Rare Collection of 23 Letters in Pali to Robert Childers, Author of the first Pali-English Dictionary

This collection of 23 letter was written to Robert Caesar Childers (1838- 1876) an Orientalist scholar, who in 1872, published the the first ever Pali-to-English dictionary, A Dictionary of the Pali Language – a two-volume dictionary.

The letters, handwritten in Pali (some with contemporary English translations) were from Therevada Buddhist monks and scholars, and formed part of Childers’ research to better understand and translate parts of the Pali Canon (the Tripitaka) – the standard collection of scriptures of the Therevada Buddhist tradition, hitherto preserved in the Pali language.

The handwriting in Pali on each letter is exquisite.

Childers moved to Sri Lanka from England in 1856 where he entered the Ceylon Civil Service. During his time in Sri Lanka (or Ceylon as it was then) he studied Sinhala and Pali and on returning to England devoted himself to Pali scholarship and preparation of the dictionary. In 1873,  he became University College, London’s,  first ever professor of Pali and Buddhist literature.

Incidentally, Childers was the father of the Irish nationalist Erskine Childers, and grandfather of a future president of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers.

The letters here are signed variously by a Buddhist monk named Dryypry, another named Waskaduwe Sri Subhuti Nakaya Theras, and others named Dhammakhanda and Paranatale, as well as several that are not signed. Each letter has been preserved in its own plastic cover with a brief note as to the contents.

 

Above: Robert Caesar Childers, Courtesy of the Childers Family Archive.