PALI BOOK-TITLES AND THEIR BRIEF DESIGNATIONS. 

 By Charles Rockwell Lanman. 



Presented March 10, 1909. Received April 19, 1909. 



Purpose and scope and outcome of this article. — Its purpose is to 

 devise a system of brief designations of the titles of Pali books. By- 

 books are meant both printed and manuscript books. The abbreviations 

 intended are such as may properly be used in a lexicon or in the ap- 

 paratus criticus of a text- edition or in technical works on Pali and 

 Buddhism. 



The scope or range of the article includes the canonical books of the 

 Ti-pitaka (Sutta-pitaka, Vinaya-pitaka, Abhidhamma-pitaka), many 

 of the miscellaneous uncanonical books (like the Visuddhi-magga), and 

 especially the Pali commentaries (by Buddhaghosa and Dhammapala) 

 on the books of the canon, and the supercommentaries. Just after 

 Table II comes a discussion of the principles by which the new desig- 

 nations should be and have been determined. To these principles, for 

 convenience of reference, I have given the name of Canons. Especially 

 important is Canon 5, and under this are discussed the most essential 

 features of the system. After the Canons comes a series of Comments 

 on the individual abbreviations proposed. The paper ends with an 

 attempt to devise a good system of designations for the manuscripts, 

 for the use of the editors of texts. 



Outcome. The proposed designations are : for the first 4 Nikayas, 

 the uniliterals, D., M., S., and A. ; for the 15 books of the Khuddaka- 

 nikaya, the biliterals, Kh., Dh., etc. ; for the Vinaya and the 7 books 

 of the Abhidhamma, the triliterals, Vin., Dhs., Vbh., etc. ; and for the 

 miscellaneous uncanonical books, the quadriliterals, Dpvrj., Mhvrj., 

 Miln., Visu., etc. As to the commentaries (mostly by Buddhaghosa 

 and Dhammapala) on the 27 books of the canon : the use of all fanciful 

 titles must be abandoned ; the commentaries must be spoken of, for 

 instance, as "commentary on the Dlgha " or "Dlgha-commentary," 

 and be designated by adding to the abbreviation of the name of the 

 text the abbreviation " cm." for the word " commentary" (thus, " D.cm." 

 for " Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Dlgha-nikaya "). A super- 

 commentary is to be designated by an added t (thus, D.cm.t). The 

 manuscripts are to be designated, according to the characters in which 



