FRAGILE PALM LEAVES: ACTIVITIES
Fragile Palm Leaves undertakes activities that will study, preserve, and make available the rich
Buddhist heritage of the region. The activities include publications, research work which will
result in eventual publication, and projects such as cataloguing and scanning manuscripts. One of
the most important is the compilation of a Corpus of Pali Inscriptions. Some of the activities are
already well under way.
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1. PUBLICATION SERIES
Fragile Palm Leaves has initiated a series, ’Materials for the Study of the Tripitaka’, published
jointly with the Lumbini International Research Institute (Lumbini, Nepal) and other institutions.
The series presents catalogues and lists of manuscripts or other materials relevant to the study of canonical
collections of Buddhist literature, the ’Tripitakas’. The first volume has already appeared,
and the second will soon go to press. Details are given separately under ’Publications’.
A new series, provisionally entitled Palm-Leaf and Stone, will present articles on manuscripts and
inscriptionsÑthe primary source-materials for the study of the social, ritual, and economic history of Buddhism−by
international scholars. Materials for Volumes I and II have been collected and are being prepared for publication.
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2. RESEARCH WORK IN PROGRESS
- A critical edition of Sima-vicarana, a Pali text on monastic boundaries composed by King Rama IV
of Thailand when he was a monk, is being prepared by Petra Kieffer-Pülz (Weimar).
- A romanized and annotated edition of the Pali Buddhapadamangala by Claudio Cicuzza (Bangkok)
- A romanized edition of an old Northern Thai manuscript of the Lokadipakasara, a text on cosmology by
Medhamkara, a 14th century Mon scholar, is being prepared by Siglinde Dietz (Göttingen).
- Romanized editions with translations of two Pali chronicles from Thailand, Ratanabimba-vamsa and
Sihinga-nidana, are being prepared by Steven Collins (University of Chicago).
- A romanized edition of the Abhidhanappadipika, a unique Pali lexicon composed in 1203 stanzas by Moggallana
in the 12th century will be prepared by Ven. Gandhasarabhivamsa (Wat Tamao, Lampang, Thailand).
- Preliminary romanized editions of over ten hitherto unpublished Pali texts have been prepared by
Fragile Palm Leaves typist Culanand Ravikul in Chiang Mai. These need to be edited for publication.
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3. PROJECTS
- Burmese-script palm-leaf manuscripts in the Fragile Palm Leaves collection are being catalogued by
Peter Nyunt, whose work is partially subsidized by the Pali Text Society (Oxford). At the same time Mr. Nyunt
is preparing an English version of the classic catalogue of Burmese manuscripts, the 19th-century Pitaka Thamein,
for publication by the Pali Text Society.
- In 2002 a project supported by the Lumbini International Research Institute (Lumbini, Nepal) under Dr.
Christoph Cüppers began scanning selected manuscripts in the Fragile Palm Leaves collection. This pioneering
project, using the best and latest technology, will make Pali manuscripts accessible in digital form for the
first time.
- One of the important projects is the preparation of a Corpus of Indic Inscriptions of Thailand.
The project will fill a significant gap in the international study of inscriptions discovered in Thailand and
the region. The inscriptions, classified by period and find-spot, are mainly in Pali but include some in Prakrit
and Sanskrit. They will be published in annotated roman-script editions with English translations, accompanied by
rubbings and photographs, as far as possible. To date rubbings and photographs have been collected from three museums
in Thailand.
- Related to but independent of the Corpus will be a series presenting the Pali inscriptions of selected temples,
to be jointly published with the temples in question. Inscriptions of three temples have been collected and romanized:
Wat Pho (Bangkok), Wat Bovaranives (Bangkok), and Wat Niwet Tham Prawat (Ayutthaya).
