Talk:Sixth Buddhist council

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This section was taken from the exerpt at the beginning of the Sixth Great Buddhist Council. Approved by all the venerable monks from the entire world. What is more authentic than this?

This section could be integratedinto the prsent article. it come from the main oon buddhist councils, but is too big

The Sixth Council was called at Kaba Aye in Yangon, formerly Rangoon in 1954, eighty-three years after the fifth one was held in Mandalay. It was sponsored by the Burmese Government led by the then Prime Minister, the Honourable U Nu. He authorized the construction of the Maha Passana Guha, 'the great cave', an artificial cave very like India's Sattapanni Cave where the first Buddhist Council had been held. Upon its completion The Council met on the 17th of May, 1954. As in the case of the preceding councils, its first objective was to affirm and preserve the genuine Dhamma and Vinaya. However it was unique in so far as the monks who took part in it came from eight countries. These two thousand five hundred learned Theravada monks came from Myanmar, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand. The late Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw was appointed the noble task of asking the required questions about the Dhamma of the Venerable Bhadanta Vicittasarabhivamsa who answered all of them learnedly and satisfactorily. By the time this council met all the participating countries had had the Pali Tipitaka rendered into their native scripts, with the exception of India.

The traditional recitation of the Buddhist Scriptures took two years and the Tripitaka and its allied literature in all the scripts were painstakingly examined and their differences noted down and the necessary corrections made and all the versions were then collated. Happily, it was found that there was not much difference in the content of any of the texts. Finally, after the Council had officially approved them, all of the books of the Tipitaka and their Commentaries were prepared for printing on modern presses and published in the Myanmar (Burmese) script. This notable achievement was made possible through the dedicated efforts of the two thousand five hundred monks and numerous lay people. Their work came to an end in May, 1956, two and a half millennia after the Lord Buddha's Parinibbana. This council's work was the unique achievement of representatives from the entire Buddhist world. The version of the Tipitaka which it undertook to produce has been recognized as being true to the pristine teachings of the Buddha Gotama and the most authoritative rendering of them to date.

Doubts on the 6th Buddhist Council's Tipitaka

Since the year 2000, the authenticity of the currently published version of Tipitaka of the Sixth Budhist Council has been in some doubt, as some findings from the Dhamma Society Fund in Thailand have become more well known. The Dhamma Society Fund claims it has proof that after the first printing of the Tipitaka of Sixth Buddhist Council in 1958, it had been secretly replaced with the previous Burmese Fifth Buddhist Council Tipitaka. The Dhamma Society Fund found the inconsistencies by comparing some rare orginal Burmese versions of the 1957 and the 1958 Sixth Council editions with Burmese Fifth Council editions from before 1956, and all later (and current) Sixth Buddhist Council editions. It found that the current Sixth Council Edition is identical to the Bumese Fifth Council Edition. The motivation for this secret replacement would be that the other countries (Thailand, Sri Lanka) were not printing the Sixth Buddhist Council's Tipitaka, and were still publishing the old national editions also. Because of this Burma also went back to printing their old Tipitaka, but with the cover of the Sixth Buddhist Council's edition. The Dhamma Society Fund is currently printing the 'real' Sixth Buddhist Council Tiptaka with sponsorship from the Thai King and other Thai royalty, for distribution amongst the most prestigious libraries and institutes around the world. After this, they plan to publish the Sixth Buddhist Counil Tipitaka for free, via the internet.

ā==Dhamma Society Fund==

Dear Sacca, Greetings. I saw a paragraph about "Doubts on the 6th Buddhist Council's Tipitaka" in the article, edited by you in September 2006. It explains about the doubts, and sourced as findings of Dhamma Society Fund in Thailand in year 2000. I went to the website of Dhamma Society Fund but couldn't find the mentioned case there or any other sources from Google etc. Can you help me by including the reference or sources regarding this doubts on the 6th council, maybe in the article? Thank you. Regards, --Kyaw 2003 14:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit difficult because in Thai culture it's not really accepted to criticize in public... But, i found the following:

http://www.dhammasociety.org/mds/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=309&limit=1&limitstart=1#tocontent

The Dhamma Society Fund is publishing this new Tipitaka, and on the above page they mention that their Tipitaka is the "first-ever publication of the complete Pāḷi Tipiṭaka of the Great Buddhist International Council convened in B.E. 2500/1956". It's indirectly claiming that none of the other publications (whether in Roman or Burmese script) were complete. I can't get more specific than this. If it's not good enough, please copy the comments to the talk-page, and when at a later time more info is published (on their website?), it can be re-inserted easily. (Unsigned by user Sacca).

Dear Sacca, Thank you for providing a source for me. I have followed the link and they mentioned there were a large number of omissions in 1956 and 1998 versions (as below), just like you said - not directly speaking. I'd love to have some more information on this from Wiki society. Thanks again. Regards, --Kyaw 2003 22:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, it is the publication of the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka which is the resolution of the Great International Council, the one and only Pāḷi-language Buddhist council attended by 2500 erudite Theravāda monks, mainly from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, at the international conference in 1956 (B.E. 2500). This forthcoming Tipiṭaka is therefore the result of the great Theravāda tradition which has been handed down for over the last 2500 years and will become the world's first complete Romanised edition from the world's first and only Great International Buddhist Council.

Secondly, the Dhamma Society Fund found that the Chaṭṭhasaṅgīti Tipiṭaka (the Pāḷi-language text original written in Burmese script) was incomplete. In Book 39 and Book 40 of the 40-Volume Myanmar edition, which was printed between 1956 and 1998, there were a large number of omissions.

Finally, it is the publication of a newly revised edition of the entire Pāḷi text, together with all footnotes, based strictly both on Theravāda tradition and research criteria.

That's a very useful quotation. Combined with the 2 I'm about to add, it enables us to understand what's going on here. First note that vols 39 & 40, in the numbering given in the DSF website, are vols 4 & 5 of the Patthana, which their edition transcribes from the 1st edition, published during the council, while the rest is taken from later editions.

Conditional Relations (translation of Patthana), vol II, Pali Text Society, 1981, page x:

"... the translator painstakingly determined the elisions for the benfit of persons who wish to have a complete understanding of all the 24 Paṭṭhānas. Also, wherever necessary, the elisions were determined for the Sixth Synod Edition, especially those in Vols. IV and V."

a Burmese edition of Patthana vol 5 published in 1983 has the following "viññāpanaṃ" (note or notice) at the beginning:

"Paṭṭhānapotthakassa catutthapañcamabhāgesu keci saṅkhyāvārā chaṭṭhasaṅgītiyaṃ paṭivisodhakattherehi pakkhittā, te pana 'adhikā' 'ti maññāma, pañcamasaṅgītimūle c'eva sīhaḷasyāmaiṅgalisavidesikapotthakesu ca n'atthi. Tasmā tehi pakkhittasaṅkhyāvārā idha apanītā 'ti daṭṭhabbā."

my translation:

"In the 4th & 5th volumes of the Patthana book, some enumeration sections were added by the revising elders at the 6th Council, but we consider them interpolations, & they do not exist both in the 5th Council root (text) & in the Sinhalese, Siamese & English foreign books. Therefore the enumeration sections added by them should be seen as removed here."

A Burmese edition of volume 4 published in the same year omits the note & includes the expansions.

So what happened was this:

• The Council, on the recommendation of the Sayadaw, expanded some of the elisions.
• The 1st edition, published a volume at a time as the Council finished reciting each, followed this longer text.
• So did the reprint as a complete set in 1956, presumably immediately after the end of the Council.
• This reprint was followed by the Nalanda nagari edition.
• Later, some Burmese who disapproved of the expansions issued rival editions with the expansions removed. In at least some cases, rival editions seem to have come out simultaneously.
• Such a shorter edition was collated for the Sinhalese (BJT) edition.
• Such a shorter edition was transcribed by the VRI for their electronic text.
• The Thais, noticing differences between some Burmese editions, thought "the Burmese" were falsifying the Canon, & decided to produce their own transcript.

Of couse most of this is original research & can't go in the articles, but it's useful to have the background. Peter jackson (talk) 16:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)