The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary

AFTERWORD
1. DICTIONARY WORK.
IT had been my intention at the end of the work to give a full account of Pali lexicography, its history and
aims, but as the Dictionary itself has already been protracted more than others and I have wished, I have, in
order to save time and to bring the work to a finish, to reserve a detailed discussion of the method of
dictionary work for another occasion, and outline here only the essentials of what seems to me worth
mentioning at all events.
When Rhys Davids in 1916 entrusted me with the work, he was still hopeful and optimistic about it, in spite
of the failure of the first Dictionary scheme, and thought it would take only a few years to get it done. He
seemed to think that the material which was at hand (and the value of which he greatly overrated) could be
got ready for press with very little trouble. Alas! it was not so. For it was not merely and not principally a
rearrangement and editing of ready material: it was creative and re--creative work from beginning to end,
building an intellectual (so to say manomaya) edifice on newly sunk foundations and fitting all the larger
and smaller (khuddaka__nukhuddakani) accessories into their places. This was not to be done in a hurry,
nor in a leisurely way. It was a path which often led through jungle and thicket, over stones and sticks:
"vettacaro sankupatho pi cinno" (J III.541).
On the road many allurements beset me in the shape of problems which cropped up, whether they referred
to questions of grammar, syntax, phonology, or etymology; or literature, philosophy, and Buddhist
psychology. I had to state them merely as problems and collect them, but I dared not stand still and
familiarize with them. Thus much material has been left over as "chips from the dictionary workshop."
These I hope I shall some day find an opportunity of working out. For the first part of the way I had to a
great extent the help and guidance of my teacher and friend Rhys Davids; but the second half I had to go
quite alone,--Fate did not spare him to see the work right through. I am sure he would not have been less
glad than myself to--day to see the task finished.
It happens that with the completion of the P.T.S. Dictionary, the second dictionary of Pali, we celebrate the
fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of the first Pali Dictionary by R. C. Childers. That work was a
masterpiece of its time, and still retains some of its merits. Our dictionary will not altogether replace
Childers, it will supplement him. The character of Childers'Dictionary is so different from ours, there is
such an enormous discrepancy between the material which he had for his work and which we had for ours,
that it would almost be a farce to recast Childers. We needed something entirely different and original.
Childers has now only historical value. Considering that Childers has no references to any of the P.T.S.
publications, and that the Pali Dictionary embraces all the material of these publications as well as of
others, we may well speak of an entirely new dictionary, which is essential for the study of Pali Buddhism
from its sources, a task which can never be accomplished with Childers alone.In this connection I may
quote a remark by a competent critic (Mr. E. J. Thomas), who says: "Rhys Davids wanted to make the Pali
Dictionary __twice as good as Childers,__ but it is far more than that." Yet it may be interesting to compare
merely on the surface the two dictionaries. The "new" Pali Dictionary contains 146,000 authentic
references against some 38,500 of Childers (of which only half are authentic); the number of head--words
treated amounts to 17,920 against 11,420, after omitting in ours about 900 words which Childers gives with
an Abhp reference only. Anybody will admit that substantial progress is evidenced by these figures.
2. HISTORY OF THE DICTIONARY SCHEME.
The idea of the Pali Dictionary, as now published, was first put forth by Rhys Davids in September 1902
(on the thirteenth International Oriental Congress at Hamburg). It was to be compiled on the basis of the
texts issued by the P.T.S. since its foundation in 1882, and it was conceived on an international plan,
according to which some seven or eight famous Sanskrit scholars of Europe should each contribute to the
work. Every one of them was enthusiastic about it. In 1903 Rhys Davids announced that the Dictionary
would be published in 1905, or at latest in 1906. When I was studying Pali with Ernst Windisch in 1904 I