada manuscript role has been played by the works ex• in the collection, but did call many attention cluded in the canonical list. " 8 to the several manuscripts of Lao folktales. 8 Collins (1990: 104). Charles Hallisey surmises that modem 9 Hallisey ( 1990: 161). scholars of Theravada Buddhism have 22

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literary activities ofBuddhists in Sri (canon-near) defined by "praxis" and the Lanka and Southeast Asia. This awareness above all allows us to acknowledge the conditions under and do not claim to be the words of the Bud• which new suttas ... could have been dha. Therefore, other parameters for can• composed and accepted in the onicity, whether they be chronological, topi• cal or other must be examined. (Norman, Theraviida; it is easy to see that the 1983: 140). Even the canon was considered very idea ofa closed canon might well closed before the common era, there are texts have functioned more as a rhetorical like the Milindapmiha, and marker than as a strictly closed list in the Nettipakara~ which have been included contexts where the canon circulated in some Pali canon collections and not in and was known in parts rather than as others. Origen used the term canon as an a whole." 10 adjective with the phrase scriptuae canonicae, but the first nominative use was We will see below that the canon was not until the fourth century. (Childs, 1979: not only transmitted, chanted and held 50). In the Jewish tradition, the definition of canon was simply "sacred writings" that in parts rather than as a whole in pre• would not "defile the hands." However, ex• modem Southeast Asia, but it was trans• amining the philological evidence, we see lated and taught in even smaller vernacu• that the canon meant simply a collection of lar parts alongside numerous non-• texts written in a fixed historical period. nonical narratives, ritual texts, blessings These texts were decided as sacred by con• and grammatical treasties. sensus and usually were determined as ca• nonical by their status of being taught as the John Cort's study of the "canon-near" divinely inspired words of God. Marvin and "canon-far" of the Svemtambar Pope, in his translation and historical study of the Song of Songs, elucidates the diffi• Jaina Communities of Gujarat echoes culty in defining canonical and non-canoni• Collins' and Hallisey's call for scholars cal works. He gives detailed comparative to pay more attention to what type of philological evidence (by connecting to collection they are referring to when Egyptian love poems or extracting its secu• they use the term" canon." Cort, follow• lar topics) to show that it could be consid• ing Folkert's separation of Jaina scrip• ered non-canonical in the basis of date, 11 ture into two types of canon - Canon I literary integrity, authorship, language style and topic. (Pope, 1977: 18, 29-33, 41-49, 66-67, 72 and 85). In scriptural traditions 10 Hallisey(1993: 105). throughout the world and across history, can• 11 The academic interest in defining the term onicity is often defined, not necessarily canon has gained momentum in the last arbitrarily, but defmitely eclectically based twenty-five years. K.R. Norman believes that on multiple and over-determined factors. a canon of religious texts can either be closed Childs writes: or open. By closed, "he means that it con• The term canon has both a histori• sists of a fixed number of texts or utterances cal and theological dimension. The to which all additions would be considered formation of the canon ofHebrew the work of theologians, but not the work Scriptures developed in a histori• ofthe prophet or first promoter of the . cal process, some lines of which Norman's study of the canonical tradition of can be accurately described by the Theravadan Buddhists shows that even historian. Semler was certainly though they claim to have a closed canon, right in contesting an exclusively many of the works contained therein are not theological definition of canon in which the element of development

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resultant contextualized understanding; tion of the Jaina canon, but Canon II (canon-far) defined by "author• plays a primary role in the ritual life of ity" and "some intrinsic ontological Svemtambar Jains. Moreover, most value of the texts themselves." 12 Cort Jains conflate the Sanskrit and vernacu• employs the example ofthe lar commentaries with the Kalpa Siitra to illustrate his point. The Kalpa Siitra proper and consider the sculpted and is a relative "minor"text in terms of its illustrated representations and vernacu• placement in the recognized critical edi- lar folktales based on these commentar• ies as part of the canonical sutra. From this study Cort submits that the Jaina was subsumed under the category canon is more "fluid" than Western of divine Providence or scholars have previously understood. Heilsgeschichte ofsome sort. Con• The Theravada canon of Southeast Asia versely, the formation of the canon is also more fluid. Prapod Assavavirul• involved a process of theological reflection within Israel arising from hakarn drew my attention to the fact the impact which certain writings that Thais use the term Tipi?aka (i.e.,the continued to exert upon the com• canon) to refer to all types of religious munity through their religious use. books, not simply the three baskets col• To seek to explain the historical lected and arranged in over process leading towards the forma• 1,500 years ago. The who holds tion of the canon solely through a printed copy of a vernacular commen• sociological, political, or economic tary on a non-canonical text while he forces prejudices the investigation gives a sermon is considered to be read• from the start.(Childs. Introduction: 58) ing the Phra tripi?ok (Tipi?aka). Lao monks refer to nissayas as gampz tipidok This shows us that the canonical process is (canonical scripture). One of the better not on-going and limitless as maintained by selling books in the James Saunders, but restrictive. However, Mahamakurarajawidyalai Bookstore the restrictions come under shifting rubrics (the largest religious bookstore in ofhistorical, literary, etc. Jonathan Z. Smith ) is titled the Phra tripifok believes that the necessarily limiting func• chapap sam rap brachii chon (The tion of the word canon that separates Tripifaka, (Common) People's Edition) canonfrom commentary is a "radical and which claims to be an abbreviated col• arbitrary reduction."(Smith, Jonathan Z. lection (yo kwiim) of the 45-volume Imagining Religion: From Bablyon to Mahamaku~arajawidyalai Edition of the Jonestown. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982: 43) He states that the only for• Pali Tipi!aka, but includes non-canoni• 13 mal element that truly defines a canon is cal materia1. A monastic student's text• "closure."(Ibid.: 48) The reduction "repre• book from Rong Phim Kansasana, a sented by the notion of canon and the inge• nuity represented by the rule-governed ex• egetical enterprise of applying canon to ev• 12Cort (1992: 175). ery dimension of human life is that most 13 Sucliip Bufiiianuphap (1996). Studies of characteristic, persistent, and obsessive re• what constituted the Tipi~aka in Burma are ligious activity. "(ibid.) That the making of also rare. The Royal Orders of Burma re• the canon was a natural development of a port that on April 4th AD 1638 the king or• religious people who seek to define their dered the copying of "new sets " of the religion. Tipi~aka and.assigned twenty learned monks as editors-in-chief,thirty as editors and ten

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popular press for religious textbooks in cal and non-canonical sources without Bangkok, publishes a book titled distinction. Bramuan dhamma nai phra Tripifok (Dhammic Lessons in the Tipifaka) by There are some modem books like the Suddhipong Tontyaphisalasut, which Phra tripifok sangkhep (The Tipifaka draws from a mixture of canonical and Abridged) which contains only descrip• non-canonical sources. 14 There is no re• tions of canonical texts and monastic ligious bookstore in the country of Laos Pali exams are separated into canonical which sells the Tipi~aka (either the Pali and non-canonical sections (Although Text Society Edition or any of the sev• the most difficult exams and the ones eral Thai editions). Ong Teu, the that, if passed, give the highest respect central monastic university in Wiengjan, are the non-canonical ones.). Moreover, has a copy of the Burmese edi• Peter Skilling brought to my attention tion that is dusty and apparently unused. the Tamnii.n Ho Phrasamut (The History Their Thai edition remains unopened of the Monastic Library), which pro• with some volumes still in plastic wrap. vides a detailed history of the copying Pali grammars and readers in Thailand and/or printing of various Thai editions generally contain passages from canoni of the Tipi~aka from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century sub-editors to work at Maha Myal Muni • and which that generally follows the pa• goda. He also had scribes and clerks work rameters of the Sri Lankan canon (Al• under them with thirty Shan guards to pro• though many editions also include the tect them. Later that month he ordered the major commentaries, expanding the production of 10,008 ivory plaques, 10,008 canon from approximately 45 to 91 vol• gold plaques, 10,008 silver plaques from the Ministry of the Interior and food from the umes.). Still, what is important is that Office ofGraneries to support the monks and the idea of the canon for most South• scribes. We have no idea though if these east Asian Buddhists is simply wider sets of the Tipi~aka were similar to the PTS than is commonly understood in the canon, what texts they included or left out West or to largely Western educated and if these texts were similar to the long scholars at Asian Uni• list of texts found on the mid-15th century versities.15 Evidence from monastic inscription from Pagan, which is our best holdings, translation practices, and, as source for information on texts held and we will see below, nissaya texts, leads considered important in pre-colonial Burma. us to believe that this fluid and more See Than Tun (1983: April, 1638); Luce and Tin Htway (1976). comprehensive sense of the term 14Suddhiphong Tontyaphisalasut (no date). Tripi~aka was even more prevalent be• 15 Amnuay Sukhurnanan (1989). I thank Pe• fore the introduction of the printing ter Skilling for providing me with a copy of press (1830's) and foreign notions of this source (as well asdozens of others over what constituted the Theravada canon. 16 the past three years). 16 Peter Skilling also gave me a quick descrip• The common Thai and Lao notions of tion of the Chiang Mai Pi!akamiila manu• the canon and the research of Court, script which is a long list (60 folios) of texts Collins and others show the difficulty in the Tripi~aka. This text, although as yet of defming what constitutes a canon and unedited and scrutinized, seems to change the more insidious problem of allowing the order of many texts and expand the pa• rameters of the Sri Lankan canon. a "defined" canon to lead a scholar into assuming that the canon is universally

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read, understood, held, preserved and and Northern Thailand often composed unaltered by the religious community nissaya texts on non-canonical texts that ideally adheres to it. In addition, written in Pali or on local Pali narratives Collins pointed out a general problem that cannot be traced back to an origi• in the study ofTheravada Buddhism that nal Pali version from Sri Lanka or In• I hope to address. To truly address this dia. These bilingual translations and/or general problem, as he points out, we commentaries vary from narratives, need targeted and specific research of strict word commentaries, ritual instruc• certain regionally important texts. tions, and socio-ethical directives, and Therefore, the first part ofthis paper will represent a singular creative endeavor look in detail at nissaya texts. I chose in the emerging pre-modern states of nissaya texts, at the suggestion of both Thailand and Laos. They also reveal a Oskar von Hinuber and Charles diverse and creative Buddhist scholarly Hallisey, because they are extremely atmosphere, which before now has been common throughout manuscript collec• largely characterized as uniform and in• tions in Northern Thailand and Laos and tellectually stagnant. have never been studied by scholars lo• cally or internationally. There is a seri• Nissayas reflect a stage of local Bud• ous lack of study of nissayas as a genre dhist literature in which composing texts of Buddhist commentaries and early in Pali was being largely replaced by vernacular translations and more gen• vernacular translations, commentaries, erally a total absence of previous stud• summaries, ritual instructions and nar• ies that focus on the nature of Thai and ratives. These vernacular texts either Lao translations ofPali texts, of which drew directly from the Pali canon nissayas are the best example. 17 In Thailand and Laos there are several The nissaya genre is unique to Laos, designations for translations: nissaya, nissai, Burma and Northern Thailand. 17 Begin• nisai sab, khan, nisrai, and wohiin. I am as ning as early as the 15th century, but of yet unsure as to why authors choose to becoming much more prevalent between use one term over another or why some scribes use two or three titles for their manu• 1720 and 1880, monks began to trans• script. For example, the Hii Sip Jiit Nissaya late Pali texts in local vernacular lan• found at Wat Sung Men is entitled: "Wohiin guages using a variety of scripts. These Hii Sip Chiit Nisrai Hii Sip Chat." While I nissaya (or "support") texts quickly be• surmise that these titles are synonymous, I came a popular medium to express doc• have yet to determine whether certain titles trinal teachings, ritual practices, and are used more in one region or at one time daily monastic and lay obligations. period more than another. In the Critical Nissaya texts consist of Pali words or Study of the Northern Thai Version of the phrases followed by vernacular transla• Panyasa Jataka published by the Dept. of tions, usually with numerous comment• Thai at Chiang Mai University, it is men• tion that no one has found a manuscript of aria! additions by the translator. Many the Panyasa Jataka in Pali in Northern Thai• nissaya texts were based on canonical land. However, they state that the only dif• Buddhist scriptures originally composed ference between nissayas and voharas in Sri Lanka in Pali. However, in many (wohan) is the amount of Pali used in the cases the original Pali text is not cited, text. This is oversimplified. Bhiikwijiibhiisii or if cited, the Pali phrase used in the Thai (1978). nissaya cannot be located in the classi• cal text. Furthermore, scholars in Laos 26

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and its commentaries or created new to both the lay and the ordained. The texts reflecting a creative engagement following two sections will provide evi • between local literary tropes and themes dence for this pedagogical thesis and dis• and Buddhist characters and Pali liter• cuss its relevance to the idea of the cur• ary structures. 18 What is particularly ricular canon in Northern Thailand and interesting about nissayas is that their Laos. physical features, rhetorical style and choice oftexts translated (object! source What follows is a very brief overview texts) demonstrate that they were most of examples drawn from a wide variety likely employed as teaching aids for of nissaya manuscripts collected in monks and novices who were learning Northern Thailand and Laos. These are to read/listen to and write both Pali and merely representative examples and are the vernacular and guides to explaining part of a more comprehensive study of Pali words and passages for sermon nissaya texts in progress. The examples will suffice for the purposes of this pa• per and will show the need to determine 18 McDaniel (2002) what texts were most commonly used 19 I recently went to the two major monastic in educational contexts, thus helping to universities ofThailand and Laos to inquire identify a curricular canon of a region about which texts they used to instruct Pali. or individual temple. Still, the larger At Wat Ong Teu in Laos they do not use a standard Pali grammar text, but instead, the pedagogical thesis which they support instmctor reads Pali passages and translated remains tentative and awaits examina• them into Lao for his students. Translation tion of a wider collection of texts, a com• is more at the level of memorization than parison of nissaya texts with other detailed explanations ofgrammar or linguis• genres of vernacular commentaries and tic issues. The text he was using for the translation like vohii.ras, sii.bs, desanii.s lesson on the day I interviewed him was an and vernacular ayhakathas and !fktis excerpt from the Dhammapada. At Wat from the region, as well as a compari• Borworniwet (Mahamakutarajawidyalai) in son of nissayas with the most common Bangkok, instruction generally takes the Pali grammars used by monks in pre• form of memorization as well; however, 19 there is a series of short paper-back Pali modem Northern Thailand and Laos. grammars for novices. I am still unlcear on how they are incorporated in a Pali lesson Object Texts and need to investigate further. It may be noted that these grammars were hard to Nissaya manuscripts generally range locate at the Wat Borworniwet bookstore and from one fascicle (phuk) with approxi• when I asked about what texts novices and mately nine folios to 12 fascicles with monks used for Pali study I was given a few over 250 folios. The choice of what bi-lingual liturgical texts with Pali and Thai texts the composers of the nissayas in two columns. These books are very preva• lent at the bookstore and would be too translated and commented on (object numerous to list here. However the most texts) is wide-ranging, but Pali narra• common ones would certainly be: tives from the Pafifiii.sajii.taka and Phrakhrurunatharnrangs1 . Monpl.t! bliie Dhammapada-a_t!hakatha and vernacu• samrap Phrabhiksusiimanen liie lar stories like the Madhurii.sachampu Phutthasii.sanikachon tua bai. Bangkok: Wat and ritual texts such as the sattaparitta Arunrachawararm, 2534 [ 1991] and the and various kammavii.cii.s tend to domi• Suatrnon chabub lu'ang. nate the different collections. A list of

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some of the most prevalent extant dessaniis (sermons) from the 17th to nissayas that I have had the opportunity 19th century that I have had the oppor• to acquire and read are: tunity to examine employ a similar method.20 Nissayas, like dessanas, con• Channaburi Dhammapada Nissaya Mak sist of lists of vernacular synonyms for Cet, Chiang Mai Kathii Dhammapada Pali terms or translations and illustra• Nissaya, Chiang Mai Siitmon Nissaya, tive explanations of the object text in Chiang Mai Kit Nissaya, Chiang Mai question. I will offer a more detailed ex• Atthasiilinf Nissaya mak bhaet, planation of these methods below, but Kammaviica Nissaya, Lii'ang for now, what is important to note is that Pabiing Kammavaca Nissaya, Lii'ang the choice of what canonical and non• Pabiing Khan Nissaya, canonical Pali texts from Sri Lanka, as Lii'ang Pabiing Xai Noi Nissaya, Lii'ang well as Pali and vernacular texts from Pabiing Saman Nissaya Mak Ton, Thailand and Laos, to translate was in Madhurasachambu Nissaya, Phrae part an act in service of creating the lo• Sip Chat Nissaya, Wiangchan cal culture and provides insight into (Vientiene) Panchakanipiit Nissaya, what texts were considered particularly Wiangchan Malai Bodhisat Nissaya, efficacious for pedagogical purposes. In• Wiangchan Phrakaeo Nissaya . deed, by the time the nissaya was com• posed, the Northern Thai and the Lao There are several other nissayas less had centuries of familiarity and belief common which I have not examined in in Theravada Buddhism. The nissayas any detail as of yet. Still, this list is a may be seen as articulations of a par• representative one and I am confident ticular understanding of the Theravada that it is large enough to allow us to in an attempt to make sense of a world make some generalities regarding the in which the religion ofthe Buddha con• genre. stituted the overarching and dominant system of belief and practice. The Lao The choice ofwhat texts and what words and Northern used a for• from a particular text to comment on and eign, translocalliterary practice and plot translate in nissaya form can tell us a structure to express their local practices, great deal about the needs of the com• beliefs, values, social and historical con• munities that composed them and what cerns, and vernacular language. These aspects ofBuddhism were deemed more texts are negotiations between the clas• important and most necessary to teach, sical and vernacular, the translocal and especially in the vernacular. Narratives the local. The nissayas incorporate and ritual texts are chanted or drawn local religious, cultural and linguistic from for instructions at ceremonies such elements into a non-native literary struc• as house-blessings,.ordinations , the be• ture. Further research along these lines ginning and end of the rains retreats, etc. might lead us far in determining the Therefore, they provide the perfect sub• ject for sermons by a teacher for the 20 "There are a few manuscripts from North• benefit of his fellow monks, and em Thailand and Laos which have the titles lay followers at these occasions. Trans• 'desananissai' or 'voharanaissai'. There was lations ofPali terms found in these texts clearly a link between these two genres. However, a full comparison between pre• is a common subject for sermons in modern des~nas and nissayas would require present-da y Thailand and Laos. The few a separate study."

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different modes of interaction between of the most common and public of classical, translocalliterature, and local, Buddhist rituals- the ordination. The vernacular literature, among the various ordination ceremony is a time of great peoples of Southeast Asia. By looking celebration and interaction between closely at nissaya texts we can see the monks and lay people. Could the evolution of Pali and vernacular, local Kammaviicii Nissaya (on the Buddhist literature as processual and upasampada) have been used to train dynamic, reflecting strong ties to the monks who would give a sermon to the past and engagement with the present. lay people who were in attendance at the ordination? The Sattaparitta Shll, aside from these lofty reflections, (Sutmon Nissaya) is a collection of man• there may be a very simple reason au• tras chanted for protective purposes at thors of the nissayas chose to translate a number of Buddhist ceremonies. the object texts they did. The narrative Therefore, would it not provide a logi• nissayas are simply entertaining stories. cal subject for a sermon following the They may not systematically layout ceremony? These questions are basic or doctrine or provide and difficult to confirm without histori• an accurate history of the Buddha's life, cal descriptions of sermons, of which but they are funny, frightening, and there are few, and the ones we have are memorable stories of magic, family usually embedded in dramas, epic crisis, wealth and love. Donald Swearer poems or narratives involving monks. and Ranjani Obeyesekere have noted the However, a comprehensive study of prevalence of narratives as teaching these descriptions, as is so often the case tools in Theravada Buddhist societies, in Therava da studies, remains a and Bosaenggam Wongtala notes that desideratum. stories from the Pafiniisajiitaka collec• tion and other stories are often requested Besides narratives and ritual texts, there by lay people to be told at religious are three nissaya manuscripts that I have ceremonies and family events read that are drawn from the (weddings,funerals, house-blessings, Abhidhamma, seemingly for the pur• tonsure ceremonies, etc.).2 1Therefore, pose of teaching Pali grammar (as we monks have to be taught, as I was when saw in a few examples given above), I was a monk, to learn these stories and which was one of the main activities of be able to chant them in Pali. Excerpts any large monastic school. The from these stories are often the basis for A!!hakathiimiitikii Nissaya is a partial sermons on these occasions. Could this translation of the miitikii of the have been the reason these narratives were translated as nissayas? It is well• known that mon~s in Thailand are 2 1 Bosaenggam Wongtala (1987: 208); note judged on their ability to relate a good also that vernacular epic poems which do story.22 not have any particular religious themes like the Thao Hung Thao Cheung and Xin Xai Besides Jataka style narratives, ritual are also often chanted at Buddhist ceremo• nies in Laos. See Khongdeuan Bunyawong texts are also common object texts for (2000: introduction). nissayas, and there are clear reasons 22 Prija Jangkbwanyeun, Dhammavacana why. The Kammaviicii Nissaya explains Wohan Thai ~ Bangkok: Chulalongkom the meaning of the Pali chanted at one University Press, 2540 [ 1997]: introduction.

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Dhammasaliga!J.f that seems to also only are the definitions and expansions draw from explanations, in a non-sys• of the classifications of this matika the tematic way, given in the miitika section material used in the states of the of the Atthasiilin!. However, this is not Dhammasarigaf!.[ itself, but they form simply a vernacular sub-commentary or the basis on which a large proportion of a straightforward translation of the subsequent discussion is built in the re• Atthasiilini-atthayojana written by maining books ofthe Pi!aka ." 24 He goes Na.Ifkitti of Wat Panasarama in Chiang on to show that the terminology pre• Mai in the late 15th century, although it sented in the miitikii is fundamental to has certainly been influenced by the understanding how these terms, which methods of grammatical instruction in generally refer to states of conscious• the latter and helps the "reader" ness, are used throughout the whole identify grammatical compounds in the Abhidhamma. The miitika is "used to Dhammasaliga~J.fY While the isolate and establish the make-up of the A!!hasiilin"i and the Matika (on the khandhas ... and [the terms in the miitikii] doublets or the triplets in the acts as a series of focal points."25 For Dhammasanga!J.l) are not specifically these reasons we can see why the au• grammatical texts, the nissaya uses these thor of the nissaya would have wanted texts as a matrix on which grammatical to emphasize the terms in the miitika lessons are based. These lessons were through repetition, rather than transla• important to teach the audience how to tion, because they were technical terms identify terms (They are term-based his students would have had to be fa• grammatical lessons that provide miliar with ifany teaching based on ma• lexicographies of related terms with terial from the Abhidhamma was to be alternate grammatical suffixes, as the comprehended. syntax of sentences and long explana• tions of grammatical rules were usually The Saccasarikhepa Nissaya, another not the concern of Southeast Asian nissaya based on a grammatical text, is authors). The identification of terms one of the few nissayas that generally was important for chanting (to identify follows its source text, but again it is the first words of texts as pneumonic incomplete and there seems to be no triggers) and for sermons that were particular logic behind the author's de• based on the explanation and expansion cision to translate certain passages from of certain key Pali terms. Furthermore, its source text versus others, unless slhe the miitikii of the Dhammasaliga!J.f has was using the passages in question for played an important role in the history the purpose of grammatical instruction of Buddhism. In 1900, R.E. Iggleden unrelated to the source text's purported noted that the miitikii 's influence was content. I have not as yet been able to " strongly throughout the whole of identify the source text (if there is in• the Abhidhamma-Tipifaka. Not deed only one) of the Nama Nissaya from Chiang Mai;' however, its purpose is clearly to provide a Pali grammar les• 23 I have not been able to obtain a copy of son in Northern Thai. The text is badly A.K. Warder's (1961) PTS edition of the broken and difficult to read, but, as far Mohavicchedanf or a manuscript copy which may have also been a source text for 24Iggeden ( 1974: ix). this nissaya. 25Ibid.: xi-xii

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as I can tell, it is unrelated to the independent of the others by different Niimariipasamiisa or the Niimaciira• local scholars at different times in dipaka cited by Oskar von Hini.iber in different places. I have collected numer• his Handbook of .26 It is ous maks, but not all 16 and not interesting to note that nissayas used for different "recensions" of an individual the instruction ofPali grammar or trans• mak, except for one - mak 7. I am lation ofPali grammar texts are largely attempting to collect and translate as not found in Laos (Although a full many as possible, but from my experi• investigation of grammatical manu• ence, I am quite sure many ofthese maks scripts that may be nissaya-like, will be mislabeled, have numerous although not containing the word in their missing or severely damaged leaves or title, might reveal otherwise.). simply be lost. In addition, one manuscript can have several pecia. The choice ofwhat texts to translate and Regardless, I believe that any attempt comment on in the vernacular was, ac• to collect "all" of the maks, place them cording to the latest manuscript inven• in sequential order, and translate them tories, in no way standardized across the as one text would be misleading, as to region or even from one temple to the how they were composed and collected next. While narratives and ritual texts in their original context. It would tend to be the most prevalent, there are create a false sense of"completeness."28 occasionally nissayas on abbreviated I am confident that these maks were not Pali verses from the Abhidhamma and composed in order, by one author at one the . Moreover, two manuscripts place, or ever bound together as one with the same title copied around the large manuscript. There is simply no same period are often completely dif• evidence of this for this nissaya or for ferent. For example, Dhammapada nissayas in general. Instead, they are Nissaya manuscripts (the most prevalent translations of individual P~Hi narratives by far) reflect the fragmented nature of and word commentaries of the the process of composing nissayas. One Dhammapada-ayhakatha from Sri Dhammapada Nissaya (mak 7) manu• Lanka. The Lii'ang Pabang mak 7, for script from Chiang Mai does not seem example, is a Lao translation of the to have any direct connection to another 252nd verse and commentary of the Pali Dhammapada Nissaya (mak 7) manu• Dhammapada-a!fhakathii with numer• script from Lii'ang Pabang. Further• ous additions and running sub-commen- more, from an examination of different manuscript collections in the region 27The best, although somewhat misleading, there are sixteen sections of the English equivalent for this term would be Dhammapada Nissaya. Each section is "quire" or a several bi-folios sewn together. called a "mak. "27 Each mak is of differ• For a good description of manuscript codicology in Southeast Asia see Schuyler ent length, ranging from 12-34 leaves. (1908: 281-83); see also the National Library These mak do not correspond to the Pali of Thailand's guide to manuscript materials Dhammapada's 26 vaggas (chapters) or and production (Btieprfen nangse 423 verses. Moreover , there is not one bhasiiboriin. Bangkok: Hosamut haeng chat, monastic library that constains all 16. 2543 [1999]; and, their older Kiintham Each mak seems to have been composed Samutthai lae Kiintr!em Biiiliin. Bangkok: Hosamut haeng chat, 2530 [1 988]. 26 Von Hinuber (1996: 164-175). 28 I thank Charles Hallisey for enlightening conversations with me about this issue.

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See Hundius (1990: 35-36). tary or paraphrase. The Lampun mak 4 Nissaya, and the Dibbamon Nissaya, are is a northern Thai translation of another all incomplete translations ofPali source story from the Dhammapada• texts and parts of their commentaries a!{hakathii. These vernacular narratives and sub-commentaries( if available). and word commentaries seemed to have The Sutmon Nissaya is a commentary circulated independently and were on selected passages of the Thai considered complete texts in and of Sattaparitta (Cet Tamnan), which is it• themselves and never read as a "com• self a non-canonical collection of paritta plete" (i.e., all 16 maks) text. I have only texts. There is apparently no extant Pali found 16 maks in different places, this source text for the Madhuriisachampil. in no way means that 16 was the total Nissaya, the Nama Nissaya, the Saman number of maks of the Dhammapada Nissaya, the Lokabhfisii Nissaya, and the Nissaya in any of these regions. Finally, Kit Nissaya. there is only one mak that mentions the name of the author of the manuscript, The last point I will mention as regards but the colophon does not indicate to object texts is that the choice of what whether the monk was the copyist or the texts to translate and comment on in the original translator and does not mention vernacular was, according to the latest the date of the work. Determining manuscript inventories, in no way authorship is often a problem in South• standardized across the region or even east Asian manuscript studies.29 from one temple to the next. While narratives and ritual texts tend to be the Unlike modem English translations of most prevalent, there are occasionally Pali texts published by the Pali Text nissayas on abbreviated Pali verses from Society, Nissayas were rarely (if ever) the Abhidhamma and the Viniiya. translated as "complete" Pali texts. The Moreover, two manuscripts with the sections of Pali source texts that are same title copied around the same time translated are manipulated for pedagogi• period are often completely different. cal purposes. When the source text can be identified it is usually a summary of Rhetorical Style that source text that lifts out Pali words or phrases and then translates them While reading numerous nissaya manu• while leaving many words, phrases, sec• scripts slowly, I soon became aware of tions, etc. untranslated. Furthermore, certain repetitive syntactical structures, narratives are occasionally left incom• which actually taught me how to read plete, passages seemingly vital to the the text. There was gradual lexical plot are missing, and certain characters replacement at strategic intervals in are emphasized, while others go unmen• these structures that allowed me to tioned. At_thakathainiitikii Nissaya, the memorize Pali vocabulary and their AtthasiilinT Nissaya, the Kamaviica vernacular glosses without a concerted effort, very much like children's songs 29Many of the manuscripts I have collected which slowly add new words within or plan to examine this coming year are from familiar syntactical structures. Three Wat Sung Men in , Northern examples may suffice to illustrate my Thailand. There is better evidence for com• point. First, a Kammaviicii Nissaya from posers ofPlili manuscripts at this temple than at temples in Laos or even in Chiang Mai. Lil.'ang Pab.iing (KNLP-1f 6.3-f7v.l)

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reads: of using the indigenous alphabetical system. "Pucchi ko thcim nci ko yang nan this." This phrase is repeated again on vaccanena duai khcim wa gandii ko fi the next line and then the definition for dang nee II niik dura niik abadha rz ganda is repeated again in an abbrevi• phrayadhi thang lcii evarupa an mz ated form. Therefore, the reader reads sahiiwa pan dang nz II tile tha gu' wii the gloss ofganda twice as well as read• pen duma pen bao pen () santi mz ing the gloss of iibadha twice. What is siilile nai kayya nu'a ton te hiieng than interesting is that abadha had already wu' an seun nago rz nak sammanen II been glossed in the manuscript several papijiintP0 gaw papiniin khan rap times before. Although not adding any• iiclzariyam soeng phrci achcin thing to the gloss of ganda, the gloss of vaccanena duai khiim wii natthi abadha reminds the reader of the gloss bhante khii wai phrii achiin II abadha of iibadha (which this entire section of rz phrayadhi thang lai evarupa an mz the manuscript is about), while adding sabhava biin dang nz II gandii gil' wii a gloss ofa new Pali word, ganda, which pen tUm pen bao pen nap natthi gaw bim is a type of abadha. Moreover, when sarire nai kayya nu'a ton [sic} " 31 the glosses of both ganda and abadha are repeated alternate spellings ef salile, There is a gloss of the Pali word ganda. sahava,pan, and tuma are used siirire, First the novice asks what ganda means sabhiiva, biin and tum (we will return and receives the answer in bold "it is a to the issue of orthography and phonetic boil, it is something swollen, it is a nap spelling below). Finally, inserted within ( ); namely, these things are in the body these glosses are glosses ofcommon Pali (salile) in the body, (which is) the flesh words like te and evariipa and sarire, of you (te) of you that spreads over that had already been glossed several (you). Notice that in this gloss of the times before, and are simply reinforced Pali word ganda there are two additional here. We will return to this issue of Pali glosses of the words salile (sarire) reinforcement below. and te. Furthermore, between the ques• tion, what does gandii mean and the an• The second example comes from a swer, it is a boil, etc. there is another Dhammapada Nissaya (mak 7) from phrase which reads "abadha (disease/ Channiibuli (f.khai.3-f.kham.v.l). This mistake) means diseases in general; example reflects another type of repeti• namely, that have characteristics like tive glossing. On these three and one half leaves alone, although not limited 300skar von Hiniiber believes this is more to these leaves, the Pali words me1J4aka likely pa~ijanati~ and/or sef!hi are mentioned 47 times. 31 ! have typed all Pali words that are drawn Mel}rjaka is the name ofone of the char• from the nissaya texts in italics and bold acters in this narrative and se{{hi is a throughout to clearly s~parate them from the treasurer or a wealthy person. Almost vernacular words. If a vernacular word is a cognate of a Pali word and it is clear from every time Me!r1aka is mentioned, he the script and the syntax that the word was is called a se{{hi. While this in itself is read as if a vernacular word then it will not not surprising, what is interesting is how appear in bold face. When the edges of the many times melJrJaka is mentioned and ms. are broken (which is quite common) or the fact that his name is glossed in Lao the alphabetical ordering of the folios are nearly every time he is mentioned. For missing I have numbered the folios instead example, al~hough mel}rjaka had been

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introduced and re-introduced dozens of In the ninth and tenth folios of the times in the story on folio khao.4-5 we Sutmon Nissaya from Chiang Mai, the find: terms marigala (auspicious) and uttamam are translated five times in "tasmim cii. samaye nai kii. mii'a nan exactly the same way. The passage reads mel}rjakagahapatti ri mel}rjaka se!fhi "matigala pen maligala uttamaf!t an m"i bun sampan an prasoet kwa kon udom ying nak" ("matigala is auspi• thang lai hii kon an m"i bun milk hai ciousness, uttama'!l(means) ultimate"). katam yang sr"i sampatti pen se{{hi ( ) After reading or hearing this definition phii pen kon an iiai nai wiang thi nan five times within two leaves, one surely Zae paiica diiai thang lai hii kon an m"i would not forget it. matigala in P~ili is pUf,lf,la milk nak mel}rjakonii.ma ku ' ton spelled the same way in Pali and mel}rjaka se{{hi phii nu 'ng [sic}" Northern Thai, but is pronounced differently (mon-kon)32 and since these "and at that time at that time when manuscripts were most likely were mel}rjaka the who is known written by a scribe listening to a teacher as mel}rjaka the Wealthy One, the one rather than copied from a written text (a who has excellent and important point that will be discussed below), the in greater amounts than all five others difference would have been obvious. who also have ample amounts of merit, The Northern Thai word udom is (he) obtained the (position) of a wealthy phonetically and semantically cognate person; namely, a person who is impor• to utta11za'!l. I use the term "ultimate" tant within that city among the five people who have great amounts of merit. 32For more information on how script and His is known as mef.lrfaka, that is pronunciation relate in Northern Thai see Mel,lrjaka the Wealthy One." Hundius ( 1990: esp. 101, 127-139). Depending on how the ligature is written and the status of the fmal in Northern This is very repetitive and by reading or Thai or Lao, two words spelt in identical listening to line after line of glosses ways can be pronounced differently. These embedded in the narrative, the reader/ differences can often be emphasized when audience would surely not forget the reading a text out loud, but would be diffi• name Mertjaka or the fact that he was a cult to discern if read silently without the wealthy person/treasurer. The repetition aid of a teacher familiar with the phonetic of phrases and words at frequent inter• paramenters ofboth Pali/Sanskrit and North• vals allows the audience and scribe to ern Thai/Lao. While modern memorize certain important words like retains the spellings of words that are aham, nii.ma, satthii, buddha, se{{hi, derived from Pali!Sanskrit even though their vocalization does not fo llow their spelling, dhamma, etc., as well as remember the the Lao government have changed the Lao main characters of the text. Any other script three times in the past century. These reader (listener) or·scribe (I was both, changes have effectively dropped all letters since I read, translated into English, and from the which exist for the transliterated each manuscript into mod• purpose of transliterating Pali and Sanskrit. em Thai or modem Lao.) would be able So, whereas the Thai alphabet has three to remember numerous Pali words, different letters for the palatal, lingual and many specific to the story in question, dental , in order to be able to write and relate the main themes and charac• the three sibilants in Sanskrit. The Lao ters of the story without reference to the alphabet has dropped all but the dental text. 34

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to translate uttama'!'l versus other pos• seem strange to devote an entire nissaya sible definitions like "great," "north" or to translate the table of contents of one "important" because it takes into con• book of the Abhidhamma, there is a long sideration the words that follow it ying tradition of composing commentaries nak (literally "great and heavy"), be• and sub-commentaries and grammatical cause when they follow a noun they treatises on the miitika (see section I.C.). make it superlative. Therefore, the This nissaya continues that tradition, but repetitive definition teaches that instead ofexplaining the contents of the mangala is cognate with Northern Thai table, it uses the words in the miitikii as (mon-kon), that uttamaf[l and udom are a matrix for a Pali grammatical lesson cognate, even if spelt differently. The in the vernacular. For example, the first definition also employs alliteration. three folios (six lines per folio) are dedi• cated to explaining methods for read• One of the most excessive cases of • ing compounds involving the compound etition is found in the vipiikiidhammii found in the third verse AyhakathiimiitikaNissaya from Chiang of the miitika. The first verse is barely Mai. Here the nissaya translates the mentioned and there is no mention of miitika, or "table of contents", of the the second verse, but the third verse Dhammasa~Jganf (the first book of the found itself the subject of a lengthy and Abhidhamma).33 Now Why it would repetitive translation/commentary. A section of it reads:

"vipiika iti mak wii ni adhivacana pen where the Thai alphabet has two let• ki5 arupadhamma ( ) niimadhamma ters for the retroflexed and non-retroflexed thang !iii ... saddo reu sapdii34 vipiika "1" in Plili, Lao has dropped to just one, since dhammiidhammii iti dang ni attho there is no phonetic equivalent to a retrof• atthassaviicar:to bok yang lexed "1" in spoken Lao, etc. One of the most notable characteristics of epigraphy in atthavipii kadham m adhamm ii n ii ti Southeast Asia is the unusually large num• ber of scripts employed to write both classi• cal and vernacular languages. In the numer• 33 ous Buddhist kingdoms that occupied what Again I thank Oskar von Hinuber for point• is now Thailand and Laos between the 13'h ing out that Frauwallner is a better edition and lS'h centuries there often seems to be no of this text than Rhys Davids and that "table rigid one-to-one correspondence between of contents" really obscures the meaning of certain scripts and certain languages. More• the term; however, I was unable to obtain a over, multiple scripts remained actively em• copy of this edition before submission. The ployed in every region up until the 17'h and mlitikli is a list of terms useful for memoriz• 18th centuries, even though certain languages ing a text. fell out of usage. Strangely, there has been no serious attention paid to the question of 34 why so many scripts were used and why a Sabda is the Sanskrit equivalent for the Plili scribe would choose one script over another. termsadda. However, speakers ofNorthen I addressed this problem as it relates to Thai, Lao and Central Thai use the Sanskrit scripts used on inscriptions at the 1999 Na• form for this word instead ofsadda (sapda) . tional Conference of the American Oriental In other passages of this manuscript the more Society in Portland, Oregon. common and indigenous Thai term gam is used.

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padassa haeng bot wa (it ought to be known by the wise one) vipiikadhammadhammiini paJJditanaf!Z [that is] the [meaning] of [this] word, an II veditabbo () nayava dadacchedo dhamma(state) or all the dhammas reu tang bot (states), namely, vipiika• vipiikadhammadhammiinati dang ni dhammiivipaccanasabhiiva (those vipiikadhammadhammiiti II padassa things that have the essence ofr esultant haeng pa~tditena an veditabbo II quality and those states that have result• dhammii reu dhamma dang lai ant quality) II attho (the meaning) or vipiikadhammiivipaccanasabhiivii lae I yathii (that which is so) I I pe31 I I I attho reu yathii llpll dhammii iti tang dhammii iti [means] like this, the word ni vipiikadhammiiti padassa haeng pot padassa (of the word) of the word wa vipiikadhammii paJJditena an vipiikadhamma, (those states that are veditabbo. .. vipiikadhammadhammii nz results) paJJditena veditabbo (ought to pen kammadhiireya ching () vakya mii be known by the wise) ... vipiika• dai pot samiisa wa dhammadhamma, (those states that vipiikii dhammiidhammii nT II have resultant quality) this [compound] vipacanaf!Z vipiiko vipacanam ..[sic]" 35 is a kammadhiireya [a compound in which the first member modifies the "vipiika (result) tends to have this second as an attributive adjective or as adhivacana (designation), it is [related a modifying noun or as an adverb], that to] arupadhamma () niimadhamma is ( ) vakya (a word) [in sanskrit] that (the class of abstract concepts) .. .saddo can come, a word (that refers to a type) (word) or word [in sanskrit] of compound, namely this vipiikadhammiidhammii (states that vipiikadhammiidhamma II vipacanani have resultant quality)36 this means attho (a result), vipiiko (a result), vipacanam (the meaning), atthassaviicaJJo(the ver• (a result) ... " bal expression of the meaning), that which is said, atthavipiikadhamma• Clearly, anyone who would listen to or dhammiiniiti (the states that have re• read this passage would not forget the sultant quality with reference to the term vipiikadhammii or one of the meaning), padassa (of the word), that IS of the word vipiikadhammadhammiinati (the states 36 The English translation of this word was that have resultant quality), paJJditena drawn from Rhys Davids (1974: 2). veditabbo (it ought to be known by the 37 Not only is the compound, either in larger wise one), the chapter/section or all the compounds or alone, repeated several times, words vipiika-dhammadhammiinati the translator/commentator uses the termpe like this vipiika-dhammadhammiiti II which signals to the reader (usually not chanted outloud) that s/he should repeat the section that had been repeated several times before here. Since, the section I am trans• 35There are numerous omissions of the long lating comes from the beginning ofth e manu• "a" in this section and the extra "n" on the script, it is unclear what section we are sup• end of vipakadhammiinati seems to be su• posed to repeat here. The termpe is found perfluous. The failure to write the throughout the manuscript (f..5 for ex• retroflexed "<;!" after the retroflexed "I)." in ample) (which is quite rare in other nissayas) the word pa~Jditena is also common in and it is similarily unclear which section Northern Thai manuscripts. should be repeated in those instances as well.

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compounds that incorporates this word. ing, but to learn how to read Pali com• They would know how to read the pounds. We will see further examples compound since the translator/commen• of this type of grammatical commenta• tator explicitly defines it as a rial service in the next section. kammadharaya (later on folio gha.3. the reader is told to read the compound Repetition is a well-known feature of vipakadhamma as a bahubbihi type of Pali texts, especially texts like compound). The importance ofthe word the maligala sutta (which is one of the is emphasized not only by its repetition, texts partially translated in the Sutmon but also by the clause pa1J.ditena Nissya). However, nissayas employ veditabbo ("It ought to be known by the repetition in different ways. First, repeti• wise".) which is repeated several times tive phrases in nissayas do not mimic throughout this section. Furthermore, the Pali passages of the source texts when the commentator/translator moves being translated (if the source text is on to comment/translate other sections known or even exists). Second, repeti• of the miitikii slhe continually returns to tion is not for the purposes of ritual the compound vipiikadhamma or praise, does not involve metre, and compunds like vipakasapda (f.gha.S) rarely is associated with litanies ofq uali• vipiikajana (f.gha.3) or ties or directives. Finally, because they lokiyavipakaka{hattarupa (f. gho. v. 3- are vernacular translations that often, but 4)[sic]. This method is repeated with certainly not always, lift Pali words and other words drawn from the matika of phrases from the source texts, they do the Dhammasaiigm;zz, like kusala and not simply provide vernacular glosses upiidif}f}a. The section ends with the for the Pali words, but actually write the translator/commentator giving a syn• Pali words followed by their vernacular onym for vipaka and then repeating the glosses and then often repeat this gloss synonym lest the reader/listerner forgets. within the context ofthe narrative, ritual, What is strange about this section and or ethical instruction. This repetition of several other s like it in the both Pali and vernacular words is seen A[!hakathamiitikli Nissaya is that the se• clearly by focusing on what I call "re• mantic meaning of the term under dis• inforcement." Certain Pali words are cussion is not translated into the ver• consistently glossed in nissayas, even nacular. Instead, the term is repeated, though their gloss must have been com• divided, combined with other words, monly known. For example, in the and given alternate grammatical end• Pafifiiisajiitaka Nissaya, the first person ings, but never actually translated. The nominative pronoun ahaf!l is glossed vernacular is only used in this section dozens, if not hundreds, of times with to divide Pali words and indicate how the Northern Thai word (I). One to read their suffi?'es. For example, would assume that once the word has haeng means "of'' and indicates that the been glossed once it would be remem• Pali word that preceeds it should be read bered by the reader/audience or would in the genitive. I included the Pali terms only have to be re-translated occasion• in the English translation of this pas• ally; however, even in the last fascicle sages to demonstrate to the non-Pali (lOth) of the nissaya we read the phrase reader how a non-Pali reader in pre• ahaf!l reu kha (I means I) numerous modern Northern Thailand may have times. In the Madhurasachambii read it, i.e., not for the semantic mean- Nissaya, the Pali second person nomi-

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native (and often accusative) plural pro• many of the services most commonly noun tumlze (you all) is one of the many associated with commentaries. There• relatively simple words glossed dozens fore, this section will look at the of times, with identical vernacular trans• commentarial services of nissay as. lations over fifteen fascicles. In the Conversations with Charles Hallisey, Saccasa1ikhepa Nissaya, the word Louis Gabaude, Donald Swearer, llavaka (ninefold) is repeated seven Prapod Assavavirulkaharn and Peter times in less than two lines of one folio Skilling, and Lily de Silva's introduc• (f.gu.l-2). Other common words, like tion to her edition of the Dfgha nikaya• puggala (person), aha (slhe said), evaf!Z a!(hakatha-!fkiilfnattha ~u;.ana, Paul (thus), sutvii (having heard), are given Griffiths' Religious Reading and John the same verncaular gloss ad nauseum Henderson's Scripture, Canon and Com• in many nissaya texts. mentary have helped me isolate these commentarial services. While there are clear pedagogical reasons for these rhetorical features, The first service of the nissaya is the what is important now is to note that glossing of individual words. As we saw these narrative, ethical, grammatical, above, this glossing is repetitive and and ritual translations cannot be read as runs throughout the translation. For connected texts. The vernacular text is example, the Madhurasachambii constantly interupted by glosses ofPali Nissaya from Wat Sung Men of Phrae words and phrases, and the excessive province provides glosses of the most repetition serves to teach vocabulary and basic Pali words, like ahaf!l and to display methods of rendering Pali dhamma, as well as less commonly words within the bounds of vernacular known words like parasuddha phonetic parameters and syntactic [parisudha](pure). The glosses range patterns, rather than provide a simple from simple synonyms in the vernacu• and accurate vernacular translation of a lar to long explanations incorporating source text. other Pali words (which may or may not be glossed). Th e Dibbamon Commentarial Services (Dibbamanta) Nissaya from Wat Mai SuvaQIJabhiimaram in Lii'ang Pahang, From the brief overview of the rhetori• Laos operates more like a bi-lingual dic• cal features of nissaya texts we could tionary than a textual translation. This argue that nissayas should be placed is the function usually associated with under the rubric of a vernacular wohara or sab texts, but some nissayas commentary, instead of a translation. provide this service, and indeed some Before providing an "accurate" transla• nissayas are titled nisrai wohan or nisai tion of nissaya, some examples of the sab in their colophons.38 For example, commentarial services the texts provide one passage reads: is required. " man gong ko eli kammOf!Z an ko Nissayas are translations of canonical geu wa kiim ko eli dha11znzaf!l an ko and non-canonical Pali texts and, in geuwa dhamma ko eli saccaf!l an ko geu some cases, vernacular narratives with wii ko eli nibbiillaf!l an geu wa no extant or known Pali source text. However, these translations encompass 38 A study of these types of texts remains a desideratum 38

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nirabbiin ... " A~ fasahas rikapraj fiparamitasiitra (A~fa), examined by Lewis Lancaster in "siddhi (means) powerful, kammaf!l is his 1968 dissertation.40 Lancaster notes action, dhamma'!l is dhamma (law, that Chinese translators often inserted truth, saccaf!l is sacca (truth), nibbiina'!l their own interpretations and additions is nibbiina... "(f.l.v.l-2) into the A~fa when translating lists or litanies. This litany expansion is seen This passage is a clear example of the in the nissaya of the Dhammapada• many ways Pali words can be rendered a!fhakatha #252. There is a list that men• in Lao. First, siddhi is given the Lao tions beautiful garments, jewels, etc. re• gloss of man gong (strong/powerful). moved magically from a ram's mouth. Second, kammatrzis glossed with its Lao In the nissaya translation, these items derivitive kiim. Third, the glosses for are specified and expanded to include dhammaf!l and saccaf!l suggest that local terms for specific fabrics and the there is no Lao lexical equivalent (al• mention of silver as well as gold. Still, though there are several for sacca'!l and the list of foods taken from the ram's dhammar.n is usually written dam in mouth is shortened, and ghee and Lao) and simply removes the ending sesame are not mentioned. This may (accusative singular masculine) of the account for the general lack of sesame Pali word (dhammaf!l is dhamma (and) and ghee in a Lao diet (although there sacca't! is sacca). However, the last are Lao words for these foods), and word (nibbiina'!l) is translated with an therefore a lack of understanding of their apparent hybrid Sanskrit and Pali value by the author or audience. The lexeme (nirabbiin). 39 same explanation can be given for the addition of specific fabrics, since Several pecia (maks) of the DhPNusu• and production and the artistic ally only provide brief glosses for indi• skill associated with it have been vidual Pali words in the Dhammapada• extremely important to the Lao economy a[!hakatha, consisting mostly of syn• and symbols of its local identity for onyms in Lao or Northern Thai; how• centuries. ever, there are occasionally different glosses for the same word and/or The second commentarial service providing a definition for the Pali word is grammatical explanation.41 A in question that makes sense only in the Kammaviicii Nissaya manuscript from context of the particular story. For Wat Pichai, , North• example, in the Dhammapada Nissaya ern Thailand reads: "sammiipetvii ko (mak 7), there is a gloss for the word hai pati ao diiai di lae hai m! chai- an disvii, that reads: ko hen yang khao dip kao ngiim soem chum ("this means 39 These hybrid Sanskrit and Plili lexemes are (s/he) sees/saw new (and) excessively very common in Thai, Northern Thai and beautiful rice"). Lao and Nissayas often gives both the Pali and the Sanskrit spelling or a hybrid of the two when they gloss words from Pali. These extended glosses which move 40 Lancaster (1968). many nissaya texts out of the realm of 41 Oskar von Hini.iber has written extensively translation and into the realm of on the subject of the Pali grammar of commentary are similar to the early Northern Thai manuscripts. See especially Chinese translations of the (1983):75-88; (1987): 111 - 119; (1988a); and, (1988b): 173-74. 39

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loem sza ying di [sic]"("sammapetvii "corato wa chon thang lai ko dT means that he caused the pati (lord) to manusato wa tae chon ki5 di amanusato hand (it) over (it immediately) and he wa tae pai haeng pz iti (??) aggito wa caused (him) to have a complete and tae fai iti uddakato wa tae nam iti successful victory")(f.kai.v.2). The word pisacato wa tae pz wisat iti khanukato hai indicates the causative in Nmihern lak tam iti kaiJ.tjakato ... "[sic] Thai. In the Dhammapada Nissaya (mak 7) (f.kae.v.S), there is a passage "corato means all those who are thieves, that reads: alamkaritva ki5 bradap yang manusato means from people, diiai khrii'ang bradap thang mii'an laeo amanusato means from the danger(??) c~alamkaritvli means (she) adorned of ghosts, aggito means from fire, (herself) with all types of ornaments"). uddakato means from water, pisacato The word laeo is a word that, if placed means from demons, khanukato means at the end of a phrase, indicates that the from an underground (??) root, verb (s) in the phrase must be read in kaiJ.tjakato means ... " the past tense. Most grammatical explanations are of the locative, Although this section of the Sutmon ablative or nominative plural, using the Nissaya claims to be a translation of the words nai (in), chak (from) or xak (Lao) Mangalasutta, these words are not and thang lai (all/many) respectively. found in the MaJ;~galasutta. Moreover, Furthermore, the imperative is consis• the "-ato" (from -atas) ending usually tently indicated with the word chu'ng or signifies the ablative.42 However, read• chong (Lao). However, there are doz• ing the Pali words in the ablative leads ens of examples of Pali words, not in us to wonder why corato (the first word the nominative singular present, that are of the list) is translated as a nominative never grammatically indicated in the plural. However, the scribe could have vernacular. This could indicate a poor accidentally omitted the tae following knowledge ofPali grammar, but in most corato, which would solve the inconsis• cases the grammatical form of the Pali tency. I am genuinely perplexed by this word seems to be understood by the passage's meaning, especially since it is translator and simply not indicated supposed to be part of a translation of because it can be understood in context. the Ma~Jgalasutta, and these words with This follows Lao and Northern Thai these endings are not found in any addi• grammar, which only indicate tenses and tion of the sutta of which I am familiar. modals ifnot apparent from the context. Still, what is important for the purposes Words like (will/shall) and laeo of this paper is that the author seems to (already/in the past) are often consid• be presenting us with a lesson on a par• ered superfluous. ticular grammatical form and seems to be more concerned with that grammar Although most grammatical explanations are relatively simple, there 42 K.R. Norman was one of the first to note are often efforts to provide more exten• the particularities of Northern Thai Pali; sive explanations. One passage from the namely: "unhistorical of conso• Sutmon Nissaya is particularly lengthy. nants and the converse, unusual retroflex• ion ofdentals, and unusual spellings." They I have translated a section of it as are genuine characteristics of Pali as it was follows: spoken in Northern Thailand in the sixteenth century" Norman (1983: 144).

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lesson than in providing an accurate tion, re-orders the words so as to make translation of a source text. Certainly, the translation easier to understand to a reading passages like this would ingrain local audience (see: f.l.l-3). Through• the association of the "-ato" suffix with out nissayas, this manipulation of Pali the ablative marker in Northern Thai tae. word order is commonplace. However, If we look at the manuscript pedagogi• in order to identify where a nissaya is cally, we may seriously suggest that this changing the word order of the source passage was designed to be an audience• text, that source text needs to be identi• centered grammar lesson, drawing fied, which is (as we will see below) material from a source text. In this way, often difficult if not impossible. More• the' source text becomes the servant of over, when the source text can be iden• the translation and reverses the general tified, the translation is often simply a notion ofthe superiority and inviolabil• translation of some selected passages or ity of the "original" or source text. As words, or a summary of the source text we saw in section I.B., the that is not extant in Pali or perhaps was A!!hakathamatika Nissaya, the source written by the translator himself. The text is employed to teach the reader/ au• A,t!hasalin"i Nissaya is a good example dience how to read compounds and the of the former and the Nama Nissaya, the translator only gives the semantic mean• Madhurasachampii Nissaya, and ing of the Pali terms in the vernacular Lokabhasa Nissaya are good examples when it serves this grammatical end. of the latter.

The third commentarial service is the The fourth commentarial service is as a clarification of word order. The begin• thesaurus of Lao or Northern Thai vo• ning of the Dhammapada Nissaya (mak cabulary. Often times throughout 7) re-orders the words of the initial sen• ni ssayas a Pali word is given several tence of a verse in the Dhammapada• definitions or at least a list of synonyms. affhakatha. The sentence reads: The A!fhasalin"i Nissaya (mak 8) from "sudassan ti imam dhamma desanam Chiang Mai, for example, gives numer• Satthii. Bhaddiyam nissiiya Jiitiyiival}e ous different definitions for the word viharanto Mel}f/aka setthim iirabbha dhamma. In the Dhammapada Nissaya kathesi" (" 'Sudassan 'the teacher gave (mak 7) we find a translation ofthe word this dhamma-sermon while living in the bhariyii (wife)(f.l v.l). This is followed Jatiya forest near the town ofBhaddiya in Lao with nang an p en mahes"i su' wa about meQc:Iaka the Wealthy Man"). The nang chandapadumti iti ("an older, nissaya translates these words in an en• upper-class female, that is a mahes"'i, tirely different order (Just as I just did whose name is Madame in rendering the passage into English!). Candapaduma") Here, the Lao provides As in Lao syntax, the time and the place a simple synonym for bhariyii with are usually the first things mentioned nang, which does not specifically mean when relating an event in the past. a married woman or wife, but often is a Therefore, the nissaya begins by trans• title only given to married women. lating viharanto (living/residing) and There are several words for wife in Lao, the last part it translates are the words mia, pariya (from bhariyii) andfoen to kathesi and dhammadesana. This in name a few, but this author decided to no way takes away from the meaning of refer to this wife by her title and a very the Pali sentence, but like any transla- important title at that. Nang is followed

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by mahesi. Mahesi comes from the I am unsure, the passage that follows the Sanslcrit word for female buffalo and is list of "woman, daughter, " seems often translated as queen. It is uncom• to be the translator's note of how the mon in Lao, but would be spelled and words can be spelled differently (i.e., pronounced the same way in Lao. This replace "tth" of itthi with "dh"). Still, would seem a strange choice as a defi• the fact that "tth" is in itthi and "dh" is nition for bhariya (kalatta is also in vadhu and "i" is in bhikkhuni might common in Southeast Asian texts) but suggest that these were abbreviations for could indicate an effort on the part of these words. There are dozens of other the writer to teach more vocabulary to examples of these synonyms that the ·audience or the scribe or student demonstrate how a nissaya could have monk who may have been taking dicta• worked as a thesaurus or a dictionary tion. Furthermore, mahes""i, being a for students learning how to listen Sanslcrit word might have also added a to,read, and/or write in Pali and the sense of importance (as Madame does vernacular. in English). Mahesi is not mentioned in the Dhammapada-Ayhakathii, from As we saw in the Atthakathiimiitikii 00 which this nissaya has been translated Nissaya, the word vipiika was given the (i.e., the manuscript that the PTS used synonym vipaccanaf!l. Later in thi s to assemble this critical edition of the manuscript, (f.Ji.l) in another long and DhPA). Finally, the Lao specifies the repetitive passage explaining how to name of this woman as she relates read different types of compounds, we directly to this story; namely, niing fmd the term sahiiviciira [sic] translated chandapadummii. with the synonymsavitakka. The trans• lators and/or commentators ofPali texts In the Nissaya Niima from Wat Phra added new Pali words to the source texts Dhat Chomgiri in Chiang Mai we find on which they were commenting. other lists of vocabulary that blurr the line between a theasurus and a dictio• There is another commentarial service nary. One example reads: "itthi reu pii that I have only found in the manuscript ying II vadhu reu liik saphai II bhikkuni of the Madhurasajambii Nissaya.43 re u bhTkkhuni tang itthivadhu There, several Pali sentences are given, bltikkhuni long sichii (??) hiieng pubba followed by Northern Thai translations. iio tth iio dh iio long wai iio i wai ... " What is interesting is that the Pali ("itthi (means) woman, vadhu (means) sentence given seems to be abbreviated daughter, bhikkhuni (means) nun, all of with the endings of individual words these, the itthi, the vadhu (and) the dropped off and a system of , bhikkhuni come(??) previously (one) developed solely for this text. Although took 'tth' (and) took dh (and) placed them I do not have, and actually doubt there (??) (and) took 'i' (and) placed exists, an "original" Pali text for this it. .. ").(f.1.3) This example (which is nissaya, 44 what source the author of the unclear and haphazardly written) not only demonstrates that some nissayas 43 In the A.tfhakathiimiitika Nissaya, we find provide lists of semantically related a similar type ofcomrnentarial service which lexical items, but also that they offer instructs the reader/listener how to under• instructions in how to write or, more stand sandhi rules in Pali. Folio gha, line likely, pronounce the words. Although four explicitly mentions the reason the long "a" is found in a compound.

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nissaya was drawing on was either from translation can be given that reads: a very poorly written PiHi text, was "khemaf!Z maggaf!l' means the way that written by the author of the nissaya him/ is excellent. 'Siddhaf!Z' means com• herself to demonstrate his talent in pleted. 'yaf!l' means 'tends to.' 'That clarifying garbled Pali, or was a peda• dhamma' is known as any dhamma gogical technique designed to demon• whatsoever. 'Kiippaya rukkha ruci strate several ways ofwriting Pali words dadiima' means a forest that is brilliant or how to manipulate Pali sandhi rules. that gave ( ), he concentrates his own For example, one Pali sentence reads: (mind)(??) on that light. 'I' means I. 'I "khemimaggayaf!l kampiya honor" means "to bow to the dhamma, rukkha rucei diimana that 'dhamma which is known as the manipabhiibhidhammiigga samaf!Z highest', that which is excellent, 'that ma!lamiinicca" (MRChNP-1-f.. v.l). which is incomparable' [meaning] [one] This verse makes little, if any, sense as is unable to find another dhamma which it is, although individual words like is better. 'Permanent' [means] all the time rukkha, magga, abhidhamma, etc. can and peaceful. ( ) 'for that one which is be isolated. But without grammatical well-joined, excellent, (and) pure."' endings, it would render this passage a Clearly, this passage was not meant to litany devoid of syntax. Still, the au• be read as a connected or coherent nar• thor of the nissaya divided the words and rative, but rather provides translations provided endings. Her/his translation of rather disjointed Pali phrases. What reads: is important here though is not the se• mantic resonance of the Pali or the "khemaf!Z maggaf!l yang hon thiing an Northern Thai translation, but instead brasi5et siddhaf!l an siimret II yaf!l mak the way the author of the nissaya pro• wii yodhammo ree dhamma an dai vides declension markers for Pali words kiippaya rukkha ruci dadiima ld bhii without markers, most often placing /{i45an rung ri5en an hai liieo yang () them in the accusative singular mascu• dang chai mak pen dang ton kiirabbi dip line. Furthermore, he "corrects" or pro• nan ahaf!l r"i khaa namiimi kaw wai vides alternate spellings for certain Pali dhammaf!Z yang dhammii aggaf!l an words, like writing khemaf!Z for asamaf!Z an hii dhamma an ii'n cha sem khemif!Z, pavara for pabhiibhidhamma, bi5 dai niccaf!l thang mu'a liie sallti ni and ruci for rucei. The clarification of () yam samgatatall( )f!l pavaraf!l sandhi is also interesting, because visuddhaf!l ... "(Phfik l.f.ka.v.3-f.ka.v.5) pabhiibhidhamma is divided into two unrelated wordspavara and visuddhif!Z. This passage is unclear due to damage Manamiinicca is simply rendered as to the manuscript, but a provisional niccam. This second example shows how important sandhi is in understand• 44 The folktale is described by Dr. Balee ing this passage, because the author of Buddharaksa and the Encyclopedia ofNorth• the nissaya seems to translate the Pali ern Thai Culture (Saranukrom watanadham to say that dhamma is permanent, which thai phiik neua) native to Northern Thailand defies one of the most important teach• and existing only in the vernacular, it is re- ings of canonical Theravada Buddhism lated to the Lao story of Lorn Daeng -- the dhamma is impermanent. This Khieo, which has no extant nissaya. Pali passage and its translation would 45 Ki is a common (mis)spelling for ko is this make any good Sri Lankan or British manuscript.

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Pali scholar shudder because both the rhetorical style of many Nissaya manu• Pali sentence and its translation butcher scripts, we can tell immediately that they canonical Pali grammar and spelling. incorporate many of the features of what We could simply relegate this manu• Buddhist Studies scholars include un• script to the dust-bin as an example of der the rubric of "commentary." For the the poor Pali training in medieval last twenty years there has been a grow• Northern Thailand or designate it as the ing interest in the study ofcommentarial product of an exhausted and amateur• practices in Religious Studies. In 1978, ish scribe. This I believe would over• Jonathan Z. Smith noted that all reli• look some of the most significant facts gious writing was in someway about the languages of Northern Thai commentarial, but there had been no and Pali in Northern Thailand and the serious study of what features were com• creative and pedagogical aspects of mon to commentaries across religious translations in the region in the pre-mod• traditions, how commentary defined a ern period. Moreover, since we have canon and what assumptions the writ• dozens of examples of "good," norma• ers of commentary make about the tive Pali in this very nissaya and in other "original" text.46 Paul Griffiths, Jeffrey nissayas and in other manuscripts from Timm, Laurie Patton, Steve Collins, the same temple written around the same Charlie Hallisey, Karen Derris, Anne period, we cannot simply say that the Balckburne, John Henderson and oth• training of this particular author was ers have taken J.Z. Smith's call for a poor or that the author was completely more in-depth study of commentaries unaware of his unorthodox translation. seriously, but the study of commentary In the process of dividing words, the au• in religious studies, and especially in thor does not simply add endings and Theravada Buddhist Studies, is still an split up the Pali words and provide ver• underdeveloped field of inquiry. Paul nacular translations. He adds Pali words Griffiths sees commentary as the quint• that are not found in the P~Ui sentence essential way to read "religiously." he is translating. Moreover, he not only Commentary is an active process, or adds Pali words and ignores others, he what John Dagenais calls "lecturature." provides vernacular glosses for those Commentary is done for the purpose of Pali additions. Therefore, as he trans• "altering the course of the reader's cog• lates, he is composing a new Pali text. nitive, affective, and active lives by the This is more than a translation. It is a ingestion, digestion, rumination, andre• commentary on his own translation and statement of what has been read. "47 not one of any "original" Pali source Reading "specialists" in many traditions, text. These "notes" ofthe translator pro• especially Buddhist India, guided read• vide access into the largely unknown ers through their own particular inter• world of pedagogical methods, manu• pretation of a "canonical" through com• script production and hermeneutics in mentary. Commentary is thus a "belief• medieval Southeast Asia. forming practice. "48 Therefore, in order to understand the particular epistemol• From Commentary to Canon to ogy of an individual religious commur- Curricula 46 Smith (1978: 299-300); and, (1982: 45). 47 Griffiths (1999: 54). From our brief examination of the 48 Ibid.: 74. source texts, commentarial services and

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nity, we must look at their commentarial facts, combined with the fact that methods to understand how a text was nissayas are most often written on non• understood at different times by differ• canonical and even non-Pali texts, ent communities. Griffiths also provides shows that if nissayas are to be consid• his own definition for what constitutes ered commentaries, then they do not re• a commentary, that being: 1) apparent inforce the closure and boundaries of the and direct relation to some other work Pali canon, but actually work to expand through direct quotation, paraphrase, or the canon. Furthermore, nissayas ex• what Michael Fishbane calls "multiple pand the purposes of a commentary as: and sustained lexical linkages;" and, 2) explaining a text, justifying its impor• these linkages should "quantatively" tance in the tradition, and absorbing and dominate the text, such that, if they were replacing the original text. removed, the work becomes incompre• hensible. From the brief examples I Three other recent works on commen• have given above, it should be clear that tary are also important to the study of nissayas are a form of commentary ac• nissayas. Laurie Patton wrote an inten• cording to Griffiths definition.49 How• sive study of the Brhaddevata and its ever, Griffiths is generally writing about multiple comrnentarial services. By commentaries written in the same lan• looking at the nirukta, anukramani and guage as the object text (i.e., Hebrew miimaf!LSa traditions of ancient India, commentary on the Hebrew Bible, or she shows how the Brhaddevata was a Sanskrit Commentary on Sanskrit Bud• creative act that emphasized certain dhist texts). However, a commentary in parts and aspects of the ~g Veda over one language on a source text of a dif• others.50 It also reinforced the sacred and ferent language does not necessary canonical status of the ~g Veda. Patton, change the style or purpose of the com• following Bruce Lincoln, J.Z. Smith and mentary. Furthermore, some of the Brian K. Smith, shows how the nissayas we have seem to be written on Brhaddevata formulated taxonomies of Pali texts that never actually existed important words and ideas, and thus can prior to the nissaya. They often have be seen as developing the categories of multiple and sustained linkages to a ordering information, and helps us un• source text, but that source text is either derstand the epistemology of a particu• unidentifiable or almost completely di• lar community. 51 By emphasizing cer• vergent from any extant version of the tain parts of the ~g Veda and setting source text. Or the nissaya follows a them out in lists, the Brhadddevata was known source text at able to keep the ~g Veda relevant and points and then makes long detours viable in a different historical period. away from the source or makes a con• Drawing on work done by Gananath glomerate vernacular commentary on an Obeyesekere and Lee Yearly, she shows idiosyncratic, ad hoc anthology of ex• how the composers of the Brhaddevata cerpts from various source texts. These used and manipulated the ~g Veda to serve the social and intellectual needs 49 Griffiths takes many of his ideas about of their time. Numerous points in what constitutes a commentary and differ• Patton's work are helpful for the study ent commentarial strategies from John Henderson's comparative study of Confu• 50 Patton (1996: chp. 2). cian, Midrashic, Sufi, Greek and Sanslait 51 Ibid.: 27-28. commentaries. See especially chapter five of Henderson (1991). 45 Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 08:13:01PM via free access MANUSYA : Journal ofHumanities (Special Issue No.4 2002)

of nissaya as a type of commentary, es• aspects ofBuddhism were deemed more pecially her thesis regarding the manipu• important and most necessary to teach, lation of a canonical text for different especially in the vernacular. If commen• historical circumstances. Looking at taries define what is considered "canon" nissayas allows us to expand this thesis by a particular community, then nissayas in two ways. First, the evidence of re• define a set of texts that were consid• petitive glossing, the introduction of ered "canonical" for the sake of Bud• new vocabulary as additions to stock dhist education. phrases of the nissaya texts shows that the composers of the nissayas wanted Nissayas are evidence of what we can to use the commentary as ways to teach call a type of curricular canon operat• language and help scribes or the audi• ing in pre-modem Northern Thailand ence remember stories. This defined and Laos. This canon did not exist in what was important to know as a Bud• the minds of the writers and audience, dhist in that community. Second, and but these texts were the ones taught and more importantly here, by seeing the copied in the vernacular. They can be nissayas as primarily educational, we called vernacular commentaries on an can see how the very choice of what ad hoc canon composed ofPali canoni• texts to translate and comment on was a cal material, Pali commentaries, ver• way of serving the intellectual and so• nacular folktales, apocryphal Jatakas, cial needs of medieval Laos and North• locally- assembled anthologies or col• em Thailand. For example, why would lections of prayers. This certainly the composers of the Dhammapada stretches and qualifies our understand• Nissaya choose the stories to translate ing ofcommentarie s. Since certain types and comment upon? Why do most sto• oftexts were used for different purposes ries chosen by the Dhammapada (i.e., parittas for life-cycle rituals and Nissaya writers involve stories of warding off bad spirits; jatakas for wealthy people finding magic stones or calendrical rituals such as New Year bowls, miraculously becoming rich or festivals, weekly sermons, calling for controlling famines and wild animals? rain, visakha puja, etc.; kammaviiciis for Why do other nissayas, like the ordination ceremonies, the establishing Kammaviidi Nissayas, emphasize the of a new monastery, etc.) we can say that status of certain Southeast Asian tribes there were multiple overlapping canons or social groups over others, or teach of texts. Nissayas !believed formed one how ordination cures epilepsy? Why of these "practical canons." Since was the apocryphal Paiiiiiisa Jiitaka col• nissayas clearly incorporate pedagogi• lection a subject of a nissaya and not cal methods and may have been em• canonical Jiitakas, and why did they ployed to teach both vernacular and clas• only organize the stories the way they sical vocabulary, syntax, phonetics, etc., did? Why does the Madhuriisachambu I would venture to call them a type of Nissaya have long lists of animals in• curricular canon. Still, I do not want to serted in the middle of the story? The suggest that nissayas were the only texts choice of what texts and what words used in the day-to-day education at a from a particular text to comment on and monastery. There are other types ofPali translate in nissaya form can tell us a and vernacular texts similar to the great deal about the needs of the com• nissayas, like sabs and wohiins, that munities that composed them and what need to be looked at to determine ifthe y

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incorporate similar pedagogical meth• explain Pali texts to an audience. The ods. Furthermore, many of the manu• choice of the object text depended on scripts in regional archives and monas• its popularity for use in sermons and tic libraries have P~ili canonical titles, ceremonial chanting, while the purpose but on further investigation many are for writing it was to instruct its readers/ actually vernacular summaries or ver• audience on the meanings ofPali words nacular commentaries. I merely want to and phrases. I doubt any nissaya was suggest that nissayas could have served read outloud verbatim as a sermon or as as notes and guides for sermons and a narrative, but instead was a reader's! grammar lessons (either to fellow monks teacher's guide to consult when explain• ot to a lay audience). The examples ing the meaning of words and phrases given in the section on rhetorical style in a popular narrative. Since collections and object texts support this understand• of manuscript. have vernacular transla• ing. Nissaya traditionally means "sup• tions of texts, like the Dhammapada, port." It is, of course, an old term mean• Kammaviicii, Sattaparitta, etc., as well ing, on the one hand, the relationship as Pali and vernacular commentaries, between a young monk or novice and there is no reason to have a separate his teacher (iichiirya or upiidhiiya), or genre of manuscript called nissayas 3 on the other hand, the period of train• unless they served a separate purpose.5 ing, support or dependence of a newly I contend that while translating a Pali ordained monk, usually lasting between text a student read alongside the object five and ten years (Mahiivagga !.32, 1; text as a running commentary and trans• !.54,4; 1.1,36; V. 1,5; V.4,2). Nissayas lation. But since the nissayas often di• were just that-- supports or guides writ• verge widely from any source text that ten by a teacher for one or a small group scholars have come across, they may of students to guide their translation and have been merely inspired or influenced study ofPali texts, and thus enable them by the structure, ideas and lexicon of a to not only learn how to read and write particular source text. The reason for Pali and the vernacular, but also enable having a middle-stage oftrans lation be• them to explain Pali concepts for the tween a Pali object text and a straight purpose of a sermon to fellow monastics vernacular translation was to be able to 2 or to a lay audience. 5 Nissayas are not explain the Pali text to yourself and to condusive to reading as a connected an audience -- a student's guide and a narrative, because they are interspersed teacher's handbook. Nissayas (or at least with Pali words and because of their the wide selection of nissayas I have definitions and short explanations of examined) most likely served two peda• their grammatical forms. They are dis• gogical fu nctions. First, they were jointed texts, and to read them straight assignments given orally in monaster• through would be like reading the "Anna ies so the student monks could learn Livia Plurabelle" ·episode of Joyce's Pali vocabulary in a slow, repetitive way Finnegan's Wake , if every third word while learning how to use those new was followed by its dictionary defini• words in context and within a tion in Italian. They do not read like sermons, stories or instructions, but as 52 Oskar von Hiniiber suggested to me that notes for telling stories, giving sermons, nissaya could perhaps be derived from the or explaining instructions. They are fact that they "lean on" Pali texts. 53 I thank Prof. Michel Lorrillard for a par• supports for those who have to read and ticularly insi'ghtful discussion of this issue.

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vernacular syntactic structure. Second, manuals for giving sermons and lan• they were used as guides on how to ex• guage "textbooks" or "readers." For ex• plain certain Pali texts, perhaps for the ample, two of the most well-known and purposes of a sermon (this is how monks oft-printed Pali prayers in Thailand and in Laos use them today and how sermons Laos are the Sambuddhe and the in Central, Northeastern and Northern Buddhiibhig"iti verses. 54 Both of these Thailand operate). This educational are found in virtually every version of purpose might account for the relatively standard chanting books in Thailand and poor quality of the manuscripts (they Laos and both have repetitive phrases lack illustrations, carved and orna• that frame new information with every mented wooden covers, and elegant let• verse. Dozens ofexample s of other Pali tering, and numerous interlinear and prayers in verse could be cited, and marginal corrections written by the theirs style could have influenced the original scribe of the manuscripts in prose structure of nissayas. Still, while question). It also might provide an ex• interesting, this "similarity" is too gen• planation of the lack of multiple copies eral to be useful. of any individual nissaya manuscript. Indeed, these manuscripts might not There are many other possible sources have been intended as texts to be pre• for the pedagogical, repetitive, and re• sented to royalty or other temples or as inforcing style of nissayas, and some items of display at a monastery, but in• modem teaching methods that mimic stead are the remnants of the "home• nissayas, that can be more systemati• work," lecture notes, and marginalia of cally examined. For example, the gen• teachers teaching how to translate, or as eral style of sermons in present day notes for or recordings of sermons dic• Thailand and Laos supports the conten• tated by a teacher to a student. tion that nissayas were primarily peda• gogical and that nissayas could have Could nissayas be the result of a long been inspired by oral sermons. We have period of experimentation to develop few examples of sermons in Northern superior pedagogical techniques or the Thailand and Laos from before the late result of an unconscious internalization 19th and early 20th centuries. From my of the best methods to format a Pali or cursory reading of a number of des ana vernacular text so as to be easily learned (sermon) manuscripts, it seems that they and remembered by the student, whether are very similar with the nissayas, at it be a single monastic scribe or a lay least in the manner of "lifting" individual audience? Nissayas may have been con• Pali words from a particular text and sciously planned in order to be an ef• employing several methods to explain fective pedagogical technique for pre• the word in the vernacular. Furthermore, senting new information and teaching one manuscript from Laos is titled a language. Or, perhaps, the pedagogical "nisai-desana."55 Still, the study of methods found in nissayas are the re• desana as a genre of manuscripts re• sult of influences of traditional mains a desideratum. commentarial styles in Sanskrit and Pali from combined with local The "Phra Dhammadesana literary experiments with alliteration, repetitive patterns, etc. which served as 54 See for example the Suat mon chabap a model for composing instructional LU'ang (197~); and the Suatmon Mii'ang Nii'a chapab sombiin (1994). 48

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PiyakaraJ!akatha" by Phra KaWi.waranan lating them in different ways and relat• and Phra Priyatth1rakhun's "Phra ing this idiom to certain practices ofthe Dharnmadesana Dharnmacankatha" are Thai government. The next day, I asked transcripts of two modem sermons that people in my Bangkok neighbourhood are based on the repetitive and meticu• what they remembered about the speech lous (but often fanciful) translations of and, besides the humorous story about individual Pali words and phrases. It also the dogs, they all could recall the may be noted that audiocassettes of English term "double standard." There sermons or nightly radio and television were numerous newspaper articles that broadcasts of sermons in Thailand 56 g~nerally have the style of repetitive These cassettes can be purchased at many lessons based on the creative and mul• temples and at any religious bookstore in tiple translation of Pali words. Taped Thailand. This style of giving sermons can also be observed by attending most sermons sermons by the late Lu'ang Pu To of on full and half moon days in Thailand or Bangkok and Lu'ang Pu Cha from Ubon Laos. As a side note, I recently went to the Rachatarii Province are very common two major monastic universities ofThailand and particularly good examples of this and Laos to inquire about which texts they style. The infamous disrobed monk, used to instruct Pali. At Wat Ong Teu in Phra Yantra ofKanchanaburi Province, Laos, they do not use a standard Pali gram• now living in exile in California, would mar text, but instead, the instructor reads Pali often base whole sermons on the trans• passages and translates them into Lao for his lation of one Pali term like "tanha ." 56 students. Translation is more at the level of This repetitive style of translating one memorization than detailed explanations of grammar or linguistic issues. The text he term in slightly different is not limited was using for the lesson on the day I inter• to sermons by monks. On the eve of his viewed him was an excerpt from the 74th birthday, the King ofThailand gave Dhammapada. At Wat Borworniwet a speech, lasting approximately one (Mahamakutarajawidyalai) in Bangkok, in• hour, on various subjects including a de• struction generally takes the form of memo• velopment project in Prachuap Khiri rization as well; however, there is a series of Khan Province and about taking care of short paper-back Pali grammars for novices. dogs. When lecturing the government I am still unclear on how they are incorpo• on the subject of cooperation and equal• rated in a Pali lesson and need to investi• ity among its members, he translated the gate further. It may be noted that these gram• mars were hard to locate at the Wat English idiom "double standard." He Borwomiwet book store and when I ask spent almost 25 minutes breaking down about what texts novices and monks use for the word into its components and trans- Pali study I was given a few bi-lingual liturgical texts with Pali and Thai in two 55 See the nisai-itipiso-clesana (ms. 06 01 columns. These books are very prevalent at 85 05 003 05) from the Luang Pabang Mu• the bookstore and would be too numerous seum in Laos composed in CS 1199 [AD to list here. However, the most common ones 183 7]. The early date of this des ana and its would certainly be: rare title in comparison with other desana Phrakhriirunathamrangs1' MonpUi blae could suggest that this is evidence of a tran• samrap Phrabhiksusamanen lae sition of texts titled nissayas and texts titled Phutthasasanikachon tua bai (Bangkok: desana since nissayas declined in produc• Wat Arunararachawararam, 2534 [1991]) tion after the 1840's and desana increased. and the Suatmon chabub lu 'ang blae (Royal Investigating the differences between des ana Chanting Book Text and Translation). and nissaya would require a separate study.

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discussed the King's use of the term and similar folk etymological method by two weeks later it was the subject of a breaking individual terms into their panel discussion at Chulalongkorn Uni• component syllables), the repetitive versity, with four speakers discussing the style and focus on individual terms practice of "double standards" in Thai might have been a source for nissaya society. Clearly, the term was repeated methods of commentary, which could hundreds of times, and given multiple have subsequently influenced transla• translations and interpretations. This is tion methods. not to say that basing a lecture, sermon or meeting on the translation of a term Still, this feature of the nissayas is also is'Ll11ique to Thailand, but that it is a stan• closely akin to a little-studied linguistic dard way of structuring a sermon or feature of Lao and Thai poetry and ver• speech, and this gives us a clue as to nacular religious texts known as "roi how to read and explain the excessively (hoi) gO.eo." Lao linguist and literary repetitive rhetorical style of nissayas. historian, Mahasila Wirawong, is the Whether sermons in Thailand and Laos only scholar I am familiar with that has were constructed in this way and in turn seriously discussed this textual prac• were a source for the methods found in tice.58 He shows that it was common nissayas or vice versa is impossible to for local writers to string an alternating say, but the similarities are striking. and repetitive series of vernacular and Pali words together like "jewels on a The repetitive style ofcommentaries and necklace" (i.e. hOi gO.eo) for reasons of sub-commentaries, like the AyhasO.linl. education and aesthetic appeal. The hOi and the A!!hasalanl. Atthayojana that gaeo method of composing bi-lingual were mentioned above, also are a pos• texts in the region is most likely the re• sible source of the nissaya rhetorical sult of the mixing of traditional Lao and style. For example, a passage from the Northern Thai poetry (that works on the latter reads: scheme of a repetitive pattern of allit• "vii aparo nayo ye akusalii kucchitena eration, tone alternation and rhyming) iikiirena sabhiivena sayanti pavattanti with Pali word commentaries. There• iti te akusalii kusii kupubba si " sult is a unique linguistic feature that allows the reader/audience to easily re• "Another method [for reading the word member certain Pali and vernacular lexi• akusala in the sentence]: 'those things cal items through repetition, alliteration that are supported by and sustained with and rhyming. Moreover, the hoi gO.eo a disposition [characterized] by vile modes of acting;' [in this example] 57 akusala is formulated from 'ku' as the A.tfhaasiilinl.Atthayojanii. (Phumipala Edi• first member and with the root 'si' in the tion. Bangkok): 111. I thank Prapod Assavavirulkaham for helping me read this sense of'saye' (to sleep)."57 passage. 58 Wirawong, Mahasila (1995: 4-5). In mod• This passage goes on to give several ern Thai the meaning of roi gaeo has changed methods for reading the words kusala and now simply means prose. This is prob• and akusala. Although more systematic ably because the earliest non-verse vernacu• in its explanation of the word akusala lar literature, of which nissayas are evidence than most nissayas would be (except for of, was distinct from Pali and early vernacu• the Nama Nissaya which employs a lar epic poems and verse dramas.

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system combined with the type of ex• stores (besides Buddhist comic books cessive glossing shown above reflects with stories drawn from Jiitakas) are one of the pedagogical functions of bi-lingual, word-for-word, translations nissayas: to tell entertaining, melodious ofPali liturgies and parittas. While there stories or give ritual instructions or are too many examples to list and any ethical sermons while teaching Pali and number of these texts can be bought vernacular vocabulary and certain easily in any major urban center in important Buddhist concepts. We can Thailand, a few examples would be: see that they were most likely intended Nangseu rT en klum to be and employed as language and wijiibhrapariwatdham, published by religious teaching texts and, if so, give Mahachulalongkomraja- withyalai (vol• us a rare glimpse into the world of umes one through six), 2534 [1991], pre-modem Theravada education in another six volume series of the same Southeast Asia. title published by Rongbimsasana under the auspices of the Department of The method of translation and commen• Education, Piili wiiiyiikorn (six volumes tary found in nissayas is also similar to with additional volumes on selected that used in Pali textbooks at the major subjects like verbs and compounds) monastic schools in Thailand. A survey published by Mahamaku!araj awithyalai, of the published Pali textbooks popular 2538 [1995], and, under the same title, in Thai monastic schools shows that no a series published by matter the level of the text (beginning Krombhrayawajirayan-worarot, 2538 with Madhyom seuksa pi thi neung [1995]. For bi-lingual translations of (approximately 7th grade in the Ameri• liturgies see these same publishers. I was can sytem or 12-13 years old) up until told by two different bookstore owners Madhyom seuksa p1 th1 hok (12th grade) that the Mahamaku!a editions are the Pali grammar is taught by a series ofPali best sellers, but have conducted no words displaying a certain grammatical independent research.59 suffix or a type of compound followed by its translation in modem Thai. There From the textual evidence we can see is rarely any explanation and textbook that nissayas incorporate many of the that consists of repetitive drills where features of commentaries, or at least students must translate single words or commentaries as they are understood in short clauses from Pali into Thai. As South and Southeast Asia. However, it the student advances the passages to would be overly reductive and pre-ma• translate gets slightly longer and what ture to simply label nissayas commen• little introduction and explanation there taries, place them back in the archives was completely disappears. Moreover, and monastic libraries, and forget about what is interesting is that the lessons are them. Nissayas diverge from definitions drawn randomly from both canonical and non-canonical texts, and the most 59 It is interesting to note that there is also a popular selections seem to be from series of English textbooks for religious paritta prayers that would be familiar students published by Mahamaku~a Monastic University which uses a very simi• to novices, monks, nuns and lay people Jar method to teach English words and from chanting during liturgies. fact, In phrases through examples drawn from Bud• the most common translations of Pali dhist stories translated into English that texts available in Thai religious book- asks the students to translate them into Thai.

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of commentary offered by Griffiths, Our stroll through the linguistic and J.Z.Smith, Henderson among others. codicological world of nissayas, guided First, commentaries in the P~ili tradition by the work by Collins, Hallisey, Cort, are usually understood as being in the J.Z. Smith, Patton and others, have same language as the source text. Still, shown us that there are many ways to it would be overly reductive to call them define a canon. I have hoped to empha• vernacular commentaries. Second, size the importance of seeing how texts nissayas often diverge widely from their were used in an educational context, so particular source text, often to the point as to reflect upon what could have been that they seem to be re-writing the the unstandardized and particular source text, inventing entire sections or curricular "canon" of a certain region writing a commentary on a source text and certain time. Between the 16th and that may have never existed as a sepa• 19th centuries in Northern Thailand and rate text in Pali or a vernacular. Third, Laos there was a concerted effort to nissayas often contain internal sub-com• translate and comment on Pali texts, mentaries on their own commentaries of both canonical and non-canonical. This a source text, and it is occasionally dif• constant referral to and manipulation of ficult to determine whether the author Indic textual methods, rhetorical styles, was attempting to teach the meaning of tropes, and themes of the past in order a passage from a source text or comment to comment on the present was part of on her/his own explanation of the source the general commentarial and transla• text. Fourth, the source text, as was most tion (oral, textual, architectural, and apparent in the A[{hakathiimiitikii artisitc) culture of Southeast Asia. Nissaya, is employed as a platform from Nissayas were prevalent types of which to teach grammar, vocabulary, translations and commentaries that and concepts almost completely manipulated, obfuscated, and elucidated divorced from the semantic meaning or source texts with inventive method of original purpose for which the source teaching vocabulary, grammar, and text seemed to be composed. In this way, occasionally meanings of a seemingly the source text plays the role of a random co11ection of Pali texts. These that only serves to provide a were texts that not only gave the defini• space for the author of the nissaya to tions ofPali words and phrases, but also paint his own picture and to widen our taught their readers/audience how to understanding of a commentary. The incorporate Pali terms into Lao or Yuan source text no longer guides the syntax. The pedagogical methods and sequence, structure, or subject of the physical features of the manuscripts commentary. It could be compared to a show that these texts were listened to, tourist who strolls through a Bangkok read, collected, and handled. I surmise monastery inspired by its architecture, that from this evidence we can begin to images, and residents to compose, in no identify, or at least define, the param• particular order, a long journal entry on eters of the general curricula and all and sundry subjects. Finally, if com• pedagogical methods for and ofmonks , mentaries, as J.Z. Smith and Laurie nuns and novices (and devoted lay Patton emphasize, define a canon, then people) of the region and period. This the nissayas define a canon wholly would help us to develop new ways to different from that of the Pali Tipi~aka. define what a canon can be.

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