ပိဋကတ်မှန်

"The Mirror of the Piṭaka" is a work belonging to a genre of scriptural catalogs (pitakat thamaing). The latter were a technical genre of Burmese literature that defined the texts that the royal court and other pious patrons of the sāsana were supposed to transmit and maintain. The origins and identity of this particular specimen are not entirely clear. It appears to be a part of a larger work that by the mid-nineteenth century have became a transmissional variant in its own right, circulating in multiple copies. The purpose of this catalog was to list the contents of all texts in the Tipiṭaka down to the level of individual rules of monastic discipline, suttas or other basic structural items. The transmissional variant found in this manuscript listis the constituents of the Vinaya (including canonical texts as well as the Vinayasaṅgaha, Khuddasikkhā, Vinayavinicchaya, and Uttarapakaraṇa), of the Suttanta-piṭaka, and terminates on Visuddhimagga. The listing of items included in the Abhidhamma-piṭaka was thus omitted. Extent and format of original material: 1 fascicle of 31 inscribed folios. Physical characteristics: 1 folio missing, left side of all folios damaged.