Paḷi Literature of Burma
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PRIZE PUBLICATION FUND VOL II THE PAḶI LITERATURE OF BURMA BY MABEL HAYNES BODE Ph.D. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY AND SOLD AT 22 ALBEMARLE STREET 1909 PREFATORY NOTE I WISH to express my best thanks to the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society for giving this little work a place among the Society’s publications. To Professor Rhys Davids I owe, once again, a grateful acknowledgment of inspiration to begin a task and encouragement throughout. To him also as Editor of the Journal of the Paḷi Text Society my thanks are due for permission to reprint in Chapters I and II some of the material appearing in my article, “Early Paḷi Grammarians in Burma” (JPTS., 1908). My obligations to many others, by whose labours I have profited, will be seen in the pages of the Essay. Finally, I can only thank Dr. Barnett for his untiring kindness by reminding him that there are very few of those pages which do not owe something to his advice and help. M.H.B. LONDON 1909. ABBREVIATIONS BEFEO. Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême Orient. Hanoi. 1901, etc. GV. Gandhavaṃsa (JPTS.). 1886. Index, 1896. JPTS. Journal of the Paḷi Text Society. London. 1882, etc. JRAS. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. London. 1834, etc. P.TH. Piṭakatthamain. Rangoon. 1906. P.T.S. Paḷi Text Society. SVD. Sāsanavaṃsadīpa, Colombo. 1881 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Students may consult with advantage— Canonical Works. I. The whole of the Paḷi Text Society’s publications Suttapiṭaka (entire). Edited by Ko AungMin (for the older Paḷi literature). Frowde. London, 1882, etc. Hsayā and others. 1904. II. Translations of the same which have appeared in Cariyāpiṭaka, with Burmese exegetical various languages (see the useful bibliography of works on commentary. Mandalay, 1899. Buddhism, by Mr. A. 3. Edmunds, in the Journal of the Paḷi Milindapañhavatthu. Burmese translation from the Text Society, 1902). Milinda. Rangoon, 1882. Particularly interesting for comparison of Burmese Abhidhamma, versions with Paḷi are the translations of Jātakas from Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, of Anuruddha, followed the Burmese, by Mr. it. F. St. Andrew St. John, in the by Sumangalasāmi’s Tīkā Kyaw or Abhidhammattha- Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, years 1892, vibhāvani in elucidation thereof, and copious Burmese 1893, 1894, 1896. [Cf. the Jātaka, translated from the commentary. Rangoon, 1898. Paḷi by various hands under the editorship of E. B. Maṇimedhajotaka Kyan. A Burmese treatise on Cowell 6 vols. Cambridge, 1895, etc.] Buddhist Psychology, based on the III. Bibliographies and Catalogues as follows Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, and illustrated from Paḷi 1. Bibliographies. texts. Maulmein, 1882. (a) General. Schennan (Professor L.). Saṅkhepavyākaraṇa. Burmese epitome of Oriental Bibliography. (Quarterly.) Berlin, London, Abhidhamma doctrine as codified in the Paris, and New York Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, illustrated from Paḷi texts. (b) Indo - China. Cordier (Henri). Essay d’une Rangoon, 1899. bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à la presqu’île Paramatthamedhanī Kyan. Treatise on the four indo-chinoise. Prernière partie— Birmanie et conditions of the absolute. Illustrated from Paḷi Texts. Assam. Toung Pao, série II, vol. vi Rangoon, 1895. (c) Burma. Ireland (Alleyne). The Province of Grammar. Burma, a report prepared for the University of Mahārūpasiddhi, with Burmese interpretation. Chicago (with extensive bibliography). Houghton Rangoon, 1906. Mufflin, & Co. Boston and New York, 1906. Ṇvādi-Moggallāna. Paḷi treatise on Grammar, by 2. Catalogues. Saṅgharakkhita, based on the Grammar of (a) The catalogues of Paḷi and Burmese MSS. Moggallāna, with Burmese nissaya. Rangoon, 1900. and printed books in the Oriental Department of the Alaṅkāra-nissaya. Being the Subodālaṃkāra of British Museum. Saṅgharakkhita in Paḷi, with commentary. Rangoon, (b) The same in the India Office Library. 1889. (c) The alphabetical list of manuscripts and Dhātvatthudīpaka. Treatise in Paḷi verse on the books in the Bernard Free Library at Rangoon, by C. significations of Paḷi roots, by Aggadhammālaṃkāra, Duroiselle, This collection offers an excellent field with Burmese commentary. Rangoon. 1899. for research, being under the care of Professor Law. Duroiselle, who, in his large and intimate knowledge Navadhammasattha, by Hsin-pyu-mya-shin, king of Burmese literature, stands alone among Paḷists. of Toungoo. A Paḷi digest of nine law-books. Law of (d) Catalogues of Paḷi and Burmese MSS. in Inheritance. Edited with Burmese translation. Akyab, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. 1894. IV. Finally, a few examples may be given from the mass Veda. of Paḷi and Burmese books in the British Museum. They Makaranda-bedin-let-yo-Tīkā, commentary on the consist chiefly of editions of celebrated Paḷi works, Makaranda-bedin, handbook of astrology. Mandalay, commentaries by Burmese authors, anthologies, and 1905. translations into the vernacular. The descriptions are borrowed from Dr. Barnett’s catalogue. INTRODUCTION THE Paḷi literature of Burma owes its express ideas beyond the scope of that existence to the Paḷi literature of India. It is picturesque vernacular. Being an agglutinative many years since the latter was first explored language, Burmese lacks the force, terseness, by the great scholars and pioneers—Fausböll, and delicacy that Paḷi owes to its nominal and Lassen, Rhys Davids, Trenckner, Childers, verbal inflections and its power of forming Oldenberg—whose reward has been a gain to elaborate compounds. Thus before the Oriental learning vast enough to content even translating period, authors of Burmese race them. With time a part of the material had studied Paḷi and learned to use it; ever discovered has been brought within the reach since the twelfth century it has been a tradition of students by critical editing. Buddhistic of Burmese scholars to produce literary work literature is immense in quantity and in Paḷi, and it is with this work only that we bewildering in varied interest, and it was never are now concerned. more difficult than now to avoid being too A survey of the Paḷi literature of Burma is much of the specialist. But the student of not quite a new undertaking. In the year 1879 a Buddhism who limits himself to one language report on the subject was drawn up for the or looks for solution of all questions in one Government of India by Dr. Emil literature risks slipping into an orthodoxy of Forchhammer, Professor of Paḷi at Rangoon, his own. A sounder principle has long guided who had begun a thorough search for Buddhist studies; modern research has gone manuscripts in monasteries and private forth, like Asoka’s missionaries, to Further collections, and whose premature death cruelly India, China, Japan, Tibet, Siam, and French cut short a work full of promise. This and Indo-China, armed with patience as they were other reports of Forchhammer, on the with conviction, as resolutely determined to archŚological remains of Arakan and Burma, learn as they were to teach. are Government publications; and his studies There is need nowadays to seek further in of Buddhist law (published by Sir John Jardine Burma, or rather, need to be better acquainted with his own valuable Notes, 1882—3, and in with what has already been found there. the Jardine Prize Essay) arc now extremely Among the countries in which the ideas and rare books, and the stores of knowledge they traditions of Buddhism are inseparably bound contain are not available at every moment. up with the Paḷi canon Burma possesses a And we ought also to profit by the labours of special interest which we hardly feel in the that brilliant and far-seeing scholar Minayeff, case of Ceylon, for Burma shows how the to whom we owe the disco very and leaven of Indian thought worked in a race and publication (to mention only one work) of the idiom having none of the close relationship Gandhavaṃsa (‘Book History’), written in with India which we recognize in all that is Burma, a short but interesting account of the most characteristic of the literature of Ceylon. earlier Paḷi literature of Ceylon and Burma. We may say that the essentially Indian genius, The Gandhavaṃsa is unfortunately very the psychological subtleties, and high thoughts sparing of details, and gives us little of Buddhism have forced the Burmese information as to the period of the works it language to grow, deepen, and expand enumerates, but its help is most useful in continually. When Burmese was at last raised settling some questions of authorship and (in or about the fourteenth century) to the level place. Minayeff, who used this book for his of a. literary language, it was by the addition Nouvelles Recherches sur le Bouddhisme, does of a great body of Indian words necessary to not offer any conclusion as to its date, but from comparison with the Sāsanavaṃsa and a still more modern Burmese work, the us by a biographer influenced by the old Piṭakatthamain1 (1906), it appears to be a Talaing tradition, the tradition, that is, of seventeenth century production. Lower Burma. For this school, known as the For both the early and modern periods Mrammasaṅgha (fraternity of Burma), (from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries) maintained that there was no need to have we find great help in the Sāsanavaṃsa,2 has recourse to Ceylon for teachers in the supplied much material for the following unbroken ‘line of descent’ from the ancient chapters. Other sources have been used to missionaries. This question, almost impossible verify or correct where it has been possible. to settle with certainty, after the vicissitudes The whole of the Sāsanavaṃsa’s literary that the Buddhist Saṅgha had seen in both information, as far as it concerns Burma, is countries, divided the Order in Burma with a given in the course of the present work.) sharp line of partisanship. Therefore we must which, happily, observes the good traditions of beware of considering the Sāsanavaṃsa a Burmese chronicles and cares for chronology.3 complete record of monastic work.