Introduction

This webpage and the accompanying downloadable pdf files represent an effort by Pariyatti to preserve the invaluable writings from Burma around the era of the 6th Buddhist Council, otherwise know as the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana, in the mid-1950’s.

1956 represented the 2,500th anniversary of the teachings of the Buddha. To commemorate this event and to reinvigorate the Sāsana (the teaching of the Buddha), a recitation of the entire Tipiṭaka (the written documentation of the entire collection of the Buddha’s teachings) was held in Rangoon, Burma (later renamed Yangon, Myanmar). Twenty five hundred bhikkhus from Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia participated in the recitation, which spanned several years. Lay attendees from over 30 countries attended various portions of the council. It is a popular belief among Theravada Buddhists that the Buddha’s teaching is destined to last for 5,000 years following his lifetime.

A recent view from within the Mahāpāsāṇa cave, the same cave where the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana was held.
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Additionally, this belief holds that the second half of this Sāsana will see a strong resurgence of the spread of the Dhamma throughout the World. In light of this event, two different publishing organizations were formed in Burma to help the spread of these teachings. The first was formed in Rangoon and called The Union of Burma Buddha Sāsana Council. This organization began publishing the The Light of the Dhamma in October, 1952 and continued to publish the magazine in fairly consistent quarterly installments until mid-1963. The second organization was formed in Mandalay and called The Burma Buddhist Society. This Mandalay publication was called the The Light of Buddha, and it began monthly publication in April, 1956 and continued until 1965.

Members of UBSC - Jan 1958
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Each issue of these magazines contained a wide selection of articles submitted to the editors. Among the notable writers whose works were found in its pages are many Venerable Mahatheras, for instance: Ven. Ledi Sayadaw, Ven U Thittila, Ven. Piyadassi, Ven. Buddhadatta, Ven. Nyanatiloka, Ven. Nayanaponika, Ven. Narada, as well as lay writers such as The Honerable U Nu, Prime Minister of Burma, Mr. Francis Story (Anagārika Sugatananda), U Ohn Ghine, U Chan Htoon, U Hla Maung and many others. Topics of these articles included updates on the Council’s recitation, various aspects of the Buddha’s teachings, and practical application of these teachings in day-to-day life.

Many of the issues of the The Light of the Dhamma contained a translation of a Dīpanī (manual) by the Venerable Ledi Sayadaw. In 1981, some of these were included in a book titled The Manuals of Buddhism published by the Department of Religious Affairs, Rangoon. Today this book is available from Pariyatti as The Manuals of Dhamma. Two other collections were made from The The Light of the Dhamma issues: The Dhammapada Commentary and The Five Nikayas, Discourses of the Buddha, An Anthology. These later two books are currently out of print, but we are making efforts to make these available on the Treasures of Pariyatti site in the future.

The accompanying electronic texts represent an exhaustive effort to re-publish these works. These texts are now mostly 50 years old and in various stages of decay. The original texts were first copied to avoid damaging the originals and to minimize the bleed-through effect of the aging pages. The copies were then scanned using Optical Character Recognition technology which captured the majority of the Roman script, English characters. The texts were then analyzed word by word for proper translation, including the insertion of the appropriate diacritical marks for Pali words found in the original texts. All pictures and tables were then scanned in and placed appropriately to accurately represent the original formatting. Lastly, they were converted to pdf formats, proofread again and then uploaded to this site.

Additional issues will become available on the Treasures of Pariyatti website as the re-publication work progresses. There are a number of additional issues in process, however, there are many more issues of which we do not have copies. If you have copies of either the The Light of the Dhamma or the The Light of Buddha, and are willing to loan or donate them to Pariyatti for scanning and re-publication, please email us at treasures (at) pariyatti.org.

The expressed intent of the original publishers of these two magazines was to propagate the teaching of the Buddha with no monetary remuneration involved. These publishing entities and their editorial boards have long-ago dissolved. These works were originally published with no copyrights, and we believe that they would approve and endorse these measures that we have taken to preserve their monumental efforts. The objective of Pariyatti in making these works much more widely available through digital media is a continuation of those efforts to spread the teaching of the Buddha and to propagate the Sāsana.

May All Beings Be Happy.