Burma Pitaka Association

The Burma Pitaka Association is identified in the novel’s endnotes as the publisher of a Buddhist discourse on dukkha, or suffering, cited in “Weltschmertz & Co.” Though it has no role in the plot, the association anchors the book’s reflection on suffering in a named religious text and publication record.

Bibliographic identification

The endnote locates the discourse in the Nidāna Saṃyutta, a group of discourses concerned with causal factors, specifically the Gahapati Vagga. It gives the Burma Pitaka Association as publisher and Rangoon, Burma, as the place of publication. The note thus identifies a source rather than offering a general attribution to Buddhist teaching.

Role in the novel

The reference appears among the novel’s closing explanatory notes, which clarify the sources behind material mentioned in its chapters. By naming the association alongside the discourse and its textual location, the note makes the Buddhist discussion of dukkha traceable to a particular edition. Its significance is documentary: it connects the novel’s treatment of suffering to an identified body of teaching without making the association a character or a participant in the narrated events.