Introduction

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 9 7 INTRODUCTION Anna Allo�* This volume of the Journal of Burma Studies originates from a symposium held in September 1998 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, to honor the achievements of U Pe Maung Tin. The meeting was organized by his youngest daughter, Daw Tin Tin Myaing (Brenda Stanley); it brought together scholars and former pupils from Burma, England, France, Germany, and Japan. The turbulent yearof1988shouldhaveseenthecelebrationofthecentenaryof his birth, but such a celebration only became possible ten years later. Some of the papers prepared for the 1998 symposium, revised and edited, are collected here, together with one by a leading Burmese historian, published in Burma in 1999. U Pe Maung Tin was the most eminent Burmese scholar of his time and one who pioneered the study of Burmese language, literature, and history in the newly founded University of Rangoon. He was a Christian from birth, yet early on in his career he mastered Pali, the language of Buddhism, and demonstrated an exceptional ability to translate complex Pali texts into fluent English and to interpret Buddhist doctrine to western scholars. Throughout his life he was a stimulating teacher, challenging his students to outdo him in their studies. And he did much to make the Burma Research Society and its journal one of the best of its kind in Southeast Asia. It is a great pleasure to have been asked to be guest editor of this volume as it gives me the opportunity to put on record my own personal experience of working with the great teacher—Hsaya-gyi—more than 50 years ago. As a beginning student of Burmese language and literature, I was immensely privileged at the age of twenty-three to have been given three hours a week of personal tuition by U Pe Maung Tin from * Senior ResearchAssociate in Burmese Studies, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. 8 Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 9 Anna Allo� November 1953 to January 1954. He had recently wri�en (see U Pe Maung Tin bibliography, this volume, no. 158) a book on Burmese syntax, which had just been reprinted in 15,000 copies for use in schools. I came fresh from the Department of Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies with the latest ideas for the analysis and description of Burmese grammar. As I recorded in my diary, we spent most of the time in amicable discussion and argument about the best way to describe Burmese grammar. Although Hsaya-gyi’s approach to grammatical description was greatly influenced by Pali and English grammar, his inquiring mind was fully open to newer methods of linguistic analysis. When, in March 1954, the Burma Research Society held a seminar in Rangoon on the relatively unfamiliar topic of linguistics, U Pe Maung Tin took part enthusiastically and himself read a paper, “Some Features of the Burmese Language” (see this volume, Allo�; Bernot). My article gives an outline of U Pe Maung Tin’s life and work as a Pali scholar, lifelong student of and promoter of Burmese language and literature, translator, historian, linguist, phonetician,teacher,andeditor.Italsoprovidesaguidetosome publications in Burma, in Burmese and English, containing tributes to U Pe Maung Tin by many former colleagues and pupils at two further symposia held in Rangoon in December 1998. The extensive bibliography compiled by Patricia Herbert in this volume makes clear his prodigious output in Burmese and English over the course of a lifetime of writing from age 23 to age 84. As editor of the Journal of the Burma Research Society, he made regular reviews one of its most important features. His first review of the Report of the Superintendent of the Archaeological Survey appeared in 1913 (see no. 32 in Herbert's bibliography, this volume), and of the Journal of the Pali Text Society in 1915 (see no. 40). His early interest in Burmese philology is shown in no. 37, which is a 30-page study of Burmese archaic words and expressions with English definitions. However, far from considering that only Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 9 9 Introduction Pali-related,seriousacademictopicsshouldappearinthe JBRS, U Pe Maung Tin...