Rasavāhinī : Jambudīpuppattivatthu

Abstract

The first Sinhala edition of the Jambudīpuppattivatthu of the the Rasavāhinī was published about eighty years ago, and since then there have been many Sinhala editions, particularly intended for students preparing for certain examinations for which this part of the Rasavāhinī has been a prescribed text. These are, however, not critical editions based on a good number of MSS, and moreover, they usually ignore the Saddharmālaink- āraya, the Sinhala work closely connected with the Rasavāhinī. I therefore attempted to prepare an edition of the Pali text based on palm-leaf MSS. followed by an English translation. I have also used the Saddharmālainkāraya to a considerable extent in my edition and translation, Initially I planned to prepare an edition of the entire work, and in fact made some readings and translation on the second part of the Rasavāhinī also. The work was undertaken as a staff candidate for the degree of PhD in the Department of South Asian and Buddhist Studies, the Australian National University, Canberra. As I had to leave Canberra and join the Department of Indian Studies, University of Melbourne, my official responsibilities became much heavier, and it was not possible for me to edit the entire work, together with an English translation. The present work is therefore limited to the Jambudīpuppattivatthu only. Show more