Petra Kieffer-Pülz

The Manusara dhammasattha is a Buddhist legal treatise coauthored in Burma in 1651–2 CE by a monastic vinaya scholar and a lay jurist. The text comprises 525 Pali verses and a vernacular Burmese commentary (nissaya) thereon. The treatise claims jurisdiction over the entire Buddhist community, including sangha and laity. It promulgates substantive laws related to criminal, civil, and ritual affairs, and discusses judicial procedure as well as questions of Buddhist jurisprudence and legal theory. This project will result in an annotated critical edition and translation of the Pali verses and a translation of the vernacular commentary based on all surviving manuscript witnesses to the text. It will also include as an appendix a Pali-Burmese-English glossary of Buddhist legal terminology.