Exploring Later Pāli Texts

18. April 2018

Exploring Later Pāli Texts

Yukio Yamanaka, Numata Visiting Professor in Buddhist Studies at Leiden University

18. April 2018, 16.15 Uhr

In recent decades we have become aware of the existence of a great number of manuscripts of later Pāli texts that remain still unread. They range over various categories, to name just a few examples: lexicography, grammatical treatises, poetry, commentaries on canonical and postcanonical texts, chronology, narrative literature, etc. It is obvious that these are important materials for the study of the history of culture, intellectual history, literature and religion in South and Southeast Asia. In other words, these important materials have so far been ignored in research.
However, in order to get a detailed and accurate picture of the history of the intellectual history of South and Southeast Asia, the research into these Pāli manuscripts is essential. This research makes very slow progress. For most of those Pāli manuscripts are, may it be diplomatic or critical, not yet edited. Or, some of them have so far only been published locally and are difficult to access for the international circle of scholars.
In the lecture the following points will be discussed in detail: the history of the Pāli texts in northern Thailand, especially the Pāli commentaries written in Northern Thailand; problems concerning the vocabulary of the later Pāli texts and, concerning the text: editing; new research projects for the later Pāli texts.

Dr. Yukio Yamanaka was born 1969 in Osaka, Japan.
At the moment he is Numata Visiting Professor in
Buddhist Studies at Leiden University. He is also a
research fellow at the Dhammachai Tripitaka Project
in Thailand. Dr. Yamanaka holds a Ph.D. in Indology
from the University of Freiburg (2009). His main
research fields are the Pa¯li traditions in Southeast Asia
and the grammar of middle Indic.

Veranstalter: Numata-Zentrum für Buddhismuskunde der Universität Hamburg

Ort: Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, ESA-Ost, Raum 120

Der Flyer der Veranstaltung kann hier heruntergeladen werden.