The Glimpses of Pali Literature (Gandhavaṃsa)

The introductory study examines the Burmese manuscript tradition of the Gandhavaṃsa, its previous publication by Minayeff, its attribution to Nandapañña, and its probable composition between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It explains the work’s fivefold organization: the Tipiṭaka; authors and compilers of Pāli works; teachers associated with canonical and commentarial traditions; individual authors, including Buddhaghosa, Buddhadatta, and Dhammapāla; and miscellaneous literary and textual matters. The volume then provides the Pāli text of the Gandhavaṃsa, followed by its English translation under the opening formula “Honour to that Exalted One, Arahant, Rightly Awakened.”