How The Gem Set in Gold Found Its Flow
November 2026
The Gem Set in Gold displays English translations of the Pāli and Hindi chanting by S.N. Goenka from a ten-day Vipassana meditation course—from the opening night to the end of the course, including each day's morning chanting and all other chantings. For the Hindi dohās, the initial translation by Bill Hart was used, but the Pāli suttas that are heard during the morning chanting each day have various sources. Several of the daily 'suttas' are not actually found in the canonical Pāli Tipiṭaka.
Our 2022 newsletter feature focused on the complexity of the translation and compilation work and revealed that a second edition was in the making that would show all chantings and translations in chronological order, as they appear in the course. The first edition was released in 2006, after having been a decade in the making. However, because printing economics at the time favored a lower page count to limit initial print run costs, repeated chantings were omitted and the material was organized non-linearly. In practice, that layout made the volume notoriously difficult to navigate. Servers and students trying to locate a specific verse—such as a 2:30 PM dohā on Day 5, or the standard opening and closing group sitting chants—often had to flip between disparate sections to find what they were hearing.
The spark for an overhaul came directly from the Dhamma hall. While conducting a course at the California Vipassana Center, Sudhakar Reddy was frequently asked where specific chants could be found. Recognizing that no chronological guide existed—even for teachers— Sudhakar began compiling one himself during course breaks. Sudhakar listened attentively to opening lines, memorized them, and tracked references against course recordings. In late 2022, Sudhakar sent this index to Pariyatti, suggesting it be made available so students and Assistant Teachers could print it for course use.
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Our publishing team decided to use it as the base for a much broader, user-friendly second edition of The Gem Set in Gold. The material was subsequently re-typeset chronologically from Day 0 through Day 11. While this resulted in a larger volume with repeated daily content, readers can now simply open directly to whatever day and sitting they want to look for. The second edition also resolves discrepancies between course audio recordings. Chanting in the 1984 English-only instruction set recorded at Dhamma Dharā in Massachusetts contains minor variations from the bilingual Hindi-English recordings used worldwide. |
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While the original edition omitted these differences as minor, they have now been included. Variations from the English-only set are clearly distinguished in bold and parentheses directly within the stanzas, ensuring the book matches what meditators hear anywhere in the world.
Several significant editorial and textual additions round out the new edition:
- Complete Day 5 Tikapaṭṭhāna: The first edition contained only the matrix. At the suggestion of Vipassana and Pāli teacher Klaus Nothnagel, the second edition includes the full morning chanting text, with translations finalized by Klaus and Brett Morris.
- Context and Clear Navigation: Morning chantings include updated notes indicating where specific suttas or verses originate within the Tipiṭaka and related literature. Clear, bold subheadings mark the day, sitting time, and whether a passage is in Pāli or Hindi.
Our publisher said assembling the edition was a demanding layout and editorial task. The two-column format—Pāli or Hindi on the left, English on the right—required constant realignment whenever adjustments were made. Editorial work continued as translations into French, Swedish, and Spanish got underway, with international translators helping catch and resolve final inconsistencies.
Once the production and editorial work was complete, Pariyatti handed over the finalized files to the Vipassana Research Institute (VRI) in Igatpuri, India, who is publishing and distributing the English edition globally, now that they are set up with Amazon’s KDP. Per the agreement between Pariyatti and VRI, the book is not distributed directly on the Pariyatti website, and visitors are redirected to VRI’s listing to obtain copies. The resulting edition provides meditators and servers with a clear, practical companion that follows the course chantings step by step.
View and order The Gem Set in Gold, Second Edition