Pali language
Pali (Pāli) is the language of the Pali textual tradition, one of the two main text textual traditions of Buddhism. The core texts of this tradition, the Pāli canon and its commentaries, are the central texts of the Theravāda tradition.
The Pali language, also known as "Magadhan", was a Middle Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian subcontinent}.
Traditionally, the followers of the Theravada regarded Pali as the language that Gautama Buddha himself spoke, though modern scholars suggest that he probably spoke Magadhi Prakrit. Pali continued as a literary language in mainland India through to the 14th century and elsewhere up to the 18th century.[1]
The earliest archaeological evidence of the existence of canonical Pali comes from Pyu city-states inscriptions found in Burma dated to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE.[2]
Etymology
Bhikkhu Nanamoli states:
- The word pāli is translatable by “text.” The pāli language (the “text language,” which the commentators call Magadhan) holds a special position, with no European parallel, being reserved to one field, namely, the Buddha’s teaching. So there are no alien echoes.[3]
Pali-English dictionaries
Notes
- ↑ Pāli language, Encyclopedia of Britannica
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "Introduction" to Path of Purification, Buddhist Publication Society, p. 1
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.) ISBN 0-08-043167-4
- Müller, Edward (1995) [First published 1884]. Simplified Grammar of the Pali Language. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-1103-9.
- Silva, Lily de (1994). Pali Primer (first ed.). Vipassana Research Institute Publications. ISBN 81-7414-014-X.
- Warder, A. K. (1991). Introduction to Pali (third ed.). Pali Text Society. ISBN 0-86013-197-1.
Further reading
- Andersen, Dines (1907). A Pali Reader. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag. p. 310. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
- Cone, Margaret (2001), Dictionary of Pali, vol. I, Oxford: Pali Text Society
- Cousins, L. S. (1982), Pali oral literature. In Denwood and Piatigorski, eds.: Buddhist Studies, ancient and modern, London: Curzon Press, p. 1-11
- 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. ISBN 81-7574-170-8
- 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. ISBN 81-246-0004-X
- Müller, E. (2003). The Pali language: a simplified grammar. Trubner's collection of simplified grammars. London: Trubner. ISBN 1-84453-001-9
- 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. ISBN 9552400864
- Mahathera Buddhadatta (1998). Concise Pāli-English Dictionary. Quickly find the meaning of a word, without the detailed grammatical and contextual analysis. ISBN 8120806050
- Wallis, Glenn (2011) Buddhavacana, a Pali reader (PDF eBook). ISBN 192870686X
- Lynn Martineau (1998) Pāli Workbook Pāli Vocabulary from the 10-day Vipassana Course of S.N. Goenka ISBN 1928706045
External links
- Pali Text Society
- Reconstruction of Ancient Indian sound clusters on the basis of Pali sounds (according to "Grammatik des Pali" by Achim Fahs)
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