Offering of 5,000 books of Gihi Pattipati
to Ven Sao Chanthol (Vice Inspector of Buddhist Education of the Kingdom of
Cambodia)
Early Saturday morning we made our way to Wat Langka in the heart of Phnom Penh for a offering ceremony for the book Gihi Pattipati . We had printed the books earlier and some had been distributed. However, the Ven had kept the bulk of the books to allow us to make a formal offering when he heard we were coming to Phnom Penh. He was very appreciative of the book dana as they were sorely needed, particularly in the rural areas and provinces. We asked what other books he needed and he said that he would be very happy if we could keep this book in print. He thinks it is likely that this edition would be fully used up by end of this year.
Some
books were also offered to the this abbot of a Wat at the foothills of Udong
in Prey Veng province.
He is the fourth senior-most monk in the whole of Cambodia and a kind, metta
monk who is well loved by the local villagers for his community projects.
Note: This book was written by the late
Sangharaja of Cambodia, Ven Choun Nath, a highly respected, reform minded
teacher. Ven Chuon Nath pushed for a series of innovations in the Khmer
Sangha beginning in the early twentieth century: the use of print for sacred
texts (rather than traditional methods of hand-inscribing palm-leaf
manuscripts); a higher degree of expertise in Pali studies among monks; a
vision of orthodoxy based on teaching of Vinaya texts for both monks and
lay-people; and modernization of teaching methods for Buddhist studies. He
also oversaw the translation of the entire Pali canon into the Khmer language.
