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Key research themes
1. What are the critical challenges and methodological considerations in translating Pāli Buddhist texts into English?
This theme investigates specific linguistic, stylistic, and cultural complexities encountered when translating canonical Pāli texts into English, emphasizing the need for philological precision and contextual awareness to preserve Buddhist doctrinal meanings and literary conventions. Such translation studies are vital for ensuring scholarly access to authentic Buddhist teachings and highlight how different approaches can affect interpretation.
Key finding: The paper identifies and analyzes variant readings in Pāli suttas, like the presence or absence of vocatives in direct speech, showing how misinterpretation can arise from editorial uncertainties, and argues that... Read more
Key finding: The study relates the profundity and grammatical complexity of Pāli as a classical Middle Indo-Aryan language essential for understanding Buddhist canonical texts, highlighting how inadequate knowledge of Pāli hampers... Read more
2. How does the oral tradition influence the composition and meditative role of Pāli Buddhist literature?
This theme explores the interface between oral transmission and textual formation in the Pāli Canon, focusing on how linguistic choices and stylistic formulas support memorization, recitation, and meditative listening. Understanding this interplay is crucial for Buddhist textual studies as it sheds light on the preservation, performance, and pedagogical functions embedded in the literature beyond its written form.
Key finding: The article demonstrates that the Pāli Canon's lexicon, including repeated rhetorical formulas and lexical fields related to listening and attention, are deliberately crafted to foster meditative absorption not only during... Read more
3. What is the historical development and literary significance of Pāli language and literature in South and Southeast Asia?
Research under this theme addresses the historical evolution of Pāli language and literature, its canonical status, and its geographic and cultural transmission across South and Southeast Asia. It highlights the linguistic origins, canonical corpus, commentarial traditions, and regional adaptations, revealing Pāli’s pivotal role in Buddhist doctrinal dissemination and cultural identity formation in various Theravāda contexts.
Key finding: This qualitative study traces the origins of Pāli as a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect linked intimately to the Magadha region, emphasizing its initial designation as text (pāḷi) before evolving to denote the language of the... Read more
Key finding: This work chronicles the historical spread of Pāli Buddhism to Thailand, detailing archaeological evidence and royal patronage supporting the transmission of canonical literature and the establishment of Theravāda Buddhism... Read more
Key finding: The article provides a comprehensive survey of the history, material culture, and manuscript tradition of Pāli texts in Sri Lanka, emphasizing the earliest documented writing down of the Tipiṭaka in the 1st century BCE,... Read more