Pali Commentaries

brooks · February 25, 2024, 1:06pm

Is there an online resource where I can easily find the Pali Commentary for a specific sutta? It’s OK if the commentary is in Pali? For example, I’m reading MN 49 right now, and I’d like to easily find the Pali Commentary for it. Then, I plan to use ChatGPT or Google Gemini to translate it:-)

sood · February 25, 2024, 1:30pm

I know that Digital Pali Reader has pali commentaries and sub-commentaries. For ex. for MN 49, you can see the sutta with the commentary here :
Digital Pāli Reader.

Ceisiwr · February 25, 2024, 1:46pm

The Pāḷi Tipiṭaka (tipitaka.org)

Scripts > Roman > Aṭṭhakathā

brooks · February 25, 2024, 2:25pm

Thanks! I’m having difficulty finding the Commentaries MN 49, but I think that’s because everything is in Pali.

Ceisiwr · February 25, 2024, 2:28pm

MN First section > Cūḷayamakavaggo then ctrl & f and type in sutta name to jump to the commentary

brooks · February 25, 2024, 2:28pm

Thanks! It looks like the link you shared with me has the actual sutta on one side of the screen and the commentary on the right. The commentary was not what I expected. It reads like a similar but different sutta. Are you sure that’t the commentary to MN 49?

Ceisiwr · February 25, 2024, 2:29pm

You should be seeing this

sood · February 25, 2024, 2:48pm

It does seem to agree with the link shared by Ceisiwr.

Vaddha · February 25, 2024, 3:32pm

The way the commentary works is it will take a phrase from the sutta, quote it, and then provide commentary. This is formatted in DPR with bold text, so the bolded passages are the quotes from the source sutta, and the non-bold text is the commentary.

brooks · February 25, 2024, 4:47pm

Thanks again! I wish I could Mark your response as a solution, too.

brooks · February 25, 2024, 4:50pm

That’s so helpful! I couldn’t make sense of it before.

Dhammanando · February 26, 2024, 12:11am

There is a Thai site that I occasionally use:

84000.org

It has the Tipitaka in Thai-script Pali and romanised Pali; two Thai translations of the Tipitaka; the commentaries in Thai-script Pali and romanised Pali; and the Thai translation of the commentaries.

Using Google to translate from the Thai translation of the commentaries is far from perfect, but it will at least give you the gist of what the commentary is saying.

sujato · February 26, 2024, 2:12am

You can also find the commentaries (and much else) at tipitaka.org

Ceisiwr · February 26, 2024, 12:43pm

That was my first post

brooks · February 26, 2024, 1:55pm

Thanks for responding Bhante @sujato !

Snowbird · February 26, 2024, 6:43pm

Interestingly, I found this on a recent sweep through old github issues:

github.com/suttacentral/suttacentral

Towards implementing commentaries on SC

opened 08:30AM - 29 Jun 20 UTC

sujato

Type: explore

I have had the idea in the back of my mind to implement commentaries on SC. The …first question is, why tho? Aren't we all about the EBTs? Indeed, and perhaps that is a good enough reason. Yet the commentaries exist in order to help people understand the EBTs. And regardless of personal opinions, there is no doubt that most traditional Theravadins see them in that way. Any serious study of the sutta must rely on commentaries to some extent, even if only for understanding word meanings. If we can create translations of commentaries, then this will be a breakthrough in the field, as so far very few have been done. I think it's worth a shot. ## Approach The Pali commentaries (atthakatha) and subcommentaries (tika) have been digitized and made available by VRI, whose text is also used by DPR. For now I will focus on the atthakatha, with the understanding that most of these principles will apply to Tika as well. The primary reference system in those texts is the `paranum`, which is equivalent to the `msdiv` found in our reference data. Originally I thought we could include the commentary matched on a segment-by-segment basis with our root text. However, that won't work, as there are too many differences and incompatibilities. Rather, we shall have to treat the commentaries as separate texts. The relation between them is established by two parameters: 1. the text 2. the msdiv number Note that msdiv is *not* unique in the corpus so cannot be used alone. Let us use the msdiv number as the basis for segmenting. VRI files are in a simple TEI XML form. Transforming them to SC HTML is not difficult, but note that they are far less clean and consistent than our MS files. Data in the VRI commentary files is, so far as I have determined: - Pali text - Structural markup - Inline markup (so far, only "bold", used for defined terms) - paranum (= msdiv) - references (M= Myanmar, V= VRI, P = PTS, perhaps also O = Other, T = Thai) - cross-references: not directly comparable to any extant bilara-data, these note relevant cross-references in the root Pali texts. Something like a parallel, but not really. I have made a first pass at adding the commentary for DN 2. It is live on Bilara. ## UI The commentaries will exist as separate texts, rather than as mere data for segment IDs. Thus we have to think about two things: 1. How to navigate to the commentaries as commentaries? 2. How to reach the commentary for a particular passage. Let's focus on the second question for now. In the canonical desktop app, CSCD, you click on a text and can see the commentary in a separate window, based on the msdiv. In DPR, this is only on a per-chapter basis. Note that these texts are not exactly like anything currently on SC: - Unlike bilara segment data (references, notes, etc.) the commentaries are independent texts with their own markup and structure. - Unlike parallels, the root and commentary are connected section-by-section, not just text-by-text. One UI approach would be to activate the commentary as a second column to the right of the main text. As you scroll down, the two columns keep synchronized, based on the msdiv that is shared. If you click on a passage, the relevant commentary is highlighted. Okay, that's fine for desktop, but what about mobile? Yikes. Maybe we could adapt the UI of the Pali lookup took? Use a bottom sheet? Maybe tab it between pali lookup and commentary?

brooks · February 26, 2024, 10:13pm

Thanks for sharing – IMO, commentaries on SC well-organized with the corresponding sutta would be awesome!

sujato · February 26, 2024, 11:55pm

Yes, we haven’t progressed on this, but something may still happen.

Perhaps the best approach would be to have a dedicated site for the commentaries that used SC’s ID numbers so they can be easily connected.

brooks · February 27, 2024, 1:21am

It seems like the commentaries would be a good resource when comparing parallels. For example, when comparing a Pali sutta with a Chinese parallel, if the commentary is more consistent with one than the other, perhaps that might suggest the one that the commentary is more consistent with is closer to what the Buddha said. I’m sure this may be an oversimplification, but it seems like the commentaries would be useful in comparative study.

Khemarato.bhikkhu · February 27, 2024, 2:20am

What are you talking about?

The only commentaries that are useful for this kind of study are the Sanskrit commentaries mostly preserved in Tibet which occasionally quote EBTs.

The commentaries we’re talking about here, though, are the Pāḷi commentaries (see the topic title). Of course they’re always going to match the Pāli. That’s their job…