Our preferred method of communication is email, to info@palitextsociety.org
If something needs to be sent via post, please note that our address has changed. It is now:
Pali Text Society
c/o Gravita Oxford LLP
First Floor, Park Central
40-41 Park End Street
Oxford
OX1 1JD
With the publication of volume 35 in a new format, the Council of the PTS Council wishes to relaunch the Journal with a view to publishing one volume annually. The next volume (36) will be published before the end of June 2025.
The editors invite submissions of scholarly articles relevant to any aspect of Pali studies. Particularly welcome are submissions related to the following areas:
All submissions are peer reviewed by two scholars familiar with the field.
Submissions should be sent to the editors by email at info@palitextsociety.org.
The Pali Text Society is pleased to announce the publication of volume 35 of the Journal of the Pali Text Society, edited by Rupert Gethin and Petra Kieffer-Pülz.
The Journal is open access. Individual articles are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY) and can be downloaded via the following link:
https://palitextsociety.org/current-edition-volume-35-2024/
CONTENTS
Hard copies of the Journal can be purchased (£25) via the following link:
https://palitextsociety.org/product/journal-of-the-pali-text-society-vol-35-2024-paperback/
Articles from previous issues can also be downloaded from the PTS website here.
Please accept our apologies for the technical difficulties experienced at Friday’s lecture that prevented some participants from watching virtually. Late on Friday morning we received information from the École Pratique des Hautes Études requesting us to use their Microsoft Teams link rather than the Zoom link the PTS had generated. Early on Friday afternoon, we posted the new link on the PTS website and also tried to email the link directly to the 54 people who had registered to attend the lecture online. It is now apparent that unfortunately many of those emails did not reach the intended recipients. Please be aware that Dr Aleix Ruiz Falqués’s lecture will be published next year in the Journal of the Pali Text Society.
Please follow this link to watch the AGM and I.B. Horner Memorial Lecture via Teams.
The Pali Text Society is pleased to announce that the 20th I.B. Horner Lecture will be given by Dr Aleix Ruiz Falqués, Shan State Buddhist University/Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Paris on 27th September 2024.
The Lecture will follow the AGM and begin at approximately 5pm Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00; GMT+2; 4pm British Summer Time; 11am Eastern Daylight Time; 8.30pm Indian/Sri Lankan Standard Time)
This lecture is open to the public, but please note that because of security at the Sorbonne, those wishing to attend the lecture and also PTS members wishing to attend the AGM need to send their names to the PTS administrator Andrew Bishop by email (info@palitextsociety.org) by 18 September, otherwise access to the building cannot be guaranteed.
In order to attend the lecture virtually, please follow this link.
*Please be advised that we are unable to ensure the reliability of the technology in advance of the lecture and therefore cannot guarantee that it will work. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience.*
The study of Pali grammar is, without doubt, a cornerstone of Theravāda monastic education. Beginning with ancient treatises such as the Kaccāyana (ca. 6th century CE), works on Pali grammar have proliferated across the Theravāda world over the centuries. Some of these treatises are still used in Theravāda countries, but they have not received substantial attention from western Pali scholars. This lecture will examine one such treatise, namely, a Burmese handbook for beginners known as the Encyclopedia of Pali Grammar. It was written by an 18th-century polymath, Makāralopa (ca. 1722–1780), perhaps the most celebrated genius of his epoch. He wrote 37 books on both mundane and supramundane subjects. Makāralopa’s Encyclopedia of Pali Grammar consists of a bilingual Pali-Burmese re-arrangement and exposition of the Kaccāyana grammar. Importantly, it also incorporates chapters on hermeneutics and scholastic exegesis. It is therefore not a mere formal introduction to Pali as a language, but rather a method of textual analysis for those who wish to analyse the Tipiṭaka and the commentarial literature. In Makāralopa’s book, grammar, philosophy, metaphysics and poetry are parts of one single ‘organon’. The fact that this 18th-century manual is still considered a useful handbook in Burma is testimony to the vitality of the ancient grammatical tradition of Pāṇini, Patañjali and other Indian masters in today’s Buddhist world of Southeast Asia. This critical examination of Makāralopa’s Encyclopedia will also be an opportunity to reflect on the implicit assumptions in Pali learning methodologies, past and present.
The Pali Text Society is pleased to announce the availability of the 3 published volumes of A Dictionary of Pāli online at gandhari.org. The Dictionary is free for all to search and use. The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary and other dictionaries of ancient South Asian languages are also available on this site.
For more information, please visit this page on our website.
The PTS’ registered office address has changed. Our new postal address is Pali Text Society, c/o Critchleys LLP, Beaver House, 23–38 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 2EP
Email continues to be our preferred method of communication. The Society can be contacted at info@palitextsociety.org
Paul Dundas, a member of the Council of the PTS since 2005, sadly died in April this this year at the age of 70. At the meetings of Council held in March and September each year, Paul was a wonderfully humane and helpful presence. He will be greatly missed. We reproduce below a short obituary posted on the Indology list shortly after his death by his former colleagues at the Universtiy of Edinburgh, Peter Bisschop and John Brockington.
Paul started studying Sanskrit and Prakrit as an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh with Michael Coulson and had a short period as a postgraduate at the University of Cambridge with among others, John Brough and K.R. Norman, before accepting the post in Sanskrit at Edinburgh in 1976, where he continued to teach and research throughout his entire career until his retirement as reader only a few years ago. He was a member of the Council of the Pali Text Society, and the recipient of the Prakrit Jñānabhāratī International award in 2019. Paul was a towering figure in the field of Jain and Prakrit studies and will be known to most scholars and students as the author of The Jains, of which the first edition appeared in 1992 and which continues to be the most reliable introduction to Jainism to the present day. From his many other publications in the field we would like to single out History, Scripture and Controversy in a Medieval Jain Sect, published in 2007, a book of vast and penetrating learning with a relevance far beyond that of medieval Jainism alone. But Paul also had a great passion for all things Sanskrit, reading across the entire spectrum of Sanskrit literature. Testimony to this is his wonderful translation of Māgha’s Śiśupālavadha, published in the Murty Classical Library of India in 2017, the first complete English translation of this truly difficult Sanskrit Mahākāvya. His latest publication appeared in 2022, in the Eivind Kahrs felicitation volume Jñānapraśaṃsā: “Sectarian Confrontation as Theatrical Diversion: Observations on Yaśaścandra’s Mudritakumudacandraprakaraṇa and the Jain Debate at Aṇahillapaṭṭana”. Paul was still actively engaged in several other projects. His death is a great loss to the field.
Paul was one of the most learned and well read people we have known. He was also most generous and kind, and we will sorely miss his presence and humour.
Our thoughts are with his partner, Rowan Flett.
After 20 years with the Pali Text Society, Karen Wendland has left to explore new opportunities. We extend our thanks to her for her many years of service and wish her all the very best in the future.
We have recruited a new Office Administrator, Andrew Bishop, and he has now started with the Society. All contact information remains the same. If you have any questions, please email info@palitextsociety.org
