668 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



of good typography, and send out its lucid and forceful articles, all the 

 more lucid and all the more forceful because of the admirable form 

 in which they are presented 1 while some learned writer on some Ori- 

 ental topic presents his lucubrations with an indifference to ready 

 intelligibility and to the rules of logical and typographical clarity 

 which we might call at once sublime and ridiculous, if our whole force 

 of will were not required to resist the temptation to profanity ? 



Need of agreement as to designation of book-titles. — Without 

 adequate funds, 5 Professor Rhys Davids is now bravely trying to 

 supply the new dictionary. Before that is printed, it is manifestly 

 of the utmost importance that scholars should agree upon some 

 uniform system of designating the Pali texts and of abbreviating 

 their titles, which shall be so well-considered and easily mastered as to 

 command the general assent of Pali scholars and come into use not 

 only in the dictionary, but in general technical works on Buddhism and 

 Pali literature. A scholar has to handle a score or perhaps scores ot 

 different works in a single day, and ought not to be perplexed and 

 hindered by the uncertainties entailed by lack of uniformity. 



What I have just said is something that sorely needs to be said, 

 even if it is not new. Long ago, in speaking of the preliminaries for 

 the Dictionary, JPTS.1886, p. xiii., Rhys Davids observed : "For such 

 work it is of importance that scholars should, when abbreviations of 

 the titles are desirable, use the same or similar ones. I therefore 

 venture to suggest that Pitaka Texts might, in most cases, be referred 

 to by one or two letters, and the subsequent texts by three." And 

 again, JPTS.1896, p. 102, ten years later: "It is very desirable for 

 dictionary work, and for notes to text, to have short abbreviations, on 

 which all scholars shall agree, for the titles of Pali books. The use of 

 different abbreviations by different scholars causes confusion, and is a 

 hindrance to memory. I therefore venture to submit to my co- 

 workers the following scheme. And I should be glad to receive, for 

 publication as soon as possible, any suggestions upon it." 



"The principle adopted is that all Pitaka texts should be desig- 

 nated, as far as possible, with one letter, and later texts with three 

 letters. It is indeed impossible to adhere strictly to the one and the 

 three. But it is possible to preserve a practical distinction of the 

 kind, and to have all the most important and longest of the Pitaka 



8 With sufficient money to maintain a staff of young but properly trained 

 readers for several years and (what is an inexorable necessity) an adequate 

 organization of their labors, I believe it would be quite possible to produce a 

 good Pali dictionary within a reasonable time. 



