![Burmese Kammavaca Manuscript](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Burmese_Kammavaca_Manuscript.jpg)
Pali () is a
Middle Indo-Aryan
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...
liturgical language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Concept
A sacr ...
native to the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
During ...
'' or ''
Tipiṭaka
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
During t ...
'' as well as the
sacred language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Concept
A sacr ...
of ''
Theravāda
''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...
''
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...
.
[Stargardt, Janice. ''Tracing Thoughts Through Things: The Oldest Pali Texts and the Early Buddhist Archaeology of India and Burma.'', Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000, page 25.] Early in the language's history, it was written in the
Brahmi script
Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...
.
Origin and development
Etymology
The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript.
K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound , with being interpreted as the name of a particular language.
[
The name Pali does not appear in the canonical literature, and in commentary literature is sometimes substituted with , meaning a string or lineage.][ This name seems to have emerged in Sri Lanka early in the second millennium CE during a resurgence in the use of Pali as a courtly and literary language.][
As such, the name of the language has caused some debate among scholars of all ages; the spelling of the name also varies, being found with both long "ā" and short "a" , and also with either a ]retroflex
A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...
or non-retroflex "l" sound. Both the long ā and retroflex are seen in the ISO 15919/ALA-LC
ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script.
Applications
The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...
rendering, ; however, to this day there is no single, standard spelling of the term, and all four possible spellings can be found in textbooks. R. C. Childers translates the word as "series" and states that the language "bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure".
Geographic origin
There is persistent confusion as to the relation of to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...
, which was located around modern-day Bihār. Beginning in the Theravada commentaries, Pali was identified with 'Magahi
The Magahi language (), also known as Magadhi (), is a language spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal states of eastern India, and in the Terai of Nepal. Magadhi Prakrit was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives. ...
', the language of the kingdom of Magadha
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...
, and this was taken to also be the language that the Buddha used during his life.[ In the 19th century, the British Orientalist ]Robert Caesar Childers
Robert Caesar Childers (12 February 1838 – 25 July 1876) was a British Orientalist scholar, compiler of the first Pāli-English dictionary. Childers was the husband of Anna Barton of Ireland. He was the father of Irish nationalist Erskine C ...
argued that the true or geographical name of the Pali language was Magadhi Prakrit, and that because ''pāḷi'' means "line, row, series", the early Buddhists extended the meaning of the term to mean "a series of books", so ''pāḷibhāsā'' means "language of the texts".
However, modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit
The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...
languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined and partially Sanskritized.[Bhikkhu Bodhi, ''In the Buddha's Words.'' Wisdom Publications, 2005, page 10.] There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali.[ In the modern era, it has been possible to compare Pali with inscriptions known to be in Magadhi Prakrit, as well as other texts and grammars of that language.][ While none of the existing sources specifically document pre-Ashokan Magadhi, the available sources suggest that Pali is not equatable with that language.][
Modern scholars generally regard Pali to have originated from a western dialect, rather than an eastern one.] Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who reigned from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the expre ...
at Girnar
Girnar is an ancient hill in Junagadh, Gujarat, India.
Geology
Mount Girnar is a major igneous plutonic complex which intruded into the basalts towards the close of the Deccan Trap period. The rock types identified in this complex are ga ...
in Saurashtra, and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription
The Hathigumpha Inscription is a seventeen line inscription in Prakrit language incised in Brahmi script in a cavern called Hathigumpha in Udayagiri hills, near Bhubaneswar in Odisha, India. Dated between 2nd-century BCE and 1st-century CE, it ...
.[ These similarities lead scholars to associate Pali with this region of western India.][Hirakawa, Akira. Groner, Paul. ''A History of Indian Buddhism: From Śākyamuni to Early Mahāyāna.'' 2007. p. 119] Nonetheless, Pali does retain some eastern features that have been referred to as ''Māgadhisms''.
Pāḷi, as a Middle Indo-Aryan language
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...
, is different from Classical Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin. A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a direct continuation of Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, different from .
Early history
The Theravada
''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...
commentaries refer to the Pali language as "Magadhan
The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Māgadhan languages, are spoken throughout the eastern Indian subcontinent (East India and Assam, Bangladesh), including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal, Tripura, Assam, and Odisha; alongs ...
" or the "language of Magadha".[ This identification first appears in the commentaries, and may have been an attempt by Buddhists to associate themselves more closely with the Maurya Empire.][
However, only some of the Buddha's teachings were delivered in the historical territory of ]Magadha kingdom
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...
.[ Scholars consider it likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Theravada tradition, as recorded in chronicles like the Mahavamsa, states that the ''Tipitaka'' was first committed to writing during the first century BCE.][ This move away from the previous tradition of oral preservation is described as being motivated by threats to the '']Sangha
Sangha is a Sanskrit word used in many Indian languages, including Pali meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community"; Sangha is often used as a surname across these languages. It was historically used in a political context t ...
'' from famine, war, and the growing influence of the rival tradition of the Abhayagiri Vihara Abhayagiri may refer to:
* Abhayagiri vihāra
Abhayagiri Vihāra was a major monastery site of Mahayana, Theravada and Vajrayana Buddhism that was situated in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. It is one of the most extensive ruins in the world and one ...
.[ This account is generally accepted by scholars, though there are indications that Pali had already begun to be recorded in writing by this date.][ By this point in its history, scholars consider it likely that Pali had already undergone some initial assimilation with ]Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, such as the conversion of the Middle-Indic ''bamhana'' to the more familiar Sanskrit ''brāhmana'' that contemporary brahmans
Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru o ...
used to identify themselves.[
In Sri Lanka, Pali is thought to have entered into a period of decline ending around the 4th or 5th century (as Sanskrit rose in prominence, and simultaneously, as Buddhism's adherents became a smaller portion of the subcontinent), but ultimately survived. The work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. The '']Visuddhimagga
The ''Visuddhimagga'' (Pali; English: ''The Path of Purification''), is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and sys ...
'', and the other commentaries that Buddhaghosa compiled, codified and condensed the Sinhala commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in Sri Lanka since the 3rd century BCE.
With only a few possible exceptions, the entire corpus of Pali texts known today is believed to derive from the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya
The Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya was an important mahavihara or large Buddhist monastery for Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka. King Devanampiya Tissa of Anuradhapura (247–207 BCE) founded it in his capital city of Anuradhapura. Monks such as Buddh ...
in Sri Lanka.[ While literary evidence exists of Theravadins in mainland India surviving into the 13th Century, no Pali texts specifically attributable to this tradition have been recovered.][ Some texts (such as the ]Milindapanha
The ''Milinda Pañha'' () is a Buddhist text which dates from sometime between 100 BC and 200 AD. It purports to record a dialogue between the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgasena, and the 2nd century BC Indo-Greek king Menander I (Pali: ''Milinda' ...
) may have been composed in India before being transmitted to Sri Lanka, but the surviving versions of the texts are those preserved by the Mahavihara in Ceylon and shared with monasteries in Theravada Southeast Asia.[
The earliest inscriptions in Pali found in mainland Southeast Asia are from the first millennium CE, some possibly dating to as early as the 4th Century.][ Inscriptions are found in what are now Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia and may have spread from southern India rather than Sri Lanka.][ By the 11th Century, a so-called "Pali renaissance" began in the vicinity of Pagan, gradually spreading to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia as royal dynasties sponsored monastic lineages derived from the Mahavihara of Anuradhapura.][ This era was also characterized by the adoption of Sanskrit conventions and poetic forms (such as '' kavya'') that had not been features of earlier Pali literature.] This process began as early as the 5th Century, but intensified early in the second millennium as Pali texts on poetics and composition modeled on Sanskrit forms began to grow in popularity.[ One milestone of this period was the publication of the Subodhalankara during the 14th Century, a work attributed to Sangharakkhita Mahāsāmi and modeled on the Sanskrit ]Kavyadarsa The Kavyadarsha ( sa, काव्यादर्श, ) by Dandin is the earliest surviving systematic treatment of poetics in Sanskrit.
Contents
This work is divided into 3 ''pariccheda''s (chapters) in most of the printed editions, except one ...
.[
Despite an expansion of the number and influence of Mahavihara-derived monastics, this resurgence of Pali study resulted in no production of any new surviving literary works in Pali.][ During this era, correspondences between royal courts in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia were conducted in Pali, and grammars aimed at speakers of Sinhala, Burmese, and other languages were produced.] The emergence of the term 'Pali' as the name of the language of the Theravada canon also occurred during this era.[
]
Manuscripts and inscriptions
While Pali is generally recognized as an ancient language, no epigraphical or manuscript evidence has survived from the earliest eras.[ The earliest samples of Pali discovered are inscriptions believed to date from 5th to 8th Century located in mainland Southeast Asia, specifically central ]Siam
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
and lower Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
. These inscriptions typically consist of short excerpts from the Pali Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
During t ...
and non-canonical texts, and include several examples of the Ye dhamma hetu verse.[
Surprisingly, the oldest surviving Pali manuscript was discovered in ]Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
dating to the 9th Century.[ It is in the form of four palm-leaf folios, using a transitional script deriving from the Gupta script to scribe a fragment of the ]Cullavagga
Khandhaka is the second book of the Theravadin ''Vinaya Pitaka'' and includes the following two volumes:
* Mahāvagga: includes accounts of Gautama Buddha's and the ten principal disciples' awakenings, as well as rules for uposatha days and monast ...
. The oldest known manuscripts from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia date to the 13th-15th Century, with few surviving examples.[ Very few manuscripts older than 400 years have survived, and complete manuscripts of the four Nikayas are only available in examples from the 17th Century and later.][
]
Early Western research
Pali was first mentioned in Western literature in Simon de la Loubère
Simon de la Loubère (; 21 April 1642 – 26 March 1729) was a French diplomat to Siam (Thailand), writer, mathematician and poet. He is credited with bringing back a document which introduced Europe to Indian astronomy, the "Siamese method" ...
's descriptions of his travels in the kingdom of Siam.[ An early grammar and dictionary was published by Methodist missionary Benjamin Clough in 1824, and an initial study published by ]Eugène Burnouf
Eugène Burnouf (; April 8, 1801May 28, 1852) was a French scholar, an Indologist and orientalist. His notable works include a study of Sanskrit literature, translation of the Hindu text ''Bhagavata Purana'' and Buddhist text ''Lotus Sutra''. He ...
and Christian Lassen
Christian Lassen (22 October 1800 – 8 May 1876) was a Norwegian-born, German orientalist and Indologist. He was a professor of Old Indian language and literature at the University of Bonn.
Biography
He was born at Bergen, Norway where he att ...
in 1826 (''Essai Sur Le Pali, Ou Langue Sacree de La Presqu'ile Au-Dela Du Gange'').[ The first modern Pali-English dictionary was published by Robert Childers in 1872 and 1875.] Following the foundation of the Pali Text Society
The Pali Text Society is a text publication society founded in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts".
Pāli is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The ...
, English Pali studies grew rapidly and Childer's dictionary became outdated.[ Planning for a new dictionary began in the early 1900s, but delays (including the outbreak of World War I) meant that work was not completed until 1925.][
T. W. Rhys Davids in his book ''Buddhist India'', and ]Wilhelm Geiger
Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger (; ; 21 July 1856 – 2 September 1943) was a German Orientalist in the fields of Indo-Iranian languages and the history of Iran and Sri Lanka. He was known as a specialist in Pali, Sinhala language and the Dhivehi language ...
in his book ''Pāli Literature and Language'', suggested that Pali may have originated as a lingua franca or common language of culture among people who used differing dialects in North India, used at the time of the Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
and employed by him. Another scholar states that at that time it was "a refined and elegant vernacular of all Aryan-speaking people". Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue; there are a variety of conflicting theories with supporters and detractors. After the death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language. R. C. Childers, who held to the theory that Pali was Old Magadhi, wrote: "Had Gautama never preached, it is unlikely that Magadhese would have been distinguished from the many other vernaculars of Hindustan, except perhaps by an inherent grace and strength which make it a sort of Tuscan among the Prakrits."
Modern scholarship
According to K. R. Norman, differences between different texts within the canon suggest that it contains material from more than a single dialect.[ He also suggests it is likely that the viharas in North India had separate collections of material, preserved in the local dialect.][ In the early period it is likely that no degree of translation was necessary in communicating this material to other areas. Around the time of ]Ashoka
Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...
there had been more linguistic divergence, and an attempt was made to assemble all the material.[ It is possible that a language quite close to the Pali of the canon emerged as a result of this process as a compromise of the various dialects in which the earliest material had been preserved, and this language functioned as a lingua franca among Eastern Buddhists from then on.][ Following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation (i.e., MIA bamhana > brahmana, tta > tva in some cases).
]Bhikkhu Bodhi
Bhikkhu Bodhi (born December 10, 1944), born Jeffrey Block, is an American Theravada Buddhist monk, ordained in Sri Lanka and currently teaching in the New York and New Jersey area. He was appointed the second president of the Buddhist Publ ...
, summarizing the current state of scholarship, states that the language is "closely related to the language (or, more likely, the various regional dialects) that the Buddha himself spoke". He goes on to write:
According to A. K. Warder, the Pali language is a Prakrit language used in a region of Western India
Western India is a loosely defined region of India consisting of its western part. The Ministry of Home Affairs in its Western Zonal Council Administrative division includes the states of Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra along with the Union ...
.[Warder, A. K. ''Indian Buddhism''. 2000. p. 284] Warder associates Pali with the Indian realm ('' janapada'') of Avanti, where the Sthavira nikāya was centered. Following the initial split in the Buddhist community, the Sthavira nikāya became influential in Western and South India
South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...
while the Mahāsāṃghika
The Mahāsāṃghika ( Brahmi: 𑀫𑀳𑀸𑀲𑀸𑀁𑀖𑀺𑀓, "of the Great Sangha", ) was one of the early Buddhist schools. Interest in the origins of the Mahāsāṃghika school lies in the fact that their Vinaya recension appears in ...
branch became influential in Central and East India
East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha
and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magadh ...
. Akira Hirakawa and Paul Groner also associate Pali with Western India and the Sthavira nikāya, citing the Saurashtran inscriptions, which are linguistically closest to the Pali language.
Emic views of Pali
Although Sanskrit was said in the Brahmanical
The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedicism, Vedism or ancient Hinduism and subsequently Brahmanism (also spelled as Brahminism)), constituted the religious ideas and practices among some Indo-Aryan peoples of northwest Indian Subco ...
tradition to be the unchanging language spoken by the gods in which each word had an inherent significance, such views for any language was not shared in the early Buddhist traditions, in which words were only conventional and mutable signs. This view of language naturally extended to Pali and may have contributed to its usage (as an approximation or standardization of local Middle Indic dialects) in place of Sanskrit. However, by the time of the compilation of the Pali commentaries (4th or 5th century), Pali was described by the anonymous authors as the natural language, the root language of all beings.[
Comparable to Ancient Egyptian, ]Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
or Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
in the mystic traditions of the West, Pali recitations were often thought to have a supernatural power (which could be attributed to their meaning, the character of the reciter, or the qualities of the language itself), and in the early strata of Buddhist literature we can already see Pali s used as charms, as, for example, against the bite of snakes. Many people in Theravada cultures still believe that taking a vow in Pali has a special significance, and, as one example of the supernatural power assigned to chanting in the language, the recitation of the vows of are believed to alleviate the pain of childbirth in Sri Lanka. In Thailand, the chanting of a portion of the is believed to be beneficial to the recently departed, and this ceremony routinely occupies as much as seven working days. There is nothing in the latter text that relates to this subject, and the origins of the custom are unclear.
Pali today
Pali died out as a literary language in mainland India in the fourteenth century but survived elsewhere until the eighteenth. Today Pali is studied mainly to gain access to Buddhist scriptures, and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. The secular literature of Pali historical chronicles, medical texts, and inscriptions is also of great historical importance. The great centres of Pali learning remain in Sri Lanka and other Theravada nations of Southeast Asia: Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
, Laos and Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
. Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of Pali studies in India have promoted awareness of the language and its literature, including the Maha Bodhi Society
The Maha Bodhi Society is a South Asian Buddhist society presently based in Kolkata, India. Founded by the Sri Lankan Buddhist leader Anagarika Dharmapala and the British journalist and poet Sir Edwin Arnold, its first office was in Bodh Gaya. Th ...
founded by Anagarika Dhammapala
Anagārika Dharmapāla (Pali: ''Anagārika'', ; Sinhala: Anagārika, lit., si, අනගාරික ධර්මපාල; 17 September 1864 – 29 April 1933) was a Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist and a writer.
Anagarika Dharmapāla is not ...
.
In Europe, the Pali Text Society
The Pali Text Society is a text publication society founded in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts".
Pāli is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The ...
has been a major force in promoting the study of Pali by Western scholars since its founding in 1881. Based in the United Kingdom, the society publishes romanized Pali editions, along with many English translations of these sources. In 1869, the first ''Pali Dictionary'' was published using the research of Robert Caesar Childers, one of the founding members of the Pali Text Society. It was the first Pali translated text in English and was published in 1872. Childers' dictionary later received the Volney Prize The Prix Volney ( en, Volney Medal) is awarded by the Institute of France after proposition by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to a work of comparative philology.
The prize was founded by Constantin Volney in 1803 and was original ...
in 1876.
The Pali Text Society was founded in part to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to Indology in late 19th-century England and the rest of the UK; incongruously, the citizens of the UK were not nearly so robust in Sanskrit and Prakrit language studies as Germany, Russia, and even Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establish ...
. Even without the inspiration of colonial holdings such as the former British occupation of Sri Lanka and Burma, institutions such as the Danish Royal Library
The Royal Library ( da, Det Kongelige Bibliotek) in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the university library of the University of Copenhagen. It is among the largest libraries in the world and the largest in the Nordic countries ...
have built up major collections of Pali manuscripts, and major traditions of Pali studies.
Pali literature
Pali literature
Pali literature is concerned mainly with Theravada Buddhism, of which Pali is the traditional language. The earliest and most important Pali literature constitutes the Pāli Canon, the authoritative scriptures of Theravada school.
Pali literat ...
is usually divided into canonical and non-canonical or extra-canonical texts. Canonical texts include the whole of the Pali Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
During t ...
or '' Tipitaka''. With the exception of three books placed in the Khuddaka Nikaya by only the Burmese tradition, these texts (consisting of the five Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka, the Vinaya Pitaka
The Vinaya ( Pali & Sanskrit: विनय) is the division of the Buddhist canon ('' Tripitaka'') containing the rules and procedures that govern the Buddhist Sangha (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). Three parallel Vinaya traditions rem ...
, and the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka) are traditionally accepted as containing the words of the Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
and his immediate disciples by the Theravada tradition.
Extra-canonical texts can be divided into several categories:
* Commentaries (''Atthakatha
Aṭṭhakathā (Pali for explanation, commentary) refers to Pali-language Theravadin Buddhist commentaries to the canonical Theravadin Tipitaka. These commentaries give the traditional interpretations of the scriptures. The major commentaries w ...
'') which record additional details and explanations regarding the contents of the Suttas.
* Sub-commentaries ('' ṭīkā'') which explain and add contents to the commentaries
* Chronicles ('' Vaṃsa'') which relate the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, as well as the origins of famous relics and shrines and the deeds of historical and mythical kings
* Manuals and treatises, which include summaries of canonical books and compendia of teachings and techniques like the Visuddhimagga
The ''Visuddhimagga'' (Pali; English: ''The Path of Purification''), is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and sys ...
* Abhidhamma manuals, which explain the contents of the Abhidhamma Pitaka
Other types of texts present in Pali literature include works on grammar and poetics, medical texts, astrological and divination texts, cosmologies, and anthologies or collections of material from the canonical literature.[
While the majority of works in Pali are believed to have originated with the Sri Lankan tradition and then spread to other Theravada regions, some texts may have other origins. The ]Milinda Panha
The ''Milinda Pañha'' () is a Buddhist text which dates from sometime between 100 BC and 200 AD. It purports to record a dialogue between the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgasena, and the 2nd century BC Indo-Greek king Menander I (Pali: ''Milinda'' ...
may have originated in northern India before being translated from Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
or Gandhari Prakrit
Gāndhārī is the modern name, coined by scholar Harold Walter Bailey (in 1946), for a Prakrit language found mainly in texts dated between the 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE in the region of Gandhāra, located in the northwestern Indian s ...
. There are also a number of texts that are believed to have been composed in Pali in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma but were not widely circulated. This regional Pali literature is currently relatively little known, particularly in the Thai tradition, with many manuscripts never catalogued or published.[
]
Relationship to other languages
Paiśācī
is a largely unattested
In linguistics, attested languages are languages (living or dead) that have been documented and for which the evidence (attestation) has survived to the present day. Evidence may be recordings, transcriptions, literature or inscriptions. In cont ...
literary language of classical India that is mentioned in Prakrit
The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...
and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is found grouped with the Prakrit languages, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but was not considered a spoken language by the early grammarians because it was understood to have been purely a literary language.
In works of Sanskrit poetics such as Daṇḍin's ''Kavyadarsha The Kavyadarsha ( sa, काव्यादर्श, ) by Dandin is the earliest surviving systematic treatment of poetics in Sanskrit.
Contents
This work is divided into 3 ''pariccheda''s (chapters) in most of the printed editions, except one, ...
'', it is also known by the name of , an epithet which can be interpreted as 'dead language' (i.e., with no surviving speakers), or means past and means language i.e. 'a language spoken in the past'. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may once have been common.
The 13th-century Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub wrote that the early Buddhist schools
The early Buddhist schools are those schools into which the Buddhist monastic saṅgha split early in the history of Buddhism. The divisions were originally due to differences in Vinaya and later also due to doctrinal differences and geograp ...
were separated by choice of sacred language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Concept
A sacr ...
: the Mahāsāṃghika
The Mahāsāṃghika ( Brahmi: 𑀫𑀳𑀸𑀲𑀸𑀁𑀖𑀺𑀓, "of the Great Sangha", ) was one of the early Buddhist schools. Interest in the origins of the Mahāsāṃghika school lies in the fact that their Vinaya recension appears in ...
s used Prākrit, the Sarvāstivādins used Sanskrit, the Sthaviravādins used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa. This observation has led some scholars to theorize connections between Pali and Paiśācī; Sten Konow concluded that it may have been an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Dravidian people
The Dravidian peoples, or Dravidians, are an ethnolinguistic and cultural group living in South Asia who predominantly speak any of the Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Dravidian spe ...
in South India, and Alfred Master noted a number of similarities between surviving fragments and Pali morphology.
Ardha-Magadhi Prakrit
Ardhamagadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit thought to have been spoken in modern-day Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh and used in some early Buddhist and Jain drama. It was originally thought to be a predecessor of the vernacular Magadhi Prakrit, hence the name (literally "half-Magadhi"). Ardhamāgadhī was prominently used by Jain scholars and is preserved in the Jain Agamas.
Ardhamagadhi Prakrit differs from later Magadhi Prakrit in similar ways to Pali, and was often believed to be connected with Pali on the basis of the belief that Pali recorded the speech of the Buddha in an early Magadhi dialect.
Magadhi Prakrit
Magadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indic language spoken in present-day Bihar, and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Its use later expanded southeast to include some regions of modern-day Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, and it was used in some Prakrit dramas to represent vernacular dialogue. Preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit are from several centuries after the theorized lifetime of the Buddha, and include inscriptions attributed to Asoka Maurya
Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...
.
Differences observed between preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit and Pali lead scholars to conclude that Pali represented a development of a northwestern dialect of Middle Indic, rather than being a continuation of a language spoken in the area of Magadha
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...
in the time of the Buddha.
Lexicon
Nearly every word in Pāḷi has cognates in the other Middle Indo-Aryan languages, the Prakrit
The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...
s. The relationship to Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...
is less direct and more complicated; the Prakrits were descended from Old Indo-Aryan vernaculars. Historically, influence between Pali and Sanskrit has been felt in both directions. The Pali language's resemblance to Sanskrit is often exaggerated by comparing it to later Sanskrit compositions—which were written centuries after Sanskrit ceased to be a living language, and are influenced by developments in Middle Indic
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...
, including the direct borrowing of a portion of the Middle Indic lexicon; whereas, a good deal of later Pali technical terminology has been borrowed from the vocabulary of equivalent disciplines in Sanskrit, either directly or with certain phonological adaptations.
Post-canonical Pali also possesses a few loan-words from local languages where Pali was used (e.g. Sri Lankans adding Sinhala words to Pali). These usages differentiate the Pali found in the from later compositions such as the Pali commentaries on the canon and folklore (e.g., commentaries on the Jataka tales
The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...
), and comparative study (and dating) of texts on the basis of such loan-words is now a specialized field unto itself.
Pali was not exclusively used to convey the teachings of the Buddha, as can be deduced from the existence of a number of secular texts, such as books of medical science/instruction, in Pali. However, scholarly interest in the language has been focused upon religious and philosophical literature, because of the unique window it opens on one phase in the development of Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...
.
Phonology
Vowels
Vowels may be divided into
#
## pure vowels: ''a, ā, e, o''
## sonant vowels: ''i, ī, u, ū''
#
## vowels short by nature: ''a, i, u''
## vowels long by nature: ''ā, ī, ū''
## vowels of variable length: ''e, o''
Long and short vowels are only contrastive in open syllables; in closed syllables, all vowels are always short. Short and long e and o are in complementary distribution: the short variants occur only in closed syllables, the long variants occur only in open syllables. Short and long e and o are therefore not distinct phonemes.
vowels ''e'' and ''o'' are long in an open syllable:
at the end of a syllable as in e-tum̩เนตุํ 'to lead'
at the end of a syllable as in o-tum̩โสตุํ 'to hear'
vowels are short in a closed syllable:
when followed by a consonant with which they make a syllable as in pek-khā'indifference', ot-thi'safety'
For vowels ''ā, ī, ū'', ''e'' appears for ''a'' before double-consonance:
: ''seyyā = sayyā'' 'bed'
: ''pheggu = phaigu'' 'empty, worthless'
The vowels ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ are lengthened in the flexional endings including: ''-īhi, -ūhi and -īsu''
A sound called ''anusvāra
Anusvara (Sanskrit: ') is a symbol used in many Indic scripts to mark a type of nasal sound, typically transliterated . Depending on its location in the word and the language for which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary. In the context ...
'' (Skt.; Pali: '' niggahīta''), represented by the letter (ISO 15919) or (ALA-LC) in romanization, and by a raised dot in most traditional alphabets, originally marked the fact that the preceding vowel was nasalized. That is, , and represented , and . In many traditional pronunciations, however, the anusvāra is pronounced more strongly, like the velar nasal , so that these sounds are pronounced instead , and . However pronounced, never follows a long vowel; ā, ī and ū are converted to the corresponding short vowels when is added to a stem ending in a long vowel, e.g. becomes , not , becomes , not *.
Changes of vowels due to the structure of the word
Final vowels
The final consonants of the Sanskrit words have been dropped in Pali and thus all the words end in a vowel or in a nasal vowel: '' -> kantā 'from the loved one''; '' -> 'the loved one''
The final vowels were usually weak in pronunciation and hence they were shortened: ''akārsit -> akāsi 'he did'.''
Consonants
Among the labial consonants, is labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
and the rest is bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
. Among the dental/alveolar consonants, the majority is dental but and are alveolar.
Of the sounds listed above only the three consonants in parentheses, ṅ, ḷ, and ḷh, are not distinct phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s in Pali: ṅ only occurs before velar stops, while ḷ and ḷh are allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s of single ḍ and ḍh occurring between vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s.
In the Pali language, the consonants may be divided according to their strength or power of resistance. The strength decreases in the order of: ''mutes, sibilant, nasals, l, v, y, r''
When two consonants come together, they are subject to one of the following change:
# they are assimilated to each other
# they are first adapted and then assimilated to each other
# they give rise to a new consonant group
# they separated by the insertion of a vowel infix
# they are sometimes interchanged by metathesis
Aspirate consonants
when one of the two consonants is the sibilant s, then the new group of consonants has the aspiration in the last consonant: ''as-ti (root: √as) > atthi'' 'is'
the sibilant s, followed by a nasal, is changed to h and then it is transposed after the nasal (metathesis): ''akas-ma > akah-ma > akamha'' 'we did'
Alternation between ''y'' and ''v''
Pali v appears for Skr. y. For instance, ''āvudha -> āyudha'' 'weapon'; ''kasāva -> kasāya'' 'dirt, sin'. After the svarabhakti-vowel I there appear v instead of y as in ''praṭyamsa -> pativimsa.''
Alternation between ''r'' and ''l''
Representation of ''r'' by ''l'' is very common in Pali, and in Pkr. it is the rule for Magadhi, although this substitution occurs sporadically also in other dialect. This, initially, in ''lūjjati -> rūjyate 'falls apart''; sometimes double forms with l and r occur in Skr.: ''lūkha -> lūksa, rūksa 'gross, bad''
Morphology
Pali is a highly inflected language, in which almost every word contains, besides the root conveying the basic meaning, one or more affixes (usually suffixes) which modify the meaning in some way. Nouns are inflected for gender, number, and case; verbal inflections convey information about person, number, tense and mood.
Nominal inflection
Pali nouns inflect for three grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
s (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural). The nouns also, in principle, display eight cases: nominative or ''paccatta'' case, vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
, accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
or ''upayoga'' case, instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
or ' case, dative or ''sampadāna'' case, ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
, genitive or ''sāmin'' case, and locative or ''bhumma'' case; however, in many instances, two or more of these cases are identical in form; this is especially true of the genitive and dative cases.
a-stems
a-stems, whose uninflected stem ends in short ''a'' (), are either masculine or neuter. The masculine and neuter forms differ only in the nominative, vocative, and accusative cases.
ā-stems
Nouns ending in ā () are almost always feminine.
i-stems and u-stems
i-stems and u-stems are either masculine or neuter. The masculine and neuter forms differ only in the nominative and accusative cases. The vocative has the same form as the nominative.
Linguistic analysis of a Pali text
From the opening of the Dhammapada:
The three compounds in the first line literally mean:
: "whose precursor is mind", "having mind as a fore-goer or leader"
: "whose foremost member is mind", "having mind as chief"
: "consisting of mind" or "made by mind"
The literal meaning is therefore: "The dharmas
The Abhidharma are ancient (third century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist ''sutras''. It also refers to the scholastic method itself as well as the f ...
have mind as their leader, mind as their chief, are made of/by mind. If omeoneeither speaks or acts with a corrupted mind, from that ausesuffering goes after him, as the wheel f a cart follows
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
the foot of a draught animal."
A slightly freer translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita
:Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
:If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him
:like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
Conversion between Sanskrit and Pali forms
Pali and Sanskrit are very closely related and the common characteristics of Pali and Sanskrit were always easily recognized by those in India who were familiar with both. A large part of Pali and Sanskrit word-stems are identical in form, differing only in details of inflection.
Technical terms from Sanskrit were converted into Pali by a set of conventional phonological transformations. These transformations mimicked a subset of the phonological developments that had occurred in Proto-Pali. Because of the prevalence of these transformations, it is not always possible to tell whether a given Pali word is a part of the old Prakrit lexicon, or a transformed borrowing from Sanskrit. The existence of a Sanskrit word regularly corresponding to a Pali word is not always secure evidence of the Pali etymology, since, in some cases, artificial Sanskrit words were created by back-formation from Prakrit words.
The following phonological processes are not intended as an exhaustive description of the historical changes which produced Pali from its Old Indic ancestor, but rather are a summary of the most common phonological equations between Sanskrit and Pali, with no claim to completeness.
Vowels and diphthongs
* Sanskrit ai and au always monophthongize
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraph ...
to Pali e and o, respectively
::Examples: maitrī → mettā, auṣadha → osadha
* Sanskrit āya, ayā and avā reduce to Pali ā
::Examples: katipayāhaṃ → katipāhaṃ, vaihāyasa → vehāsa, yāvagū → yāgu
* Sanskrit aya and ava likewise often reduce to Pali e and o
::Examples: dhārayati → dhāreti, avatāra → otāra, bhavati → hoti
* Sanskrit avi and ayū becomes Pali e (i.e. avi → ai → e) and o
::Examples: sthavira → thera, mayūra → mora
* Sanskrit ṛ appears in Pali as a, i or u, often agreeing with the vowel in the following syllable. ṛ also sometimes becomes u after labial consonants.
::Examples: kṛta → kata, tṛṣṇa → taṇha, smṛti → sati, ṛṣi → isi, dṛṣṭi → diṭṭhi, ṛddhi → iddhi, ṛju → uju, spṛṣṭa → phuṭṭha, vṛddha → vuddha
* Sanskrit long vowels are shortened before a sequence of two following consonants.
::Examples: kṣānti → khanti, rājya → rajja, īśvara → issara, tīrṇa → tiṇṇa, pūrva → pubba
Consonants
Sound changes
* The Sanskrit sibilants ś, ṣ, and s merge as Pali s
::Examples: śaraṇa → saraṇa, doṣa → dosa
* The Sanskrit stops ḍ and ḍh become ḷ and ḷh between vowels (as in Vedic)
::Example: cakravāḍa → cakkavāḷa, virūḍha → virūḷha
Assimilations
=General rules
=
* Many assimilations of one consonant to a neighboring consonant occurred in the development of Pali, producing a large number of geminate
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
(double) consonants. Since aspiration of a geminate consonant is only phonetically detectable on the last consonant of a cluster, geminate kh, gh, ch, jh, ṭh, ḍh, th, dh, ph and bh appear as kkh, ggh, cch, jjh, ṭṭh, ḍḍh, tth, ddh, pph and bbh, not as ''khkh, ghgh'' etc.
* When assimilation would produce a geminate consonant (or a sequence of unaspirated stop+aspirated stop) at the beginning of a word, the initial geminate is simplified to a single consonant.
::Examples: prāṇa → pāṇa (not ''ppāṇa''), sthavira → thera (not ''tthera''), dhyāna → jhāna (not ''jjhāna''), jñāti → ñāti (not ''ññāti'')
* When assimilation would produce a sequence of three consonants in the middle of a word, geminates are simplified until there are only two consonants in sequence.
::Examples: uttrāsa → uttāsa (not ''utttāsa''), mantra → manta (not ''mantta''), indra → inda (not ''indda''), vandhya → vañjha (not ''vañjjha'')
* The sequence vv resulting from assimilation changes to bb.
::Example: sarva → savva → sabba, pravrajati → pavvajati → pabbajati, divya → divva → dibba, nirvāṇa → nivvāṇa → nibbāna
=Total assimilation
=
Total assimilation, where one sound becomes identical to a neighboring sound, is of two types: progressive, where the assimilated sound becomes identical to the following sound; and regressive, where it becomes identical to the preceding sound.
Regressive assimilations
* Internal visarga
Visarga ( sa, विसर्गः, translit=visargaḥ) means "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology ('' ''), ' (also called, equivalently, ' by earlier grammarians) is the name of a phone voiceless glottal fricative, , written as: ...
assimilates to a following voiceless stop or sibilant
::Examples: duḥkṛta → dukkata, duḥkha → dukkha, duḥprajña → duppañña, niḥkrodha (=niṣkrodha) → nikkodha, niḥpakva (=niṣpakva) → nippakka, niḥśoka → nissoka, niḥsattva → nissatta
* In a sequence of two dissimilar Sanskrit stops, the first stop assimilates to the second stop
::Examples: vimukti → vimutti, dugdha → duddha, utpāda → uppāda, pudgala → puggala, udghoṣa → ugghosa, adbhuta → abbhuta, śabda → sadda
* In a sequence of two dissimilar nasals, the first nasal assimilates to the second nasal
::Example: unmatta → ummatta, pradyumna → pajjunna
* j assimilates to a following ñ (i.e., jñ becomes ññ)
::Examples: prajñā → paññā, jñāti → ñāti
* The Sanskrit liquid consonants r and l assimilate to a following stop, nasal, sibilant, or v
::Examples: mārga → magga, karma → kamma, varṣa → vassa, kalpa → kappa, sarva → savva → sabba
* r assimilates to a following l
::Examples: durlabha → dullabha, nirlopa → nillopa
* d sometimes assimilates to a following v, producing vv → bb
::Examples: udvigna → uvvigga → ubbigga, dvādaśa → bārasa (beside dvādasa)
* t and d may assimilate to a following s or y when a morpheme boundary intervenes
::Examples: ut+sava → ussava, ud+yāna → uyyāna
Progressive assimilations
* Nasals sometimes assimilate to a preceding stop (in other cases epenthesis occurs)
::Examples: agni → aggi, ātman → atta, prāpnoti → pappoti, śaknoti → sakkoti
* m assimilates to an initial sibilant
::Examples: smarati → sarati, smṛti → sati
* Nasals assimilate to a preceding stop+sibilant cluster, which then develops in the same way as such clusters without following nasals
::Examples: tīkṣṇa → tikṣa → tikkha, lakṣmī → lakṣī →lakkhī
* The Sanskrit liquid consonants r and l assimilate to a preceding stop, nasal, sibilant, or v
::Examples: prāṇa → pāṇa, grāma → gāma, śrāvaka → sāvaka, agra → agga, indra → inda, pravrajati → pavvajati → pabbajati, aśru → assu
* y assimilates to preceding non-dental/retroflex stops or nasals
::Examples: cyavati → cavati, jyotiṣ → joti, rājya → rajja, matsya → macchya → maccha, lapsyate → lacchyate → lacchati, abhyāgata → abbhāgata, ākhyāti → akkhāti, saṁkhyā → saṅkhā (but also saṅkhyā), ramya → ramma
* y assimilates to preceding non-initial v, producing vv → bb
::Example: divya → divva → dibba, veditavya → veditavva → veditabba, bhāvya → bhavva → bhabba
* y and v assimilate to any preceding sibilant, producing ss
::Examples: paśyati → passati, śyena → sena, aśva → assa, īśvara → issara, kariṣyati → karissati, tasya → tassa, svāmin → sāmī
* v sometimes assimilates to a preceding stop
::Examples: pakva → pakka, catvāri → cattāri, sattva → satta, dhvaja → dhaja
=Partial and mutual assimilation
=
* Sanskrit sibilants
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
before a stop assimilate to that stop, and if that stop is not already aspirated, it becomes aspirated; e.g. śc, st, ṣṭ and sp become cch, tth, ṭṭh and pph
::Examples: paścāt → pacchā, asti → atthi, stava → thava, śreṣṭha → seṭṭha, aṣṭa → aṭṭha, sparśa → phassa
* In sibilant-stop-liquid sequences, the liquid is assimilated to the preceding consonant, and the cluster behaves like sibilant-stop sequences; e.g. str and ṣṭr become tth and ṭṭh
::Examples: śāstra → śasta → sattha, rāṣṭra → raṣṭa → raṭṭha
* t and p become c before s, and the sibilant assimilates to the preceding sound as an aspirate (i.e., the sequences ts and ps become cch)
::Examples: vatsa → vaccha, apsaras → accharā
* A sibilant assimilates to a preceding k as an aspirate (i.e., the sequence kṣ becomes kkh)
::Examples: bhikṣu → bhikkhu, kṣānti → khanti
* Any dental or retroflex stop or nasal followed by y converts to the corresponding palatal sound, and the y assimilates to this new consonant, i.e. ty, thy, dy, dhy, ny become cc, cch, jj, jjh, ññ; likewise ṇy becomes ññ. Nasals preceding a stop that becomes palatal share this change.
::Examples: tyajati → cyajati → cajati, satya → sacya → sacca, mithyā → michyā → micchā, vidyā → vijyā → vijjā, madhya → majhya → majjha, anya → añya → añña, puṇya → puñya → puñña, vandhya → vañjhya → vañjjha → vañjha
* The sequence mr becomes mb, via the epenthesis of a stop between the nasal and liquid, followed by assimilation of the liquid to the stop and subsequent simplification of the resulting geminate.
::Examples: āmra → ambra → amba, tāmra → tamba
Epenthesis
An epenthetic
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
vowel is sometimes inserted between certain consonant-sequences. As with ṛ, the vowel may be a, i, or u, depending on the influence of a neighboring consonant or of the vowel in the following syllable. i is often found near i, y, or palatal consonants; u is found near u, v, or labial consonants.
* Sequences of stop + nasal are sometimes separated by a or u
::Example: ratna → ratana, padma → paduma (u influenced by labial m)
* The sequence sn may become sin initially
::Examples: snāna → sināna, sneha → sineha
* i may be inserted between a consonant and l
::Examples: kleśa → kilesa, glāna → gilāna, mlāyati → milāyati, ślāghati → silāghati
* An epenthetic vowel may be inserted between an initial sibilant and r
::Example: śrī → sirī
* The sequence ry generally becomes riy (i influenced by following y), but is still treated as a two-consonant sequence for the purposes of vowel-shortening
::Example: ārya → arya → ariya, sūrya → surya → suriya, vīrya → virya → viriya
* a or i is inserted between r and h
::Example: arhati → arahati, garhā → garahā, barhiṣ → barihisa
* There is sporadic epenthesis between other consonant sequences
::Examples: caitya → cetiya (not ''cecca''), vajra → vajira (not ''vajja'')
Other changes
* Any Sanskrit sibilant before a nasal becomes a sequence of nasal followed by h, i.e. ṣṇ, sn and sm become ṇh, nh, and mh
::Examples: tṛṣṇa → taṇha, uṣṇīṣa → uṇhīsa, asmi → amhi
* The sequence śn becomes ñh, due to assimilation of the n to the preceding palatal sibilant
::Example: praśna → praśña → pañha
* The sequences hy and hv undergo metathesis
::Examples: jihvā → jivhā, gṛhya → gayha, guhya → guyha
* h undergoes metathesis with a following nasal
::Example: gṛhṇāti → gaṇhāti
* y is geminated between e and a vowel
::Examples: śreyas → seyya, Maitreya → Metteyya
* Voiced aspirates such as bh and gh on rare occasions become h
::Examples: bhavati → hoti, -ebhiṣ → -ehi, laghu → lahu
* Dental and retroflex sounds sporadically change into one another
:: Examples: jñāna → ñāṇa (not ''ñāna''), dahati → ḍahati (beside Pali dahati) nīḍa → nīla (not ''nīḷa''), sthāna → ṭhāna (not ''thāna''), duḥkṛta → dukkaṭa (beside Pali dukkata), granthi→ gaṇṭhi, pṛthivī → paṭhavī/puṭhuvī (beside Pali pathavī/puthuvī/puthavī)
Exceptions
There are several notable exceptions to the rules above; many of them are common Prakrit words rather than borrowings from Sanskrit.
* ārya → ayya (beside ariya)
* guru → garu (adj.) (beside guru (n.))
* puruṣa → purisa (not ''purusa'')
* vṛkṣa → rukṣa → rukkha (not ''vakkha'')
Writing
Emperor Ashoka
Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...
erected a number of pillars with his edicts in at least three regional Prakrit languages in Brahmi script
Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...
, all of which are quite similar to Pali. Historically, the first written record of the Pali canon is believed to have been composed in Sri Lanka, based on a prior oral tradition. According to the Mahavamsa (the chronicle of Sri Lanka), due to a major famine in the country Buddhist monks wrote down the Pali canon during the time of King Vattagamini in 100 BCE.
Bilingual coins containing Pali written in the Kharosthi script and Greek writing were used by James Prinsep to decipher the Kharosthi abugida
An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel n ...
. This script became particularly significant for the study of early Buddhism following the discovery of the Gandharan Buddhist texts
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...
.
The transmission of written Pali has retained a universal system of alphabetic values, but has expressed those values in a variety of different scripts.
In Sri Lanka, Pali texts were recorded in Sinhala script
The Sinhala script ( si, සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව, Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva), also known as Sinhalese script, is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write ...
. Other local scripts, most prominently Khmer, Mon-Burmese, and in modern times Thai (since 1893) and Devanāgarī
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
have been used to record Pali.
Alphabet with diacritics
Since the 19th century, Pali has also been written in the Roman script. An alternate scheme devised by Frans Velthuis, called the Velthuis
The Velthuis system of transliteration is an ASCII transliteration scheme for the Sanskrit language from and to the Devanagari script. It was developed in about 1983 by Frans Velthuis, a scholar living in Groningen, Netherlands, who created a popul ...
scheme (see § Text in ASCII) allows for typing without diacritics
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
using plain ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
methods, but is arguably less readable than the standard IAST system, which uses diacritical
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
marks.
The Pali alphabetical order is as follows:
* a ā i ī u ū e o ṃ k kh g gh ṅ c ch j jh ñ ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l ḷ v s h
ḷh, although a single sound, is written with ligature of ḷ and h.
Transliteration on computers
There are several fonts to use for Pali transliteration. However, older ASCII fonts such as Leedsbit PaliTranslit, Times_Norman, Times_CSX+, Skt Times, Vri RomanPali CN/CB etc., are not recommendable, they are deprecated
In several fields, especially computing, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing ...
, since they are not compatible with one another, and are technically out of date. Instead, fonts based on the Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
standard are recommended.
However, not all Unicode fonts contain the necessary characters. To properly display all the diacritic marks used for romanized Pali (or for that matter, Sanskrit), a Unicode font must contain the following character ranges:
:* Basic Latin: U+0000 – U+007F
:* Latin-1 Supplement: U+0080 – U+00FF
:* Latin Extended-A: U+0100 – U+017F
:* Latin Extended-B: U+0180 – U+024F
:* Latin Extended Additional: U+1E00 – U+1EFF
Some Unicode fonts freely available for typesetting Romanized Pali are as follows:
:
The Pali Text Society
recommend
an
Gandhari Unicode
for Windows and Linux Computers.
:
recommend
Times Ext Roman
and provides links to several Unicode diacriti
an
fonts usable for typing Pali together with ratings and installation instructions. It also provide
for typing diacritics in OpenOffice and MS Office.
:
SIL: International
provide
Charis SIL and Charis SIL Compact
Doulos SIL
Gentium
Gentium Basic, Gentium Book Basic
fonts. Of them, Charis SIL, Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic have all four styles (regular, italic, bold, bold-italic); so can provide publication quality typesetting.
:
Libertine Openfont Project
provides the Linux Libertine font (four serif styles and many Opentype features) and Linux Biolinum (four sans-serif styles) at th
SourceForge
:
Junicode
(short for Junius-Unicode) is a Unicode font for medievalists, but it provides all diacritics for typing Pali. It has four styles and some Opentype features such as Old Style for numerals.
:
Thryomanes
includes all the Roman-alphabet characters available in Unicode along with a subset of the most commonly used Greek and Cyrillic characters, and is available in normal, italic, bold, and bold italic.
:
GUST
(Polish TeX User Group) provide
Latin Modern
an
TeX Gyre
fonts. Each font has four styles, with the former finding most acceptance among the LaTeX users while the latter is a relatively new family. Of the latter, each typeface in the following families has nearly 1250 glyphs and is available in PostScript, TeX and OpenType formats.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Adventor'' family of sans serif fonts is based on the URW Gothic L family. The original font, ITC Avant Garde Gothic, was designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase in 1970.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Bonum'' family of serif fonts is based on the URW Bookman L family. The original font, Bookman or Bookman Old Style, was designed by Alexander Phemister in 1860.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Chorus'' is a font based on the URW Chancery L Medium Italic font. The original, ITC Zapf Chancery
ITC Zapf Chancery is a family of script typefaces designed by the type designer Hermann Zapf and marketed by the International Typeface Corporation. It is one of the three typefaces designed by Zapf that are shipped with computers running Apple's ...
, was designed in 1979 by Hermann Zapf.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Cursor'' family of monospace serif fonts is based on the URW Nimbus Mono L family. The original font, Courier
A courier is a person or organisation that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...
, was designed by Howard G. (Bud) Kettler in 1955.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Heros'' family of sans serif fonts is based on the URW Nimbus Sans L family. The original font, Helvetica
Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
, was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Pagella'' family of serif fonts is based on the URW Palladio L family. The original font, Palatino
Palatino is the name of an old-style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf, initially released in 1949 by the Stempel foundry and later by other companies, most notably the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
Named after the 16th-century Italian ...
, was designed by Hermann Zapf in the 1940s.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Schola'' family of serif fonts is based on the URW Century Schoolbook L family. The original font, Century Schoolbook
Century is a family of serif type faces particularly intended for body text. The family originates from a first design, Century Roman, cut by American Type Founders designer Linn Boyd Benton in 1894 for master printer Theodore Low De Vinne, for u ...
, was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1919.
:** The ''TeX Gyre Termes'' family of serif fonts is based on the Nimbus Roman No9 L family. The original font, Times Roman
Times New Roman is a serif typeface. It was commissioned by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype, in collaboration w ...
, was designed by Stanley Morison together with Starling Burgess and Victor Lardent.
:* John Smith provide
IndUni
Opentype fonts, based upon URW++ fonts. Of them:
:** ''IndUni-C'' is Courier-lookalike;
:** ''IndUni-H'' is Helvetica-lookalike;
:** ''IndUni-N'' is New Century Schoolbook-lookalike;
:** ''IndUni-P'' is Palatino-lookalike;
:** ''IndUni-T'' is Times-lookalike;
:** ''IndUni-CMono'' is Courier-lookalike but monospaced;
:* An English Buddhist monk titled Bhikkhu Pesala provides som
he has designed himself. Of them:
:** ''Acariya'' is a Garamond style typeface derived from Guru (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
:** ''Balava'' is a revival of Baskerville derived fro
Libre Baskerville
(regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
:** ''Cankama'' is a Gothic, Black Letter script. Regular style only.
:** (''Carita'' has been discontinued.)
:** ''Garava'' was designed for body text with a generous x-height and economical copyfit. It include
(as OpenType Features), and Heavy styles besides the usual four styles (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
:** Guru is a condensed Garamond style typeface designed for economy of copy-fit. A hundred A4 pages of text set in Pali would be about 98 pages if set in Acariya, 95 if set in Garava or Times New Roman, but only 90 if set in Guru.(regular, italic, bold, bold italic styles).
:** ''Hari'' is a hand-writing script derived from Allura by Robert E. Leuschke.(Regular style only).
:** (''Hattha'' has been discontinued)
:** ''Jivita'' is an original Sans Serif typeface for body text. (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
:** ''Kabala'' is a distinctive Sans Serif typeface designed for display text or headings. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
:** ''Lekhana'' is a Zapf Chancery clone, a flowing script that can be used for correspondence or body text. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
:** ''Mahakampa'' is a hand-writing script derived from Great Vibes by Robert E. Leuschke. Regular type style.
:** ''Mandala'' is designed for display text or headings. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
:** ''Nacca'' is a hand-writing script derived from Dancing Script by Pablo Impallari and released on Font Squirrel. Regular type style.
:** ''Odana'' is a calligraphic brush font suitable for headlines, titles, or short texts where a less formal appearance is wanted. Regular style only.
:** ''Open Sans'' is a Sans Serif font suitable for body text. Ten type styles.
:** ''Pali'' is a clone of Hermann Zapf's Palatino. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
:** ''Sukhumala'' is derived from Sort Mills Goudy. Five type styles
:** ''Talapanna'' is a clone of Goudy Bertham, with decorative gothic capitals and extra ligatures in the Private Use Area. Regular and bold styles.
:** (''Talapatta'' is discontinued.)
:** ''Veluvana'' is another brush calligraphic font but basic Greek glyphs are taken from ''Guru''. Regular style only.
:** ''Verajja'' is derived from Bitstream Vera. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
:** ''VerajjaPDA'' is a cut-down version of ''Verajja'' without symbols. For use on PDA devices. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
:** He also provides som
for Windows XP.
:
of Alanwood's Unicode Resources have links to several general purpose fonts that can be used for Pali typing if they cover the character ranges above.
Some of the latest fonts coming with Windows 7 can also be used to type transliterated Pali: ''Arial'', ''Calibri'', ''Cambria'', ''Courier New'', ''Microsoft Sans Serif'', ''Segoe UI'', ''Segoe UI Light'', ''Segoe UI Semibold'', ''Tahoma'', and ''Times New Roman''. Some of them have four styles each, hence usable in professional typesetting: ''Arial, Calibri'' and ''Segoe UI'' are sans-serif fonts, ''Cambria'' and ''Times New Roman'' are serif fonts and ''Courier New'' is a monospace font.
Text in ASCII
The Velthuis scheme was originally developed in 1991 by Frans Velthuis for use with his "devnag" Devanāgarī font, designed for the TeX
Tex may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname
* Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr.
Entertainment
* ''Tex'', the Italian ...
typesetting system. This system of representing Pali diacritical marks has been used in some websites and discussion lists. However, as the Web itself and email software slowly evolve towards the Unicode encoding standard, this system has become almost unnecessary and obsolete.
The following table compares various conventional renderings and shortcut key assignments:
See also
* Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts, such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. BHS is classified as a Middle Indo-Aryan language. It is sometimes called "B ...
References
Citations
General sources
* See entries for "Pali" (written by K. R. Norman of the Pali Text Society) and "India—Buddhism" in ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Language and Religion'' (Sawyer ed.),
*
*
*
Further reading
* American National Standards Institute. (1979). ''American National Standard system for the romanization of Lao, Khmer, and Pali''. New York: The institute.
*
* Perniola, V. (1997). ''Pali Grammar'', Oxford, The Pali Text Society.
* Collins, Steven (2006). ''A Pali Grammar for Students''. Silkworm Press.
* Gupta, K. M. (2006). ''Linguistic approach to meaning in Pali''. New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan.
* Hazra, K. L. (1994). ''Pāli language and literature: a systematic survey and historical study''. Emerging perceptions in Buddhist studies, no. 4–5. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld.
* Müller, E. (2003). ''The Pali language: a simplified grammar''. Trubner's collection of simplified grammars. London: Trubner.
* Russell Webb (ed.) ''An Analysis of the Pali Canon'', Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy; 1975, 1991 (see http://www.bps.lk/reference.asp )
* Soothill, W. E., & Hodous, L. (1937). ''A dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms: with Sanskrit and English equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali index''. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
* Bhikkhu Nanamoli. ''A Pāli-English Glossary of Buddhist technical terms''.
* Mahathera Buddhadatta (1998). ''Concise Pāli-English Dictionary. Quickly find the meaning of a word, without the detailed grammatical and contextual analysis.''
* Wallis, Glenn (2011). ''Buddhavacana, a Pali reader'' (PDF eBook). .
* Lynn Martineau (1998). ''Pāli Workbook Pāli Vocabulary from the 10-day Vipassana Course of S. N. Goenka''. .
External links
*
Reconstruction of Ancient Indian sound clusters on the basis of Pali sounds (according to "Grammatik des Pali" by Achim Fahs)
Buddhadatta Mahāthera, A. P. (1958). ''Concise Pāli-English Dictionary''.
{{Authority control
Formal languages used for Indian scriptures
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...
Magahi language
Sacred languages