The Fifth Council Edition of the Pāli Canon

(Pañcamasaṅgīti Edition)

The well-known Burmese edition of the Pāli canon is the Chaṭṭhasaṅgīti which is an outcome of the Sixth Buddhist Council held in Yangon, Myanmar, during 1954-1956. Prior to this, King Mindon (reigned 1853–1878) had the entire canon carved on 729 marble stelae at the Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay between 1860-1868. The production of the Kuthodaw Pagoda recension was followed by the holding of the Fifth Buddhist Council in Mandalay in 1871. However, the existence of printed editions based on the Kuthodaw inscriptions are less well-known. There are several printed editions of the Kuthodaw recension, also referred to as the Pañcamasaṅgīti or Fifth Council recension, including one published by Hanthawaddy Press, the other by Thudhammawaddy Press. The former is based solely on the Kuthodaw inscriptions while the latter is the outcome of editorial works by Pāli scholars based on the inscriptions, Burmese manuscripts and individual editions.

In order to facilitate research on the transmission of the Pāli canon, we have scanned volumes of the Hanthawaddy edition and made them available here for academic purposes. This includes the entire set of the thirty-eight volumes. Of these, thirty volumes were found in Maṅgalārāma Monastery, Tauggyi, Shan State by the Ven. Kondannakitti, one of our researcher fellows. Seven further volumes were found in the West Gangaw Monastery, Mawlamyine (Moulmein), Mon State, by the Ven. Paññādhaja. Now the collection has already been donated to more than ten Buddhist Universities in Myanmar by Sotujanakārī Foundation, Mandalay. And the last volume we found, the Aṅguttaranikāya Vol. 2, belongs to the Sein Yadanar Temple, Yangon. It was acquired from the internet by Ven. Kondannakitti. The list in details are below.

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