Pāli (ISO 15919 ISO 15919 Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters is an international standard for the transliteration of Indic scripts to the Latin alphabet formed in 2001. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to the Latin script/ALA-LC ALA-LC is a set of standards for romanization, or the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin alphabet. The initials stand for American Library Association-Library of Congress: is a Middle Indo-Aryan language The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as Sanskrit, and the predecessors of the late medieval languages such as Apabhramsha or Abahatta, which eventually evolved into the contemporary Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), (or prakrit Prakrit (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word, derived from its indian root "Parikrit", itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless,) of India The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a land mass which extends southward into the Indian Ocean. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is recognized by adherents as an scriptures, as collected in the Pāḷi Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down. It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language A sacred language, "holy language" , or liturgical language, is a language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life of Theravada Buddhism Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India. It is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism, and for many centuries has been the predominant religion of Sri Lanka (about 70% of the population) and most of.
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Origin and development
Etymology of the name
The word Pali itself signifies "line" or "(canonical) text". This name for the language seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the Pali (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. 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" [ɑː] and short "a" [a], and also with either a retroflex In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. The tongue articulates with the roof of the oral cavity behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate or uvula: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the mouth [ɭ] or non-retroflex In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. The tongue articulates with the roof of the oral cavity behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate or uvula: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the mouth [l] "l" sound. To this day, there is no single, standard spelling of the term; all four 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".[1]
Classification
Pali is a literary language A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others. Where there is a strong divergence, the language is said to exhibit diglossia of the Prakrit Prakrit (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word, derived from its indian root "Parikrit", itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, language family. When the canonical texts were written down in Sri Lanka As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia.[citation needed] It has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times and is one of the few remaining abodes of Buddhism in South Asia, including Ladakh, Bhutan and the Chittagong Hill in the first century BCE, Pali stood close to a living language; this is not the case for the commentaries.[2] Despite excellent scholarship on this problem, there is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha Magadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas (Sanskrit "Great Countries") or regions in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganges; its first capital was Rajagriha (modern Rajgir) then Pataliputra (modern Patna). Magadha expanded to include most of Bihar and Bengal with the conquest of Licchavi, which was located around modern-day Bihār Bihar (Hindi: बिहार, Urdu: بہار, pronounced [bɪˈhaːr] ) is a state in eastern India. Bihar is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at 38,202 sq mi (99,200 km²), and 3rd largest by population. Close to 85 percent of the population lives in villages. Almost 58 per cent of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is.
Pali as a Middle Indo-Aryan language The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as Sanskrit, and the predecessors of the late medieval languages such as Apabhramsha or Abahatta, which eventually evolved into the contemporary Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), is different from Sanskrit Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism[note 1]. Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand not so much with regard to the time of its origin as to its dialectal base, since a number of its morphological and lexical features betray the fact that it is not a direct continuation of Ṛgvedic Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit is an Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language. Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest; rather it descends from a dialect (or a number of dialects) that was, despite many similarities, different from Ṛgvedic.[3]
Early history
Among early Buddhists Pali was considered linguistically similar to, or even a direct continuation of, the Old Magadhi language. Many Theravada Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India. It is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism, and for many centuries has been the predominant religion of Sri Lanka (about 70% of the population) and most of sources refer to the Pali language as "Magadhan" 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 Mauryans. The Buddha taught in Magadha, but the four most important places in his life are all outside of it. It is likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had a very high degree of mutual intelligibility.
There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali. Pali has some commonalities with both the Ashokan Ashoka (Devanāgarī: अशोकः, IAST: Aśokaḥ, IPA: [aˈɕoːkə], 304 BC – 232 BC), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of inscriptions at Girnar Girnar is a collection of mountains in the Junagadh District of Gujarat, India, situated near Junagadh at a distance of 327km from Ahmedabad. It is a holy place and an important pilgrimage for both Hindus and Jains. There are a number of temples located here. Amidst the lush green Gir Forest, the mountain range serves as the hub of religious in the West of India, and at Hathigumpha The Hathigumpha inscription, from Udayagiri, near Bhubaneshwar in Orissa, was written by Kharavela, the king of Kalinga in India, during the 2nd century BCE. Hathigumpha inscription consists of seventeen lines incised in deep cut Brahmi letters on the overhanging brow of a natural cavern called Hathigumpha in the southern side of the Udayagiri in the East. Similarities to the Western inscription may be misleading, because the inscription suggests that the Ashokan scribe may not have translated the material he received from Magadha into the vernacular of the people there.
According to Norman, 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 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 in India from then on. Following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation (i.e., MIA bamhana -> brahmana, tta -> tva in some cases).[4]
T.W. Rhys Davids Thomas William Rhys Davids was a British scholar of the Pāli language and founder of the Pali Text Society in his book Buddhist India],[5] and Wilhelm Geiger Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger was a German Orientalist, in the fields of Indian and Iranian languages. He was known as a specialist in Pali and the Dhivehi language of the Maldives in his book Pali Literature and Language suggested that Pali may have originated as a form of lingua franca A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues or common language of culture among people who used differing dialects in North India, used at the time of the Buddha and employed by him. Another scholar states that at that time it was "a refined and elegant vernacular of all Aryan-speaking people."[6] Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue; there are a variety of conflicting theories with supporters and detractors.[7] After the death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language.[8] Bhikkhu Bodhi Bhikkhu Bodhi , born Jeffrey Block, is an American Buddhist monk, ordained in Sri Lanka and currently teaching in the New York/New Jersey area. He was appointed the second president of the Buddhist Publication Society and has edited and authored several publications grounded in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, 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:
Scholars regard this language as a hybrid showing features of several Prakrit dialects used around the third century BCE, subjected to a partial process of Sanskritization. While the language is not identical with any the Buddha himself would have spoken, it belongs to the same broad linguistic family as those he might have used and originates from the same conceptual matrix. This language thus reflects the thought-world that the Buddha inherited from the wider Indian culture into which he was born, so that its words capture the subtle nuances of that thought-world.[9]
Whatever the relationship of the Buddha's speech to Pali, the Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down. It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist was eventually transcribed and preserved entirely in it, while the commentarial tradition that accompanied it (according to the information provided by Buddhaghosa Bhadantācariya Buddhaghoṣa（Chinese: 覺音）was a 5th-century Indian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar. His name means "Voice of the Buddha" in the Pāli language. His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga, or Path of Purification, a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Theravada understanding of the Buddha's path to) was translated into Sinhalese Sinhala is the native language of the island Sri Lanka, and the language of the Sinhalese, who make up the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages and preserved in local languages for several generations. 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 The Tuscan language , or the Tuscan dialect (dialetto toscano) is an Italian dialect spoken in Tuscany, Italy among the Prakrits."[10]
However Pali was ultimately supplanted in India by Sanskrit as a literary and religious language following the formulation of Classical Sanskrit by the scholar Pāṇini. 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 is a Theravada Buddhist commentary written by Buddhaghosa approximately in 430 CE in Sri Lanka. It is considered the most important Theravada text outside of the Tipitaka canon of scriptures. The Visuddhimagga's structure is based on the Ratha-vinita Sutta ("Relay Chariots Discourse," MN 24), which describes the and the other commentaries that Buddhaghosa compiled codified and condensed the Sinhalese Sinhala is the native language of the island Sri Lanka, and the language of the Sinhalese, who make up the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in Sri Lanka since the 3rd century BCE.
Pali today
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 centers of Pali learning remain in the Theravada Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India. It is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism, and for many centuries has been the predominant religion of Sri Lanka (about 70% of the population) and most of nations of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic and volcanic activity: Burma Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia. The country is bordered by People's Republic of China on the north-east, Laos on the east, Thailand on the south-east, Bangladesh on the west, India on the north-west and the Bay of Bengal to the south-west with the Andaman Sea defining, Sri Lanka As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia.[citation needed] It has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times and is one of the few remaining abodes of Buddhism in South Asia, including Ladakh, Bhutan and the Chittagong Hill, Thailand Thailand (pronounced /ˈtaɪlænd/ TYE-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/; Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย Ratcha Anachak Thai, IPA: [râːtɕʰa ʔaːnaːtɕɑ̀k tʰɑj]) (formerly Siam Thai: สยาม) is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos, Laos Laos , officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and People's Republic of China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west, and Cambodia The Kingdom of Cambodia, formerly known as Kampuchea, Khmer: ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា or Preăh Réachéa Nachâk Kâmpŭchéa, derived from the Indian language of Sanskrit Kambujadesa ), is a country in Southeast Asia that borders Thailand to the west and northwest, Laos to the north, Vietnam to the east,. Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of Pali studies in India have promoted awareness of the language and its literature, perhaps most notably the Maha Bodhi Society founded by Anagarika Dhammapala Anagarika Dharmapala was a leading figure in initiating two outstanding features of Buddhism in the twentieth century. He was a pioneer in the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been virtually extinct there for several centuries, and he was the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the Dharma in three continents: Asia, North America, and.
In Europe, the Pali Text Society The Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by T.W. Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pali texts" 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 Robert Caesar Childers 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 Robert Erskine Childers and grandfather to the fourth President of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton 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's dictionary later received the Volney Prize in 1876.
The Pali Text Society was in part founded to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to Indology Indology is the academic study of the languages and literature, history and cultures of the Indian subcontinent , and as such a subset of Asian studies 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 Prakrit (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word, derived from its indian root "Parikrit", itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, language studies as Germany, Russia, and even Denmark. Without the inspiration of colonial holdings such as the former British occupation of Sri Lanka and Burma Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia. The country is bordered by People's Republic of China on the north-east, Laos on the east, Thailand on the south-east, Bangladesh on the west, India on the north-west and the Bay of Bengal to the south-west with the Andaman Sea defining, institutions such as the Danish Royal Library The Royal Library in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the largest library in Scandinavia have built up major collections of Pali manuscripts, and major traditions of Pali studies.
Lexicon
Virtually every word in Pāḷi has cognates An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt and skirt, the former from Old English sċyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjōn-. Words with this type of relationship within a single language are called doublets. Further cognates of the same word in other Germanic in the other Prakritic Middle Indo-Aryan languages The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as Sanskrit, and the predecessors of the late medieval languages such as Apabhramsha or Abahatta, which eventually evolved into the contemporary Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu),, e.g., the Jain Prakrits. The relationship to earlier Sanskrit (e.g., Vedic language) is less direct and more complicated. 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, 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 Sinhalese words to Pali). These usages differentiate the Pali found in the Suttapiṭaka The Sutta Pitaka is the second of the three divisions of the Tipitaka or Pali Canon, the great Pali collection of Buddhist writings, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. The Sutta Pitaka contains more than 10,000 suttas (teachings) attributed to the Buddha or his close companions from later compositions such as the Pali commentaries on the canon and folklore (e.g., the stories of the Jātaka commentaries), 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.
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Honolulu Advertiser
NU'UANU Police officers were out in force yesterday morning at Pali Highway and Dowsett Avenue, primarily ticketing drivers who failed to exercise due ...
Undercover Officers on the Lookout for Speeding Drivers KHON2
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hu, 06 Sep 2007 05:42:00 GM
Local folklore on the island of Oahu says that one should never carry pork over the . Pali. Highway connecting Honolulu and Windward Oahu. The stories vary, but the classic legend is that if one carries pork of any kind over the Nuuanu ...
