Pali
Pali is an ancient Indic language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the language of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. Pali is closely related to the Sanskrit family of languages[1]. Pali's grammar is simplified as compared with Sanskit, and the vocabulary is similar, in many cases varying only by a set of common phonological transformations, such as:
| Sanskrit | Pali | definition |
|---|---|---|
| arhat | arahant | "deserving": one who sees the true nature of existence and has conquered their own negative tendencies so that they no longer take karmic actions (those with negative consequences for themselves or anyone else); similar to 'saint' in Christianity |
| Dharma | Dhamma | "upholding": refers, among other things, to the teachings of the Buddha about how the universe works and how a person can minimize or avoid suffering for themselves and others |
| karma | kamma | "action": a thought, speech or deed which results in immediate or future (negative) consequences; or, the part of one's fate which is a consequence of past karmic actions by oneself and/or others |
| nirvāna | nibbāna or nibbāṇa | "quenching (as of fire)": a state of peacefulness; a complete lack of suffering |
| śānti | santi | "peace" |
| sūtra | sutta | "discourse" in Buddhist literature |
| sangha | saṅgha or saṃgha | either monastic order or the totality of those with certain spiritual attainments |
Name
Three spellings of the name are found in Pali:
- pāli: this is the preferred spelling of most Western scholars
- pāḷi: this spelling appears on the title pages of the Burmese, Khmer and Sinhalese editions of the Canon
- pāḷī: this is the spelling used in Aggavaṃsa's Pali grammar, the Saddanīti
Its fundamental meaning is "row (sequence)", but it is used more specifically in the sense of "text". It does not actually appear in the text of the Canon, strictly speaking (it appears in a summary verse[2]). Thus pāḷibhäsä means "the language of the texts". According to Kate Crosby, it originally meant specifically the idiom of the texts, as distinct from that (or those) of commentaries and other writings, but from about the 12th century it broadened to refer to the language as a whole. The shift from the descriptive meaning "language of the texts" to the proper name meaning "Pali language" has not been established before the 17th century.
History
A number of scholars (at least Professors Cousins ([1]), von Hinüber[3] and Oberlies[4]) give roughly the following narrative. Buddhist teachings were originally in an "Eastern" dialect of Early Middle Indo-Aryan. This term is misleading, as the area covered by it is entirely surrounded by areas of "Western" dialects. Scholars call this dialect Old Ardha-Māgadhī, Ardha-Māgadhī being the language in which the oldest Jain literature is preserved. At a later date the teachings were translated into a Western dialect, though retaining some Eastern features. Cousins considers this dialect too different from what we know today to count as Pali strictly speaking, and calls it Old Pali, following some earlier scholars. This dialect was later subject to a process of Sanskritization, which Cousins dates to the early centuries of the Christian era, calling this phase of the language Buddhist Hybrid Pali (Norman, similarly, says Pali may be regarded as a form of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit). He considers the name Pali without qualification, to apply not long before the commentaries of the 4th or 5th century. Further Sanskritization occurred later, perhaps as late as the 12th century (scholars disagree on this).
Notes
- ↑ Maurice Walshe (1996). The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya by Maurice Walshe, 1st Edition. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-8617-1103-3. p. 17
- ↑ A iv 144, PTS
- ↑ in Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, volume I, 2015
- ↑ Pali Grammar, Pali Text Society, volume 1, 2019