Abstract
A study of the variants in the Thai Syāmaraṭṭha canon shows that in many cases they offer an equal or better reading than the other recensions. By “better” is meant more contextually relevant, earlier, and more accurate—that is, offering a better solution to arcane morphological and semantic problems. In many cases these variants may be traced back to the earliest layers of the canon, through a detailed examination of various factors of language change including diachronic evolution, dialect and/or koiné influence, the effects of bilingualism, and the vagaries and ambiguities inherent in the oral transmission process.