Compendium of Philosophy

This book is the result of the joint labour of a Western philosopher and Pali scholar, Mrs. Rhys Davids, and a Burmese Buddhist Scholar, Shwe Zan Aung. Aung had the advantage of studying Abhidhamma or “philosophy” under the learned monks of Burma, which has always been a seta of Abhidhamma learning. Aung was also versed in Western philosophy. His manuscript passed through the hands of Rhys Davids who had herself written a translation of Abhidhammattha-Sangraha which she sent to Aung. Thus, the translation before us is, in the best and fullest sense of the term, the result of Eastern and Western effort combined. The work here translated is “a primer of psychology and philosophy” which has been studies in Ceylon and Burma for probably eight centuries. In Burma it is “classed under a group of classical summaries, or compendia, entitled Let-Than, or Little-finger Manuals, nine in number, and having, most of them, an exegetical literature belonging to each work”. This compendium has been commented on more than any of the others.

The author and editor are to be congratulated for this fine work.”— Review by M. Winternitz, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Vedas and Their Angas and Upangas, Behari Lal, M R A S Shastri