[p. I] Preface to Volume II

It is now twelve years since Vol. I of "A Critical Pāli Dictionary" was brought to a conclusion by the issue of the Epilegomena in 1948. At no time during the intervening years was the intention of continuing and completing the great lexicographical work wholly abandoned, but an estimate of the wide scope of Vol. I of the CPD was at the same time a recognition of the enormous amount of work that remained to be done. As it was evident that the immense task widely surpassed the powers of Danish or even Scandinavian Indology, the continuation of the dictionary work after 1948 mainly consisted in a revision and re-arrangement of the material for the purpose of making it accessible to a wider circle of scholars.

Helmer Smith died 9/1 1956 after some years of failing health; Hans Hendriksen, since 1944 his co-editor, had organized and directed the work in Copenhagen after he had succeeded Poul Tuxen as Professor of Indology in 1951; but a consideration of the disproportion between the exacting work and the time he could devote to it forced him to resign his editorship a year after Helmer Smith's death; he accompanied his resignation by a detailed account of the state of the work and outlined a scheme for a future resumption of the work on an international basis. The Commission of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters for the CPD (then as now consisting of Professors K. Barr, L. L. Hammerich, and L. Hjelmslev) welcomed the plan of continuing the work on an international basis, and in June 1958 L. L. Hammerich, Chairman of the Commission, brought the matter before the session of the Union Académique Internationale (UAI).

In the meantime the 24th International Congress of Orientalists at Munich, August 1957, had passed the following resolution: "This present 24th International Congress of Orientalists considering the urgent need of the Critical Pāli Dictionary undertaken by the Royal Danish Academy for every worker in the field of Buddhism as well as Indology and Indian Linguistics in general, expresses the hope that the said Academy with the assistance of the Royal Danish Government will take the necessary steps for a resumption of the work on the Critical Pāli Dictionary and ensure its speedy completion." And in 1958 a grant from the Rask-Ørsted Foundation enabled the Commission for the CPD to invite a number of Pāli scholars from different countries to attend a conference in Copenhagen (September 1958) to consider the prospect of the work on an international basis and draw up a preliminary plan for the future work. It was the unanimous opinion of the scholars invited from abroad that the dictionary work must be continued in Copenhagen, having as its foundation the copious and critically collected material [p. II] compiled by Trenckner and amplified by the editors of Vol. I of the CPD; the Danish participants called attention to the great difficulty caused by the impossibility of deciding now what texts unknown to Trenckner were thoroughly represented in the collections of the dictionary; it was agreed to meet that difficulty by an excerption undertaken by various scholars of a number of texts representing the different strata of Pāli literature; but on the other hand it was a general wish that the edition of Vol. II should not be delayed by waiting for the collection of new material.

The deliberations of the Conference have formed the basis of the drafting of the general rules for the international collaboration. The publication of the CPD will also in the future be undertaken by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters through an Administrative Commission consisting of members of the Academy, at present K. Barr, L. L. Hammerich, and L. Hjelmslev; the scholarly work will be carried on under the direction of a Supervisory Committee, for which the following Indologists were elected at the Conference: L. Alsdorf (Hamburg), H. Hendriksen (Copenhagen), I. B. Horner (London), G. P. Malalasekera (Colombo, at present Moscow), and which was in March 1960 joined by H. Humbach (Saarbrücken).

The academies which are members of the Union Académique Internationale have been invited to join the work by appointing Pāli scholars from their own countries as collaborators in the dictionary work. This must necessarily be continued and completed by joint efforts according to a plan the details of which still remain to be worked out, but which in its general outlines was approved by the UAI at the session in 1959, at which a proposal was adopted to recommend the inclusion of a subvention to the CPD in the budget of the UNESCO; this recommendation was transmitted to the session of the CIPSH (Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines) in September 1959, at which L. L. Hammerich was present. There it was decided to propose to the UNESCO to grant an annual subvention of 3000 dollars to the work of the CPD, a proposal to be treated at the general assembly of the UNESCO in December 1960.

The UNESCO subvention is applied for as a supplement to the expenses defrayed by the various academies; the financing of the work is mainly based on the principle that each participating academy pays the scholars it places at the disposal of the dictionary work. The Supervisory Committee has the right of approval of the collaborators. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters has reason to believe that it will further be able to pay — besides the Danish collaborators — both the cost of print, the rent of working rooms, and office expenses, as has hitherto been the case.

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters will be able to do this, if, as it is hoped, the Carlsberg Foundation (Copenhagen) will continue to give as liberal subsidies as it has done in the past, especially to pay the work of the Danish collaborators. We are exceedingly grateful for all that the Carlsberg Foundation has done for many years for the benefit of the Critical Pāli Dictionary. — It is also to be hoped that the Rask-Ørsted Foundation (Copenhagen) will in the future as in the past give occasional subsidies to ensure the cooperation of Danish and non-Danish Pāli-scholars.

The Academy of Mainz (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz) [p. III] was the first to join the general plan. Thanks especially to the efforts of Prof. Helmuth Scheel, the General Secretary of the said academy, it has been possible to release Dr. Hermann Kopp (Heidelberg) from other duties and persuade him to take up the dictionary work in Copenhagen, where he has devoted his full working-power to the cause of the CPD for more than a year; the Academy of Mainz (supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) has co-operated with the Heidelberg Academy (Akademie der Wissenschaften, Heidelberg) in this matter, and it is hoped that Dr. Kopp will be able to carry on this important work.

Also the Czechoslovak Academy (Československá Akademie Věd) has joined the work for the continuation of the CPD. At the suggestion of Prof. J. Prušek (of the said academy), supported by Dr. Holubec of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Education, it was arranged that Dr. Ivo Fišer, Lecturer at the Charles University of Prague, should spend a month in Copenhagen (October 1959) to acquaint himself with the work; he at once joined in the collaboration and will be able to continue his work for the CPD from Prague.

Preliminary negotiations have been conducted with other academies, but it will take some time before international collaboration under the auspices of the UAI will be fully organized. In the meantime the Commission for the CPD has by correspondence and personal contact established connection with a number of Pāli scholars who may one day be active collaborators, and thanks to a grant from the Rask-Ørsted Foundation the Commission could invite the Sinhalese Pāli scholar, Dr. C. E. Godakumbura (then Senior Lecturer at the University of London) to be the first collaborator from abroad in the renewed work; Dr. Godakumbura spent a month about New Year 1959 in Copenhagen, dividing his time between the elaboration of plans for the future work and the drafting of some of the first articles for Vol. II. Dr. Godakumbura will also work for the CPD in the future, as far as his office as Archaeological Commissioner of the Government of Ceylon leaves him time.

At the Conference in Copenhagen in September 1958 the possibility of including other lexicographical collections in the edition of the CPD was mentioned. Attention was especially called to the comprehensive collection of lexicographical slips left by W. Geiger. Mrs. Geiger was ready to meet the wishes of the Royal Danish Academy, and entrusted Prof. H. Humbach, Saarbrücken, and his assistant Dr. H. Bechert (who is editing other literary work left by Geiger) with the arrangement of the utilization of the material with the Danish Academy; for this purpose Dr. Bechert visited Copenhagen in January this year, and an agreement was made according to which Geiger's valuable collections will be regularly included in the CPD from fasc. 2 of Vol. II; the first fascicle was already in the press, when Dr. Bechert visited Copenhagen, but he has taken the trouble to make some additions to the proofs. It is to be deeply regretted that Mrs. Geiger did not live to see the arrangement for the inclusion of W. Geiger's lexicographical collections in the CPD carried into effect; she died on Jan. 25, 1960; the trustee of the heirs, Prof. Rudolf Geiger, approved of the arrangement and welcomed the publication of his father's collections under the general scheme of the CPD, for which the members of the Commission wish to express their gratitude. [p. IV] Since Dr. H. Kopp accepted the appointment by the Academy of Mainz, the work in Copenhagen has been carried out by him in connection with the Danish collaborators, F. Møller-Kristensen, M. A., Else Pauly, and N. Warmdahl, who, however, have so far been able to give only part of their time to the dictionary work; the publication of fasc. 1 of Vol. II is the result of the joint efforts of the workers in Copenhagen, Prof. L. Alsdorf, Hamburg, Dr. C. E. Godakumbura, Colombo, and Dr. Ivo Fišer, Prague. Mrs. Pauly has had the special task of coordination and has given valuable assistance to the Administrative Commission.

At the preparation of the articles the system of Vol. I has, naturally, been followed, but a detailed plan for the coordination of the work has still to be worked out, and a completely uniform arrangement has not been possible in the present circumstances.

In agreement with what was decided at the Conference in 1958, a scheme has been drawn up according to which a number of important or typical texts, belonging to the different strata of later Pāli, should be systematically excerpted by scholars from various countries; but it will take some years before the enlarged material is at hand; in the meantime, rather laborious investigations of texts must be undertaken — and have been undertaken — at the drafting of the articles; in spite of all efforts, this way of adding to the material is not satisfactory, and it is to be hoped that from the beginning of the consonants the enlarged material will form the basis of the published work.

The collaborators wish to express their gratitude to the Pali Text Society for the publication of the "Pāli Tipiṭakaṃ Concordance", which has been a great support in the work, and which has supplied a number of references; at the same time it should be stressed that the CPD does not pretend to give all canonical references, and thus by no means renders the Concordance superfluous even for the published parts of the CPD.

The Royal Library of Copenhagen and the University Library of Uppsala have placed a number of books at the disposal of the CPD; the Commission and the collaborators are very grateful for receiving that liberal help, which is much needed, as it will take some time before the library of the CPD will be sufficiently enlarged to supply the books necessary for the extended work.

Many eminent scholars both in Europe, in America, and in Asia have shown an active interest in the progress of the work at the CPD and have assisted the Commission in various ways at the reorganization of the work; it is our hope that in a few years the united efforts will have created powerful collaboration of competent scholars from the East and the West, who will be able to complete the great work in about twenty-five years.