Praise or Perish: Scholarly Influence of Buddhist Commemorative Publications

Abstract

Festschrift and felicitation are comparable usage for commemorative publication. Commemorative publication is compiled with respect of recalling someone or show respect to someone. Especially in the field of academia, commemorative publications are abundantly published to offer the respect for eminent personalities who substantiallycontributed for their field of study and society. Publication of commemoration works in the field of Buddhist Studies has rapidly increased last few years in Sri Lanka. Library of Postgraduate Institute of Pali& Buddhist Studies acquired a large number of publications and consequently implemented a separate collection for effective use of them. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the scholarly influence of the articles included inthecommutation works in the field of Buddhist Studies. In total 70volumes compiled as commemoration works were examined which were kept in the library of Postgraduate Institute of Pali& Buddhist Studies, (PGIPBS) University of Kelaniya. Two hypothesis were formulated to generalization the research problem. The findings of this study were substantiated the hypothesis 1 as ‘the included articles incommemoration works are scholastic.’ This study confirms the requirement of compiling an index for the collection of commemoration volumes available in PGIPBS. This assessment will enable the librarians to plan better collection development and implement better information service for their users. Further, practical implications can be utilized to upgrade the scholarly influence of the articles too. There has been no such study done on commemoration works in the field of Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka.