A Bilingual Pali-Dai Pātimokkha from Yunnan: Language, Exegesis, and Power at the Edge of the Theravada World

Bilingual Pali-vernacular versions of the Vinaya, including the core Pātimokkha rules and their ritual framework, are some of the most widespread forms of monastic exegesis in the Theravada world. These bilingual compositions, or bitexts, typically follow an interphrasal format, in which Pali words or short phrases are followed by expanded glosses in a local vernacular. As part of a broader inquiry into how bitexts shaped Buddhist translation across mainland Southeast Asia, this paper focuses on a single Pali-Dai example of the Pātimokkha from early modern Sipsongpanna (today’s Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province, China). This paper compares this text—preserved in facsimile form as part of the massive _Zhongguo beiyejing quanji_ project—with other manuscripts in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand to reveal how the translation choices made by Dai scholars—into Dai as well as into Chinese—made the Pātimokkha respond to local conceptions of scriptural authority and temporal power.