Exploration of Pāli Manuscripts in Laos : หน้า 17/141

The journal begins with Anatole-Roger Peltier's article on his investigations of a wooden chest containing palm-leaf manuscripts that were recently discovered in a cave in the Khammouan province of Laos. The readable texts reveal that their sources lie in the Pāli canon. It is estimated, from the fact that the writing is in Pāli – in the Lao and Lan Na scripts - that the oldest date back to the sixteenth century and that they were probably sent to this location from Chiang Mai. These scripts were very similar at that time, as Peltier demonstrates, a fact that further strengthens the claim of a sixteenth century origin. It also adds to the notion of strong historical links between this region and the kingdom of Lan Na. Chanida Jantrasrisalai’s article explores the possible interpretations of the term dhammakāya in the Pāli canon. It separately investigates the meanings of dhamma and kāya as well as that of the compound itself. The result is a semantic field of possibilities from which she constructs a textual analysis of the probably intended meaning of the term. Two main issues emerge at once. Only one of the four Pāli references to dhammākāya have previously been taken seriously by scholars, perhaps because the Apadāna discourses were considered too late to be considered expressions of Early Buddhism. The second issue arises from the meaning of the term itself. Jantrasrisalai suggests that many scholars have assumed that the term signifies the ‘collection of teachings’. dhamma can easily be interpreted as “teachings” and kāya means a “collection” as well as “body.” She offers persuasive textual evidence to support her thesis that kāya means more than the teachings of the Buddha and can also refer to the Buddha’s body. These two issues come together when we realize the amount of information that is added to the available pool of knowledge about dhammakāya by the addition of the three references from the Apadānas. The earlier reference, from the Agañña-sutta provides the image of the dhamma body alongside that of the brahmā body. Whenever the two terms dhamma and brahmā “are mentioned together in parallel, they usually refer to the state of highest purity”. Then the Apadānas add the story of the Buddha’s aunt, Gotamī, who drinks ‘dhamma milk’ from the embodied dhamma