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PALI

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 632 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PALI , the See also:

language used in daily intercourse between cultured See also:people in the See also:north of See also:India from the 7th See also:century B.c. It continued to be used throughout India and its confines as a See also:literary language for about a thousand years, and is still, though in a continually decreasing degree, the literary language of See also:Burma, See also:Siam, and See also:Ceylon. Two factors combined to give Pali its importance as one of the few See also:great literary See also:languages of the See also:world: the one See also:political, the other religious. The political See also:factor was the rise during the 7th century B.C. of the Kosala See also:power. Previous to this the See also:Aryan settlements, along the three routes they followed in their penetration into India, had remained isolated, See also:independent and small communities. Their language See also:bore the same relation to the Vedic speech as the various See also:Italian dialects bore to Latin. The See also:welding together of the great Kosala See also:kingdom, more than twice the See also:size of See also:England, in the very centre of the settled See also:country, led insensibly but irresistibly to the See also:establishment of a See also:standard of speech, and the standard followed was the language used at the See also:court at Savatthi in the Nepalese hills, the See also:capital of Kosala. When Gotama the See also:Buddha, himself a Kosalan by See also:birth, determined on the use, for the See also:propagation of his religious reforms, of the living See also:tongue of the people, he and his followers naturally made full use of the advantages already gained by the See also:form of speech current through the wide extent of his own country. A result followed somewhat similar to the effect, on the See also:German language, of the Lutheran See also:reformation. When, in the generations after the Buddha's See also:death, his disciples compiled the documents of the faith, the form they adopted became dominant. But See also:local varieties of speech continued to eixst. The See also:etymology of the word Pali is uncertain.

It probably means " See also:

row, See also:line, See also:canon," and is used, in its exact technical sense, of the language of the canon, containing the documents of the Buddhist faith. But when Pali first became known to Europeans it was already used also, by those who wrote in Pali, of the language of the later writings, which See also:bear the same relation to the standard literary Pali of the canonical texts as See also:medieval does to classical Latin. A further See also:extension of the meaning in which the word Pali was used followed in a very suggestive way. The first See also:book edited by a See also:European in Pali was the Mahal:artzsa, or Great See also:Chronicle of Ceylon, published there in 1837 by Turnour, then colonial secretary in the See also:island. See also:James See also:Prinsep was then devoting his rare See also:genius to the decipherment of the See also:early See also:inscriptions of See also:northern India, especially those of See also:Asoka in the 3rd century B.C. He derived the greatest assistance from See also:Tumour's See also:work not only in See also:historical See also:information, but also as regards the forms of words and grammatical inflexions. The resemblancg was so See also:close that Prinsep called the See also:alphabet he was deciphering the Pali alphabet, and the language expressed in it he called the Pali language. This was so nearly correct that the usage has been followed by other European scholars, and is being increasingly adopted. It receives the support of Mahanama, the author of the Great Chronicle, who wrote in Ceylon in the 5th century A.D. He says (p. 253, ed. Turnour) that See also:Buddhaghosa translated the commentaries, then existing only in Sinhalese, into Pali.

The name here used by the chronicler for Pali is " the See also:

Magadha tongue," by which expression is meant, not exactly the language spoken in Magadha, but the language in use at the court of Asoka, See also:king of Kosala and Magadha. With this use of the word, philologically inexact, but historically quite defensible, may be compared the use of the word. See also:English, which is not exactly the language of the Angles, or of the word See also:French, which is not exactly the language of the See also:Franks. The question of Pali becomes therefore three-See also:fold: Pali before the canon, the canon, and the writings subsequent to the canon. The See also:present writer has suggested that the word Pali should be reserved for the language of the canon, and other words used for the earlier and later forms of it;1 but the usage generally followed is so convenient that there is little likelihood of the See also:suggestion being followed. The threefold See also:division will therefore be here adhered to. For the See also:history of Pali before the canonical books were composed we have no See also:direct See also:evidence. None of the pre-Buddhistic sites have as yet been excavated; and, with one doubtful exception, no inscriptions older than the texts have as yet been found. We have to argue back from the See also:state of things revealed in the texts, of various See also:dates from 450-250 B.C., and in the inscriptions from that date onwards. The inscriptions have now been subjected to a very full See also:critical and philological See also:analysis in See also:Professor See also:Otto Franke's Pali and See also:Sanskrit (See also:Strassburg, 1902). He shows that in the 3rd century B.C. the language used throughout northern India was practically one, and that it was derived directly from the speech of the Vedic See also:Aryans, retaining many Vedic forms lost in the later classical Sanskrit. His See also:list of such forms is much more See also:complete than that given by See also:Childers in the introduction to his See also:Dictionary of the Pali Language.

The particular form of this See also:

general speech which was used as the lingua franca, the Hindustani of the See also:period, was the form in use in Kosala. Franke also shows that there were local peculiarities in small matters of spelling and See also:inflexion, and that the particular form of the language used in and about the Avanti See also:district, of which the capital was Ujjeni (a celebrated pre-Buddhistic See also:city), was the basis of the language used in the sacred texts as we now have them. See also:Long ago Westergaard, Rhys Davids and See also:Ernst See also:Kuhn,' had made the same suggestion, mainly on historical grounds, Mahinda, who took the texts to Ceylon, having been See also:born at Vedisa in that district. The careful and. complete collection, by Franke, of the philological evidence at present available, has raised this See also:hypothesis into a See also:practical certainty. The inscriptions are at present scattered through a number of learned See also:periodicals; a complete list of all those that can be approximately dated between the 3rd century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. is given in the first See also:chapter of Franke's book. M. E. Senart has collected in his Inscriptions de Piyadasi (See also:Paris, 1881–1886) those inscriptions of Asoka which were known up to the date of his work, subjecting them to a careful analysis, and providing an See also:index to the words occurring in them. What is greatly needed is a new edition of this work including the Asoka inscriptions discovered during the last twenty years, and a similar edition of the other inscriptions. The whole of the Pali inscriptions so far discovered might fill somewhat more than a See also:hundred pages of See also:text. An out-line of the history of the Pali alphabet has been given, with illustrations and references to the authorities, in Rhys Davids's Buddhist India, pp. 107-140.

1 See also:

Journal of the Royal See also:Asiatic Society (1903), p. 398. 2 Westergaard, Ober den altesten Zeitraum der indischen Geschichte, p. 87; Rhys Davids, Transactions of the Philological Society (1875), p. 70; Kuhn, Beitrdge zur Pali Grammatik, 7-9.631 The canonical texts are divided into three collections called Pitakas, i.e. baskets. This figure of speech refers, not to a See also:basket or See also:box in which things can be stored, but to the baskets, used in India in excavations, as a means of handing on the See also:earth from one worker to another. The first Pitaka contains, the Vinaya— that is, Rules of the See also:Order; the second the Suttas, giving the See also:doctrine, and the third the See also:Abhidhamma, See also:analytical exercises in the psychological See also:system on which the doctrine is based. These have now nearly all, mainly through the work of the Pali Text Society, been published in Pali. The Vinaya was edited in 5 vols. by H. Oldenberg; and the more important parts of it have been translated into English by Rhys Davids and Oldenberg in their Vinaya Texts. The Sutta Pitaka consists of five Nikayas, four See also:principal and one supplementary. The four principal ones have been published for the Pali Text Society, and some volumes have been translated into English or German.

These four Nikayas, sixteen volumes in all, are the See also:

main authorities for the doctrines of early See also:Buddhism. The fifth See also:Nikaya is a See also:miscellaneous collection of See also:treatises, mostly very See also:short, on a variety of subjects. It contains lyrical and ballad See also:poetry, specimens of early exegesis and commentary, lives of the See also:saints, collections of edifying anecdotes and of the now well-known Jatakas or Birth Stories. Of these, eleven volumes had by 1910 been edited for the Pali Text Society by various scholars, the Jatakas and two other treatises had appeared elsewhere, and two See also:works (one a selection of lives of distinguished early Buddhists, and the other an See also:ancient commentary), were still in MS. Of the seven treatises contained in the Abhidhamma Pitaka five, and one-third of the See also:sixth, had by 1910 been published by the Pali Text Society; and one, the Dhamma Sangani, had been translated by Mrs Rhys Davids. A description of the contents of all these books in the canon is given in Rhys Davids's See also:American Lectures, PP. 44-86. A certain amount of progress has been made in the historical See also:criticism of these books. Out of the twenty-nine works contained in the three Pitakas only one claims to have an author. That one is theKatha Vatthu, ascribed to Tissa the son of Moggali,3 who presided over the third See also:council held under Asoka. It is the latest book of the third Pitaka. All the See also:rest of the canonical works See also:grew up in the See also:schools of the Order, and most of them appear to contain documents, or passages, of different dates.

In his masterly analysis of the Vinaya, in the introduction to his edition of the text, Professor Oldenberg has shown that there are at least three strata in the existing presentation of the Rules of the Order, the See also:

oldest portions going back probably to the See also:time of the Buddha himself. Professor Rhys Davids has put forward similar views with respect to the Jatakas and the Sutta Nipata in his Buddhist India, and with respect to the Nikayas in general in the introduction to his Dialogues of the Buddha. And Professor Windisch has discussed the legends of the temptation in his See also:Mara and Buddha, and those See also:relating to the Buddha's birth in his Buddha's Geburt. It seems probable that the Vinaya and the four Nikayas were put substantially into the shape in which we now have them before the council at Vesali, a hundred years after the Buddha's death; that slight alterations and additions were made in them, and the miscellaneous Nikaya and the Abhidhamma books completed, at various times down to the third council under Asoka; and that the canon was then considered closed. No evidence has yet been found of any alterations made, after that time, in Ceylon; but there were probably before that time, in India, other books, now lost, and other recensions of some of the above. Of classical Pali in northern India subsequent to the canon there is but little evidence. Three works only have survived. These are the Milinda-panha, edited by V. Trenckner, and translated by Rhys Davids under the See also:title Questions of King Milinda; the Netti Pakarana, edited by E. See also:Hardy for the Pali Text Society in 1902; and the Petaka Upadesa. The former belongs to the north-See also:west, the others to the centre of India, and all three may be dated vaguely in the first or second centuries A.D. The first, a religious See also:romance of remarkable See also:interest, may owe its preservation to the See also:charm of. its See also:style, the others to the See also:accident that they were attributed by See also:mistake to a famous apostle.

In any See also:

case they are the See also:sole survivors of what must 3 No doubt identical with Upagupta, the teacher of Asoka (cf.' See also:Vincent See also:Smith, Early History of India, and ed., 1908, and refs.). 632 have been a vast and varied literature. Professor Takakusu has shown the possibility of several complete books belonging to it being still extant in See also:Chinese See also:translations,' and we may yet See also:hope to recover See also:original fragments in central See also:Asia, See also:Tibet, or See also:Nepal. At p. 66 of the Gandha Vamsa, a See also:modern See also:catalogue of Pali books and authors, written in Pali, there is given a list of ten authors who wrote Pali books in India, probably See also:southern India. We may conclude that these books are still extant in Burma, where the catalogue was See also:drawn up. Two only of these ten authors are otherwise known. The first is See also:Dhammapala, who wrote in Kancipura, the modern Conjevaram in See also:south India, in the 5th century of our era. His principal work is a See also:series of commentaries on five of the lyrical anthologies included in the miscellaneous Nikaya. Three of these have been published by the Pali Text Society; and Professor E. Hardy has discussed in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesellschaft (1897), pp. 105-127, all that is known about him.

Dhammapala wrote also a commentary on the Netti mentioned above. The second is Buddhadatta, who wrote the Jinalankara in the 5th century A.D. It has been edited and translated by Professor J. See also:

Gray. It is a poem, of no great interest, on the See also:life of the Buddha. The whole of these Pali books composed in India have been lost there. They have been preserved for us by the unbroken See also:succession of Pali scholars in Ceylon and Burma. These scholars (most of them members of the Buddhist Order, but many of them laymen) not only copied and recopied the See also:Indian Pali books, but wrote a very large number themselves. We are thus beginning to know something of the history of this literature. Two departments have been subjected to critical study: the Ceylon See also:chronicles by Professor W. Geiger in his Malad.-vamsa and Dipavaiiisa, and the earlier grammatical works by Professor O. Franke in two articles in the Journal of the Pali Text Society for 1903, and in his Geschichte and Kritik der einheimischen Pali Grammatik.

Dr See also:

Forchhammer in his Jardine See also:Prize See also:Essay, and Dr Mabel See also:Bode in the introduction to her edition of the Sdsana-vamsa, have collected many details as to the Pali literature in Burma. The results of these investigations show that in Ceylon from the 3rd century B.C. onwards there has been a continuous succession of teachers and scholars. Many of them lived in the various viharas or residences situate throughout the island; but the main centre of intellectual effort, down to the 8th century, was the Maha Vihara, the Great See also:Minster, at Anwradhapura. This was, in fact, a great university. Authors refer, in the prefaces to their books, to the Great Minster as the source of their knowledge. And to it students flocked from all parts of India. The most famous of these was Buddhaghosa, from See also:Behar in North India, who studied at the Minster in the 5th century A.D., and wrote there all his well-known works. Two volumes only of these, out of about twenty still extant in MS., have been edited for the Pali Text Society. About a century before this the Dipa-vamsa, or Island Chronicle, had been composed in Pali See also:verse so indifferent that it is apparently the work of a beginner in Pali See also:composition. No work written in Pali in Ceylon at a date older than this has been discovered yet. It would seem that up to the 4th century of our era the Sinhalese had written exclusively in their own tongue; that is to say that for six centuries they had studied and understood Pali as a dead language without using it as a means of literary expression. In Burma, on the other See also:hand, where Pali was probably introduced from Ceylon, no writings in Pali can be dated before the 1th century of our era.

Of the history of Pali in Siam very little is known. There have been See also:

good Pali scholars there since See also:late medieval times. A very excellent edition of the twenty-seven canonical books has been recently printed there, and there exist in our European See also:libraries a number of Pali See also:MSS. written in Siam. It would be too early to See also:attempt any estimate of the value of this secondary Pali literature. Only a few volumes, out of several hundreds known to be extant in MS., have yet been published. But the See also:department of the chronicles, the only 1 Journal of the Pali Text Society (1905), pp. 72, 86. one so far at all adequately treated, has thrown so much See also:light on many points of the history of India that we may reasonably expect results equally valuable from the publication and study of the See also:remainder. The works on See also:religion and See also:philosophy especially will be of as much service for the history of ideas in these later periods as the publication of the canonical books has already been for the earlier period to which they refer. The Pali books written in Ceylon, Burma and Siam will be our best and oldest, and in many respects our only, authorities for the See also:sociology and politics, the literature and the religion, of their respective countries.

End of Article: PALI

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