A twelve week course on Pali for serious students by Bhante Sujato

[Deepika]

Dear all, registration is now open. Please answer three pre qualifying questions to begin with. This link is valid for the next 5 days only.

Preliminary Eligibility Test to join the Pali Course by Bhante Sujato.

[Indira]

I completed the online form… hope I get a chance. Always wanted to learn Pali… printing the books too.

[Clarity]

Sorry if this question is silly but may I ask if there will be any trouble to use the book “Introduction to Pali” by Warder which is currently offered by the PTS?

Introduction to Pāli - Pali Text Society

Its cover does not look like the 3rd edition blue color but it still says “1963, third edn. 1991, revised reprint 1995, reprinted 2010, 2016” so I am a bit clueless here.

[elisabetta]

Hello @Clarity and welcome to Discourse & Discover, the discussion forum for SuttaCentral. It is our sincere wish that the forum helps you on your path. Should you need any assistance, feel free to reach out to us at @moderators.

With metta,

Liz
On behalf of the moderators

[Gillian]

That’s it … just a new print run. Good to see that it’s selling so well!

[christie]

Depending on how many people are accepted into the class, would it be possible to organise a group purchase with the Pali Text Society? I would prefer the PTS book compared to the Indian print available on Amazon.

Edit: Obviously, a group purchase will only benefit those who live close together. I am based in Sydney.

[Rudravarman]

Thank you for your welcome @elisabetta! I am looking forward to more interaction here. I am currently looking through the forums and prepare my profile.

[sujato]

Dear friends,

Thanks for your interest, we’re getting a good number of applications. I’ll review them as soon as I can, probably starting tomorrow, and will let you know. FYI I’m at Bodhinaya right now, and for boring technical reasons I can’t access any google services except gmail, so I can’t check the results. Hopefully we’ll get this sorted very soon.

[sujato]

@Khemarato.bhikkhu

we’ll be getting through lesson 13 (~page 85) in Warder only and thus won’t cover e.g. the locative declension which isn’t introduced until lesson 16

Thanks to the kind offer of John Kelly, we can extend the course to cover the remainder of Warder. So the basic course remains as-is, and students who want to continue can do so under John’s guidance (and mine if I am able to attend).

[sujato]

@christie

would it be possible to organise a group purchase with the Pali Text Society?

The Pali Text Society books are usually very reasonably priced. They’re excellent quality. You can also get a discount if you join as a member!

[asci]

Dear Bhante, I answered the three questions yesterday, but I didn’t receive a confirmation after I clicked at the “send”-button. The form fields and boxes where just default again. Is there some kind of confirmation in this form? If not, is there a way we can assure you receive the information?

[johnk]

In reply to Ven. Khemarato’s concern about the course stopping after about lesson 12, you will see in Ven. Sujato’s now revised course description above that I have offered to continue the class, after the rains have finished and Bhante’s availability is not guaranteed, for those interested to get through as much of Warder as we can, so that you can all get a thorough grasp of Pāli. I look forward to working with you all.
With mettā, John

[BethL]

Dear Bhante, true to the instructions I didnt Google before answering the three questions. That said, I missed “declension” probably due to multiple choice answer confusion. But I study Pali on my own (using Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book) and have a masters degree in a second language from years ago. So I hope my two-out-of-three correct is sufficient!

[christie]

@sujato

The Pali Text Society books are usually very reasonably priced. They’re excellent quality. You can also get a discount if you join as a member!

The cost of the book is very reasonable, £18. However, the cost of postage to Australia is another £16, taking it to £34 which is probably more than I want to pay. Yes, I know textbooks are expensive, and its been years since I was a student, but even when I went to uni in the 1980s I bought all my textbooks 2nd hand.

If we do buy a set of 10 (I don’t know whether this is realistic or not), then the shipping cost is £50, so the overall cost of 10 books is £230, or £23 per book. This is not taking into account the discount if the purchaser joins as a member.

[christie]

@johnk

I have offered to continue the class, after the rains have finished and Bhante’s availability is not guaranteed

Are you the John Kelly who developed the answer keys to Warder, as well as for Gair and Karunatillake? I have been using those, and found them to be very illuminating. Thank you so much!

[sujato]

@asci

I answered the three questions yesterday, but I didn’t receive a confirmation after I clicked at the “send”-button. The form fields and boxes where just default again. Is there some kind of confirmation in this form? If not, is there a way we can assure you receive the information?

What name or email did you use for the form? You can message me privately if you don’t want them public.

You can also just message me with the answers if you like.

@johnk

I look forward to working with you all.

And we look forward to working with you!

@BethL

I hope my two-out-of-three correct is sufficient!

So what we have so far is that of 40 answers, about 32 got all three correct. They’ll be getting a registration acceptance soon.

For those who made a mistake, I’ve already emailed you, and asked for three paragraphs on why you should be doing this course. I’ll be evaluating them for content and correctness, so if you do that you should be good.

Honestly I’m pretty impressed that so many got the answers right.

@christie

However, the cost of postage to Australia is another £16, taking it to £34 which is probably more than I want to pay.

Oh right, that is a lot.

@christie

then the shipping cost is £50, so the overall cost of 10 books is £230, or £23 per book.

Plus the cost of getting the books to individuals in Australia.

I can’t say for sure, but in my experience, the PTS is usually pretty good with handling these kinds of special requests. And I know ven Brahmali is a member, so we can order in his name and get the membership discount. But yeah, we have to figure out distribution in Oz.

[Gillian]

@christie

would it be possible to organise a group purchase with the Pali Text Society?

If you are interested in exploring this, you could undertake the task yourself. Ask those interested to send you a PM (by clicking on your name on any of your posts and then clicking the envelop that appears top right). You may find that many people have copies already and that the rest are scattered across the globe, but it would certainly be worth investigating.

[Dheerayupa]

@sujato

Interesting idea though, perhaps we could do a subsequent course focusing specifically on translation methods?

That would be wonderful, Bhante (assuming I will have passed this first course of yours!)

[Dheerayupa]

Dear Bhante,

You could try going to JG and use its wi-fi there. It should work with no issue.

[Dheerayupa]

Dear Bhante,

I’ve submitted my application.