The Pali Text Society is a Buddhist education organization founded in 1881 in the United Kingdom by the British Ceylon Civil Service, Thomas William Rhys-Davids, to support the study of Pali texts.
The main Pali codebook studied by the Society is Tipitaka . The company is engaged in lexicography, translation and publication of original texts. All texts are printed on a Latin graphic basis.
The predecessors of Rhys-Davids for the study of fallen were his associates in the Ceylon civil service, the translator of the Mahavamsa, George Turner (1799-1843) and the compiler of the first published English-Pali dictionary, Robert Caesar Childers (1838-1876).
The company has representative offices in India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, New Zealand and the USA.
List of Presidents of the Society
- 1881-1922: Thomas William Rhys-Davids (1843-1922) (founder)
- 1922-1942: Carolyn Augusta Foley Rhys-Davids (1857-1942)
- 1942-1950: William Henry Danham Rose (1863-1950)
- 1950-1958: William Stead (1882-1958)
- 1959–1981: Izalin Blue Horner (1896–1981)
- 1981-1994: Kenneth Roy Norman (born 1925)
- 1994-2002: Richard Francis Gombrich (born 1937)
- 2002—2003: Lance Salvin Kazns
- 2003-: Rupert Mark Lowell Getin (born 1957)