Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
danieLion
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by danieLion »

tiltbillings wrote:Now, I shall haveto reread a number of his essays that I have xeroxed to see if I can find it.
Thanks. I'll try to do the same, starting with Sylvester's tip (I think have parts of WTBT xeroxed).
danieLion
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by danieLion »

Sylvester wrote:This looks very familiar. Probably from "What the Buddha Thought", in the bit where he disputes Schopen (and the other denialist-heretics) without naming them.
Much obliged.
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Alex123
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by Alex123 »

danieLion wrote:I don't see the Buddha engaging in definitionalism (formal, permanent proclamations of the permenent, static meanings of words) in the suttas like we're want to do as moderns.
This just complicates things such as, what exactly is meant by: sati, vitakka (in context of Jhāna, for example), etc.
Modern academic opinion could be technically correct but not what Buddha has meant in 5th century BC speaking to poor uneducated farmers.
danieLion wrote:Plus, I'm not sure Pali is as "dead" as we wish it to be.
As I understand, there are no native speakers of it and it is literary language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
pulga
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by pulga »

Dmytro wrote: Yes, they call it Arsha or Ardha-Magadhi....
Thanks for all the information, Dmytro. I just checked Google Books and they've got Jacobi's edition of the Acaranga Sutta online. Even if you don't have the time to work through the text, his comparison between Pali and Jain Prakrit in the introduction might interest you.

http://books.google.com/books?id=eg8pAA ... CC0Q6AEwAA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
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Assaji
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by Assaji »

pulga wrote:Thanks for all the information, Dmytro. I just checked Google Books and they've got Jacobi's edition of the Acaranga Sutta online. Even if you don't have the time to work through the text, his comparison between Pali and Jain Prakrit in the introduction might interest you.
Thank you, Pulga, I have found it at:

But we can fix the date of the Gaina literature between still narrower limits by means of the metres employed in the sacred books. I am of opinion that the first book of the Âkârâṅga Sûtra and that of the Sûtrakritâṅga Sûtra may be reckoned among the most ancient parts of the Siddhânta; the style of both works appears to me to prove the correctness of this assumption. Now a whole lesson of the Sûtrakritâṅga Sûtra is written in the Vaitâlîya metre. The same metre is used in the Dhammapadam and other sacred books of the Southern Buddhists. But the Pâli verses represent an older stage in the development of the Vaitâlîya than those in the Sûtrakritâṅga, as I shall prove in a paper on the post-Vedic metres soon to be published in the Journal of the German Oriental Society. Compared with the common Vaitâlîya verses of Sanskrit literature, a small number of which occur already in the Lalita Vistara, the Vaitâlîya of the Sûtrakritâṅga must be considered to represent an earlier form of the metre. Again, ancient Pâli works seem to contain no verses in the Âryâ metre; at least there is none in the Dhammapadam, nor have I found one in other works. But both the Âkârâṅga and Sûtrakritâṅga contain each a whole lecture in Âryâ verses of a form which is decidedly older than, and probably the parent of the common Âryâ. The latter is found in the younger parts of the Siddhânta, in the Brahmanical literature, both in Prâkrit and in Sanskrit, and in the works of the Northern Buddhists, e. g. the Lalita Vistara, &c. The form of the Trishtubh metre in ancient Gaina works is younger than that in the Pâli literature and older than that in the Lalita Vistara. Finally the great variety of artificial metres in which the greater number of the Gâthâs in the Lalita Vistara, &c., is composed and which are wanting in the Gaina Siddhânta, seems to prove that the literary taste of the Gainas was fixed before the composition of the latter works. From all these facts we must conclude that the chronological position of the oldest parts of the Gaina literature is intermediate between the Pâli literature and the composition of the Lalita Vistara. Now the Pâli Pitakas were written in books in the time of Vatta Gâmani, who began to reign 88 B.C. But they were in existence already some centuries before that time. Professor Max Müller sums up his discussion on that point by saying: 'We must be satisfied therefore, so far as I can see, at present with fixing the date, and the latest date, of a Buddhist canon at the time of the Second Council, 377 B.C. 1' Additions and alterations may have been made in the sacred texts after that time; but as our argument is not based on a single passage, or even a part of the Dhammapada, but on the metrical laws of a variety of metres in this and other Pâli books, the admission of alterations and additions in these books will not materially influence our conclusion, viz. that the whole of the Gaina Siddhânta was composed after the fourth century B.C.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jai/sbe22/s ... tm#page_ix" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
danieLion
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by danieLion »

Dmytro wrote:
pulga wrote:Thanks for all the information, Dmytro. I just checked Google Books and they've got Jacobi's edition of the Acaranga Sutta online. Even if you don't have the time to work through the text, his comparison between Pali and Jain Prakrit in the introduction might interest you.
Thank you, Pulga, I have found it at:

But we can fix the date of the Gaina literature between still narrower limits by means of the metres employed in the sacred books. I am of opinion that the first book of the Âkârâṅga Sûtra and that of the Sûtrakritâṅga Sûtra may be reckoned among the most ancient parts of the Siddhânta; the style of both works appears to me to prove the correctness of this assumption. Now a whole lesson of the Sûtrakritâṅga Sûtra is written in the Vaitâlîya metre. The same metre is used in the Dhammapadam and other sacred books of the Southern Buddhists. But the Pâli verses represent an older stage in the development of the Vaitâlîya than those in the Sûtrakritâṅga, as I shall prove in a paper on the post-Vedic metres soon to be published in the Journal of the German Oriental Society. Compared with the common Vaitâlîya verses of Sanskrit literature, a small number of which occur already in the Lalita Vistara, the Vaitâlîya of the Sûtrakritâṅga must be considered to represent an earlier form of the metre. Again, ancient Pâli works seem to contain no verses in the Âryâ metre; at least there is none in the Dhammapadam, nor have I found one in other works. But both the Âkârâṅga and Sûtrakritâṅga contain each a whole lecture in Âryâ verses of a form which is decidedly older than, and probably the parent of the common Âryâ. The latter is found in the younger parts of the Siddhânta, in the Brahmanical literature, both in Prâkrit and in Sanskrit, and in the works of the Northern Buddhists, e. g. the Lalita Vistara, &c. The form of the Trishtubh metre in ancient Gaina works is younger than that in the Pâli literature and older than that in the Lalita Vistara. Finally the great variety of artificial metres in which the greater number of the Gâthâs in the Lalita Vistara, &c., is composed and which are wanting in the Gaina Siddhânta, seems to prove that the literary taste of the Gainas was fixed before the composition of the latter works. From all these facts we must conclude that the chronological position of the oldest parts of the Gaina literature is intermediate between the Pâli literature and the composition of the Lalita Vistara. Now the Pâli Pitakas were written in books in the time of Vatta Gâmani, who began to reign 88 B.C. But they were in existence already some centuries before that time. Professor Max Müller sums up his discussion on that point by saying: 'We must be satisfied therefore, so far as I can see, at present with fixing the date, and the latest date, of a Buddhist canon at the time of the Second Council, 377 B.C. 1' Additions and alterations may have been made in the sacred texts after that time; but as our argument is not based on a single passage, or even a part of the Dhammapada, but on the metrical laws of a variety of metres in this and other Pâli books, the admission of alterations and additions in these books will not materially influence our conclusion, viz. that the whole of the Gaina Siddhânta was composed after the fourth century B.C.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jai/sbe22/s ... tm#page_ix" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Which part of this (and your other posts) show that the Buddha knew Pali and that his words were preserved in the Pali "canon"?
danieLion
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by danieLion »

danieLion wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Now, I shall haveto reread a number of his essays that I have xeroxed to see if I can find it.
Thanks. I'll try to do the same, starting with Sylvester's tip (I think have parts of WTBT xeroxed).
No luck.

But these passages from WTBT seemed quite relevant.
The Buddha's attitude to the use of language was pragmatic: his purpose was purely to convey meaning, and anything that might impede communication was to be discarded (p. 148).
Why has the unusual English word 'mindfulness' come to be preferred to 'awareness' as the standard translation for sati? Another attempt to make the East more mysterious (p. 223, Fn 30 [ref. p. 170])?
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Assaji
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by Assaji »

Hi Pulga,

Some more parallels:

"For instance, a stanza of the Uttaradhyana (9.44), viz.

Mase mase tu jo balo kusaggenam tu bhunjae

Na so sukkha adhammasa kalam agghai solasim.

has a very close resemblance to the stanza of the Dhammapada (70), viz.

"Māse māse kusaggena, bālo bhuñjeyya bhojanaṃ;

Na so saṅkhātadhammānaṃ, kalaṃ agghati soḷasiṃ."

Month after month the fool might eat only a tip-of-grass measure of food,
but he wouldn't be worth one sixteenth of those who've fathomed the Dhamma.

http://jainfriends.tripod.com/books/jib ... ature.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
pulga
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Re: Did the Buddha Know Pali?

Post by pulga »

Dmytro wrote: Some more parallels:...
Thanks, Dmytro.
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
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