Mahārahanīti

Mahārahanīti, “maxims of great worth” — 254 verses.

The nīti collections exist because a king needed advice. Bode puts it plainly: a king's ācariya “must be able to discourse on ethics and polity, pronounce moral maxims, and give advice”, and “the Rājanīti, Lokanīti, and Dhammanīti represent this sort of literature, modelled on Sanskrit originals” (Bode 1909, p. 51). Hinüber says it technically: the collections “rely heavily on Indian Subhāṣita traditions” and add verses from Pali sources, some of them — especially in the Rājanīti — direct translations from Sanskrit, which is what produces “an at times rather Sanskritized Pali”.

Its date and author are both uncertain, and the uncertainty is visible in the handbook itself. Bechert and Braun suggest the 1400s CE, and Hinüber prints their suggestion with a question mark attached: “Mhn: PNTB § 26 (15th century?)”. Of the four collections they edited together, only the Rājanīti names anybody — its compilers being the brahmins Anantañāṇa and Gaṇamissa, one of whom is mentioned in an inscription of the 1500s.

The history of these compilations was traced by Bechert and Braun in the introduction to Pāli Nīti Texts from Burma (London 1981), the first critical edition of the group. That volume is not held here, and it is the obvious next step for this part of the collection.