Around 2008 I started recording some of the translations I have made in response to someone who complained they had no time to read, but had plenty of time to listen to talks while stuck on Penang Bridge. I have since recorded all the translations, and a number of the texts in Pali also. My Audio Page soon became the most popular page on the site.
At that time, although there were thousands of Dhamma Talks available on the Internet, the only readings from the suttas were on the Sutta Readings website, and featured readings of Pali suttas, selected and read aloud by respected Dhamma teachers within the Theravada Buddhist tradition. It appears the site was last updated around 2006.
A year or two back a new site was founded providing readings: this is audio-tipitaka. I revisited the site recently and saw that they have been making big efforts, and there are a lot of new recordings now available, many more than on my own site.
There appears to be around half a dozen readers involved, and from what I can see they are quite dedicated in the work they are doing. The recordings are mainly in English and seem to come from the translations made by Ajahn Thanissaro and others.
One of the highlights for me, at least, is the wonderful set of readings being made by Bhikkhu Jiv. in Pali. rarely do we ever hear such good, clear and unembellished reading of the language.
The site is still quite primitive, and doesn’t proivide an inline player, so they will play in a new tab if you have the right plugins installed in your browser. Otherwise the files can be downloaded and played on your computer or mp3 player.
As the site has a policy of only using freely available materials for their readings, a lot of it comes from John Bullit’s Access to Insight, and therefore they have a lot of Ajahn Thanissaro’s works. But other translators include: Bhikkhu Nyanaponika, Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Piya Tan.
Here is a sampler, the first is a reading by frank_k of Ajahn Thanissaro’s translation of the Kesaputtasutta, better known as the Kalamasutta, and it is followed by a reading of the same in Pali by Bhikkhu Jiv.
and here is a reading of the first chapter of Ven. Buddharakkhita’s Dhammapada translation by Bhikkhu Kh.:
Why don’t you head over to the audio-tipitaka site and check out some of their other works.
The languages used on the site at present are English and Pali, but they are actively looking for people from other language groups to get involved as long as the translations they read are free to reproduce.
They are also looking for volunteers so if you think there is some way you could help please see this page and contact them.