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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Though four years have passed since the publication, at Bangkok, of thirty-nine volumes of the Pāli Canon, under the auspices of His Majesty the King of Siam, it was not till a more recent date that, thanks to His Majesty's munificence, copies of this monumental work reached the Royal Asiatic Society, and other libraries in Europe, and so became available for study by Western scholars. The recent visit of the King to this country gave me an opportunity of discussing the genesis and circumstances of the edition with H.R.H. Prince Sommot; and I now desire to communicate to the Royal Asiatic Society the information which I owe to the Prince's scholarship and courtesy. The value of that information will be recognized when it is stated that Prince Sommot is Private Secretary to the King, served on the Editing Committee, and is brother to the Priest-Prince Vajirañāṇavarorasa, who has edited eleven out of the thirty-nine volumes already published.
page 1 note 1 His Majesty has informed the Society that there will follow in due course an edition of the Aṭṭhakathās and Ṭīkās.
page 4 note 1 i.e. twenty-four palm-leaves.
page 7 note 1 It has been questioned whether the Paṭṭhāna as edited is complete, owing to the absence of manuscripts at one part. Whether this be so or not, I am unable to say, as there is no Pāli Text Society's edition wherewith to collate the Siamese.
page 9 note 1 A table of errata (sodhanapatta) is prefixed to each, volume.
page 9 note 2 As a rule the readings of Buddhaghosa represent the best standard for settling a Piṭaka text. In the following case we can go behind him to an authority seven hundred years older, viz., to the inscriptions sculptured on the temple of Bharhut. The 83rd Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya (like the 9th Jātaka) relates to the king called Makhādeva in Siṇhalese MSS. and Magghadeva in Burmese MSS. In the Siamese edition this king's name is spelled Maghadeva, as it is at plate xlviii (2) of the “Stūpa of Bharhut.” (Apparently, Buddhaghosa follows the Siṇhalese spelling.)