SOME 1000 DVD-Rom discs featuring Vinaya Pitaka (Buddhist scriptures relating to monastic disciplines), was donated to monasteries and libraries on August 24 by Seinyadanar Sayadaw Bhaddanta Sasanawara.

The DVD, donated to mark the 43rd birthday of the Sayadaw, was jointly devel-oped by Alpha and Inforithm-Maze companies for two years at a development cost of about K20million.

“The DVD is intended to help students and researchers deepen their understanding of the Pitakas, which are written in the Pali language,” the Sayadaw said.

The DVD features the text and image files of five treatises of Vinaya Pitaka in three versions – Pali, comme-ntary and sub-commentary – with Myanmar translation, according to various monasteries, plus a built-in Pali-Myanmar dictionary.

“The DVD-Rom also includes a search function which lets users find the topic by title, as well as a word search in the Pali and Myanmar languages. It uses search engine technology,” said U Ye Myat Thu of the Alpha Company.

The DVD-Rom can also show the original text of the treatise as a photo page by page. Clicking on a Pali word will bring up a definition.

The DVD-Rom, which features a Myanmar-language menu, can be run on computers which can install the .net framework 3.5 and can work on Windows XP and Vista operating systems.

“Users need to install the DVD in the computer, and once it’s installed they can use text files and search functions without reinserting the disc. But they need to insert the disc if they want to see photo images of original texts,” U Ye Myat Thu said.

There is a plan to distribute more DVD-Roms, which use Zawgyi font and have a data storage capacity of more than 3 gigabytes, to monasteries and libraries around the country free of charge.