PALI TEXT SOCIETY. In 1881 British scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843–1922) founded the Pali Text Society (PTS) to facilitate the study of Theravāda Buddhism by producing editions in roman characters of the Theravāda texts written in the language called Pali, and translations of as many as possible of them into English. Pali literature includes the Pali canon, a collection of texts the Theravāda Buddhists claim preserves the "words of the Buddha," and the commentaries on those canonical texts, as well as the subcommentaries on the commentaries, independent works of history and poetry, and works about ritual practice and monastic discipline.

Rhys Davids had learned Pali from Theravāda Buddhist monks during his years in the Ceylon Civil Service (1866–1872). In Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) he came to regard Theravāda as the oldest form of Buddhism, and its Pali literature as the repository...