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(पाऴि) is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. It is most famous as the liturgical language in which the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism (also known as the Pāli Canon or in Pāli the Tipitaka) were written down in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BCE in the Sinhalese script. Pāli has been written in a variety of scripts, from Brahmi, Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts through to a romanised (western) form devised by T. W. Rhys Davids of the Pali Text Society.
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Language origins and development
The word Pāli itself signifies "line" or "(canonical) text", and this name for the language seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the "Pāli" (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or the vernacular following after it on the Manuscript page. 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" (a), and also with either a retroflex or non-retroflex (l) "l" sound. To this day, there is no single, standard spelling of the term; all four spellings can be found in textbooks.
Pāli is a literary language of the Prakrit language family; it is not now (and never was) an informal, spoken language, in the sense of a mother tongue. Despite excellent scholarship on this problem, there is persistent confusion as to the inter-relation of Pāli to the vernacular of ancient Magadhi.
Pāli was considered by early Buddhists to be linguistically similar to Old Magadhi or even a direct continuation of that language. Many Theravada sources refer to the Pāli language as “Magadhan” or the “language of Magadha”. However, Magadhi of Asoka's inscriptions is an Eastern Indian language whereas Pāli most closely resembles Western Indian inscriptions.
There are many remarkable analogies between Pali and an old form of Magadhi, - Ardhamagadhi (Half Magadhi), which is preserved in ancient Jain texts. Ardhamagadhi differs from Magadhi proper on similar points as Pali. For example, Ardhamagadhi too does not change r
into l, and in the noun inflexion it shows the ending -o instead of Magadhic -e at least in many metrical places. This similarity is not accidental, since the founder of Jain religion Mahavira preached in the same area (Magadha) as Buddha Gotama.
Oskar von Hinuber has suggested that Pāli may have originated as a form of lingua franca or trade language used at the time of the Ashokan Empire. By the time of the spread of Buddhism to Sri Lanka (by missionaries sent by King Ashoka (Aśoka), according to Buddhist sources), Pāli was a significant enough literary language that it had already been used to record the complete Tipitaka. After the Pāli Canon was transmitted to Sri Lanka, it continued to be preserved entirely in Pāli, while the commentarial tradition that accompanied it (according to the information provided by Buddhaghosa) was translated into Sinhalese and preserved in local languages for several generations.
However it was ultimately supplanted by Sanskrit as a literary and religious language following the formulation of Classical Sanskrit by the scholar Panini in India. In Sri Lanka, Pāli is thought to have entered into a period of decline around the 5th Century (as Sanskrit rose in prominence), but ultimately survived. The work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. The Visuddhimagga and the other commentaries that Buddhaghosa compiled codified and condensed the Sinhalese commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in Sri Lanka since the 3rd Century.
Today Pāli is studied mainly to gain access to Buddhist scriptures, and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. The secular literature of Pāli historical chronicals, medical texts, and inscriptions, is also of great historical importance. The great centers of Pāli learning remain in the Theravada nations of South-East Asia: Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Pāli scholarship in Northern India generally ended with the rise of the Sena dynasty, with an uncertain process of decline in peninsular India, perhaps lasting the longest in Orissa, i.e., eventually ending (along with Buddhist practice itself) with the fall of the last resistance to the expanding Muslim empires on the subcontinent. Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of Pāli studies in India have promoted awareness of the language and its literature, perhaps most notably the Maha Bodhi Society founded by Anagarika Dhammapala.
In Europe, the Pali Text Society has been a major force in promoting the study of Pāli by Western scholars since its founding in 1881. Based in the United Kingdom, the society publishes romanised Pāli editions, along with many English translations of these sources. The Pali Text Society was in part founded to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to Indology in late 19th century England; incongruously, the English were not nearly so robust in Sanskrit and Prakrit language studies as Germany, Russia and even Denmark—a situation that many would say continues to this day. Without the inspiration of colonial holdings such as the former British occupation of Sri Lanka and Burma, institutions such as the Danish Royal Library have built up major collections of Pāli manuscripts, and major traditions of Pāli studies.
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Lexicon
Virtually every word in Pāli has cognates in the other Prakritic "Middle Indo-Aryan languages", e.g., the Jain Prakrits. The relationship to earlier Sanskrit (e.g., Vedic language) is less direct and more complicated. Historically, influence between Pāli and Sanskrit has been felt in both directions. The Pāli 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 Pāli technical terminology has been borrowed from the vocabulary of equivalent disciplines in Sanskrit, either directly or with certain phonological adaptations.
Post-Canonical Pāli also possesses a few loan-words from local languages where Pāli was used (e.g. Sri Lankans adding Sinhalese words to Pāli). These usages differentiate the Pāli found in the Suttapiṭaka from later compositions such as the Pāli 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 trade unto itself.
Pāli 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 Pāli. 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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Emic and etic|Emic views of Pāli
Although Sanskrit was said, in brahmanical tradition, to be the unchanging language spoken by the gods, in which each word had an inherent significance, this view of language was not shared in the early Buddhist tradition, in which words were only conventional and mutable signs. Neither the Buddha nor his early followers shared the brahmans' reverence for the Vedic language or its sacred texts. This view of language naturally extended to Pāli, and may have contributed to its usage (as an approximation or standardization of local Middle Indic dialects) in place of Sanskrit.
In popular thought, however, Pāli 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 Pāli dhāraṇīs used as charms, e.g. against the bite of snakes. Many people in Theravada cultures still believe that taking a vow in Pāli has a special significance, and, as one example of the supernatural power assigned to chanting in the language, the recitation of the vows of Aṅgulimāla are believed to alleviate the pain of childbirth in Sri Lanka. In Thailand, the chanting of a portion of the Abhidhammapiṭaka is believed to be beneficial to the recently departed, and this ceremony routinely occupies as much as seven working days. Interestingly, there is nothing in the latter text that relates to this subject, and the origins of the custom are unclear.
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Vowels
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.
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Consonants
The sounds listed above, except for , and are distinct phonemes in Pāli. only occurs before velar stops. and are allophones of and when they occur singly between vowels.
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Example of Pāli with English translation
;
,
.
Element for element gloss
=ā dhamm=ā, =ā mano-may=ā;
Mind-before-going=m.pl.nom. dharma=m.pl.nom., mind-foremost=m.nom.pl. mind-made=m.nom.pl.
Manas=ā ce =ena, bhāsa=ti vā karo=ti vā,
Mind=n.sg.inst. if corrupted=n.sg.inst. speak=3.sg.pr. either act=3.sg.pr. or,
Ta=to anv-e=ti, 'va vahat=o pad=.
That=from him suffering after-go=3.sg.pr., wheel as carrying(beast)=m.sg.gen. foot=n.sg.acc.
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"
manomaya "consisting of mind" or "made by mind"
The literal meaning is therefore: "The dharmas have mind as their leader, mind as their chief, are made of/by mind. If someone either speaks or acts with a corrupted mind, from that cause suffering goes after him, as the wheel of a cart follows 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.
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Pāli and Sanskrit
Although Pāli cannot be considered a direct descendant of either Classical Sanskrit or of the older Vedic dialect, the languages are obviously very closely related and the common characteristics of Pāli and Sanskrit were always easily recognized by those in India who were familiar with both. Indeed, a very large proportion of Pāli and Sanskrit word-stems are identical in form, differing only in details of inflection.
The connections were sufficiently well-known that technical terms from Sanskrit were easily converted into Pāli by a set of conventional phonological transformations. These transformations mimicked a subset of the phonological developments that had occurred in Proto-Pāli. Because of the prevalence of these transformations, it is not always possible to tell whether a given Pāli 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 Pāli word is not always secure evidence of the Pāli 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 Pāli from its Old Indic ancestor, but rather are a summary of the most common phonological equations between Sanskrit and Pāli, with no claim to completeness.
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Vowels and diphthongs
Sanskrit ai and au always monophthongize to Pāli e and o, respectively
Examples: maitrī → mettā, → osadha
Sanskrit aya and ava likewise often reduce to Pāli e and o
Examples: dhārayati → dhāreti, avatāra → otāra, bhavati → hoti
Sanskrit avi becomes Pāli e (i.e. avi → ai → e)
Example: sthavira → thera
Examples:
Sanskrit long vowels are shortened before a sequence of two following consonants.
Examples:
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Sound changes
The Sanskrit sibilants ś, , and s merge together as Pāli s
Examples: → , → dosa
The Sanskrit stops and become and between vowels (as in Vedic)
Example: → , →
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General rules
Many assimilations of one consonant to a neighboring consonant occurred in the development of Pāli, producing a large number of geminate (double) consonants. Since aspiration of a geminate consonant is only phonetically detectable on the last consonant of a cluster, geminate
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: (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
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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.
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Progressive assimilations
Internal visarga assimilates to a following voiceless stop or sibilant
Examples: (=) → nikkodha, (=) → nippakka, → 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, → 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
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Regressive assimilations
Nasals sometimes assimilate to a preceding stop (in other cases epenthesis occurs; see below)
Examples: agni → aggi, ātman → atta, prāpnoti → pappoti, śaknoti → sakkoti
m assimilates to an initial sibilant
Examples: smarati → sarati, → sati
Nasals assimilate to a preceding stop+sibilant cluster, which then develops in the same way as such clusters without following nasals (see Partial assimilations below)
Examples:
The Sanskrit liquid consonants r and l assimilate to a preceding stop, nasal, sibilant, or v
Examples: , grāma → gāma, śrāvaka → sāvaka, agra → agga, indra → inda, pravrajati → pavvajati → pabbajati, aśru → assu
y assimilates to preceding non-dental/retroflex stops or nasals
Examples:
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, → karissati, tasya → tassa, svāmin → sāmī
v sometimes assimilates to a preceding stop
Examples: pakva → pakka, catvāri → cattāri, sattva → satta, dhvaja → dhaja
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Partial and mutual assimilation
Sanskrit sibilants before a stop assimilate to that stop, and if that stop is not already aspirated, it becomes aspirated; e.g.
Examples:
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 become tth and
Examples: śāstra → śasta → sattha, → →
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 becomes kkh)
Examples:
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 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, → 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
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Epenthesis
An epenthetic vowel is sometimes inserted between certain consonant-sequences. As with , 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, → barihisa
There is sporadic epenthesis between other consonant sequences
Examples: caitya → cetiya (not cecca), vajra → vajira (not vajja)
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Other changes
Any Sanskrit sibilant before a nasal becomes a sequence of nasal followed by h, i.e.
Examples:
The sequence śn becomes ñh, due to assimilation of the n to the preceding palatal sibilant
Example: praśna → praśña → pañha
Examples: jihvā → jivhā, → gayha, guhya → guyha
h undergoes metathesis with a following nasal
Example:
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, → -ehi, laghu → lahu
Dental and retroflex sounds sporadically change into one another
Examples:
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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.))
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Pāli alphabet with diacritics
Historically, the first written record of the Pāli canon is believed to have been composed in Sri Lanka, based on a prior oral tradition. The transmission of written Pāli has retained a universal system of alphabetic values, but has expressed those values in a stunning variety of actual scripts. This is confusing to many westerners, who tend to assume that one script is ineluctably tied to one set of phonemes.
Early Pāli inscriptions made during the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka were composed in the Ashokan Brahmi script; in Sri Lanka, Pāli texts were recorded in Sinhala script. Other local scripts (most prominently Burmese and Thai) have been used to record Pāli. A standardized system of romanization was introduced in the 19th Century to permit Westerners to study Pāli with greater ease. In modern times, Pāli texts have also been reproduced in the Devanāgarī and Mongolian scripts to permit wider study.
The Pāli alphabetical order is as follows:
, although a single sound, is written with ligature of and h.
The linked pages will facilitate the comparison of the romanized phonetic alphabet to the corresponding alphabets of the Burmese, Sinhalese, Cambodian, Lao, Thai and other writing systems used to express the Pāli language.
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How to set up fonts for Pāli transliteration
There are several fonts to use for Pāli transliteration. However, older ASCII fonts such as Leedsbit PaliTranslit, Times_Norman, Times_CSX+, Skt Times, Vri RomanPali CN/CB etc., are not recommendable since they are not compatible with one another and technically out of date. On the contrary, fonts based on the Unicode standard are recommended because Unicode seems to be the future for all fonts and also because they are easily portable to one another.
However, not all Unicode fonts contain the necessary characters. To properly display all the diacritic marks used for romanized Pāli (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
The Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library provides links to several Unicode diacritic fonts usable for typing Pāli together with ratings and installation instructions. And an English Buddhist monk titled Bhikkhu Pesala provides some Pāli Unicode fonts he has designed himself here. Further, the font section of Alanwood's Unicode Resources have links to several general purpose fonts that can be used for Pāli typing if they cover the character ranges above.
Note for Linux users: Installation files (.exe files) cannot be used on Linux. However, one can copy the font files from the Fonts folder of a Windows system into the folder /usr/share/fonts on a Linux one. In addition, some new Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and RedHat, have packages available for Devanāgarī fonts and extended Latin fonts both used for Pali. Recent versions of Mac OS X also include similar font characters sets.
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How to type Pāli with diacritics
After the fonts have been set up, there are two alternatives to prepare the available diacritics for typing
1. One should go to a wordprocessor such as Microsoft Word to set up the shortcut keys for diacritic characters.
In the case of Microsoft Word, select either font in the font combo box, then go to menu item Insert→Symbol. The Symbol dialog box pops up. Under the Symbols tab, select one out of the three in the Font combo box: under it should be a grid of characters.
For each desired character in the grid, select it by clicking on it, then click on the "Shortcut Key..." command button: the Customize Keyboard dialog box pops up. Pressing the desired shortcut key combination makes it show up in the "Press new shortcut key:" text box. Click the "Assign" command button, then click on "Close" and repeat this for each desired character. When done, close the Symbol dialog box.
Shortcut keys need be assigned only for one Unicode font. If one needs to change the font, just select the required section, go to the font combo box, and make the change. This method will work as long as both original and target fonts are of Unicode encoding, and both provide necessary diacritics for Pāli. This is why Unicode fonts are recommended.
2. Or one should install an input method editor such as Keyman (which can be downloaded free from here after due registration). A good Keyman keyboard providing Pāli/Sanskrit diacritics and Devanagari can be obtained here (documentation included) for US, US International, and German keyboards. Alternatively, if one has to use many Latin characters besides Pāli and Sanskrit, another good keyboard (documentation included) can be downloaded here. Then follow the instructions in the respective documentations to type Pāli diacritics.
Or There are also keyboard layouts that can be directly installed on Windows such as the one provided by The Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library.
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Pāli 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 typesetting system. This system of representing Pāli diacritical marks has been used in some websites and discussion lists.
The following table compares various conventional renderings and shortcut key assignments:
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See also
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