92-527: Shakya ( Pāḷi : Sakya ; Sanskrit : शाक्य , romanized : Śākya ) was an ancient clan of the northeastern region of South Asia , whose existence is attested during the Iron Age . The Shakyas were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha (an aristocratic oligarchic republic ), also known as the Shakya Republic . The Shakyas were on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of
184-415: A Middle Indo-Aryan language , is different from Classical Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin. A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a direct continuation of Ṛgvedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, different from Ṛgvedic . The Theravada commentaries refer to
276-515: A before doubled consonants: The vowels ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ are lengthened in the flexional endings including: -īhi, -ūhi and -īsu A sound called anusvāra (Skt.; Pali: niggahīta ), represented by the letter ṁ (ISO 15919) or ṃ (ALA-LC) in romanization, and by a raised dot in most traditional alphabets, originally marked the fact that the preceding vowel was nasalized. That is, aṁ , iṁ and uṁ represented [ã] , [ĩ] and [ũ] . In many traditional pronunciations, however,
368-531: A lingua franca 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". Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue; there are a variety of conflicting theories with supporters and detractors. After
460-642: A common ancestor, and was also a myth of an early human utopia where humans were born as couples. The important role of the Sāl tree in the life of the Buddha according to the Buddhist texts, as well as his representation as a Bodhi tree and his Enlightenment occurring under one such tree, suggest that the Shakyas practised tree worship, a custom likely derived from Munda religious customs of worshipping sacred groves, and
552-611: A continuation of a language spoken in the area of Magadha in the time of the Buddha. Nearly every word in Pāḷi has cognates in the other Middle Indo-Aryan languages, the Prakrits . The relationship to Vedic Sanskrit is less direct and more complicated; the Prakrits were descended from Old Indo-Aryan vernaculars . Historically, influence between Pali and Sanskrit has been felt in both directions. The Pali language's resemblance to Sanskrit
644-552: A degraded form of Pali, But Masefield states that further examination of a very considerable corpus of texts will probably show that this is an internally consistent Pali dialect. The reason for the changes is that some combinations of characters are difficult to write in those scripts. Masefield further states that upon the third re-introduction of Theravada Buddhism into Sri Lanka (The Siyamese Sect), records in Thailand state that large number of texts were also taken. It seems that when
736-575: A few loan-words from local languages where Pali was used (e.g. Sri Lankans adding Sinhala words to Pali). These usages differentiate the Pali found in the Suttapiṭaka from later compositions such as the Pali commentaries on the canon and folklore (e.g., commentaries on the Jataka tales ), and comparative study (and dating) of texts on the basis of such loan-words is now a specialized field unto itself. Pali
828-665: A high degree of mutual intelligibility. Theravada tradition, as recorded in chronicles like the Mahavamsa , states that the Tipitaka was first committed to writing during the first century BCE. This move away from the previous tradition of oral preservation is described as being motivated by threats to the Sangha from famine, war, and the growing influence of the rival tradition of the Abhayagiri Vihara . This account
920-415: A number of similarities between surviving fragments and Pali morphology. Ardhamagadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit thought to have been spoken in modern-day Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh and used in some early Buddhist and Jain drama. It was originally thought to be a predecessor of the vernacular Magadhi Prakrit, hence the name (literally "half-Magadhi"). Ardhamāgadhī
1012-541: A simple voting system through either raising hands or the use of wooden chips. Similarly to the other gaṇasaṅgha s, the Sakya Assembly met rarely and it instead had an inner and smaller Council which met more often to administer the republic in the name of the Assembly. The members of the council, titled amaccā s, formed a college which was directly in charge of public affairs of the republic. The head of
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#17327910298621104-526: A slave or servant class of sudda s, themselves comprising at least an aristocracy, as well as land-owners, attendants, labourers, and serfs. Landholders held the title of bhojakā s, literally meaning "enjoyers (of the right to own land)," and used in the sense of "headmen." The lower classes of Shakya society consisted of servants, in Pāli called kammakara s ( lit. ' labourers ' ) and sevaka s ( lit. ' serfs ' ), who performed
1196-577: Is currently relatively little known, particularly in the Thai tradition, with many manuscripts never catalogued or published. Paiśācī is a largely unattested literary language of classical India that is mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is found grouped with the Prakrit languages, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but was not considered a spoken language by
1288-536: 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 centres of Pali learning remain in Sri Lanka and other Theravada nations of Southeast Asia: Myanmar , Thailand , Laos and Cambodia . Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of Pali studies in India have promoted awareness of
1380-502: Is generally accepted by scholars, though there are indications that Pali had already begun to be recorded in writing by this date. By this point in its history, scholars consider it likely that Pali had already undergone some initial assimilation with Sanskrit , such as the conversion of the Middle-Indic bahmana to the more familiar Sanskrit brāhmana that contemporary brahmans used to identify themselves. In Sri Lanka, Pali
1472-445: Is no single, standard spelling of the term, and all four possible 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". There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha , which was located in modern-day Bihar . Beginning in
1564-677: 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
1656-936: Is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may once have been common. The 13th-century Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub wrote that the early Buddhist schools were separated by choice of sacred language : the Mahāsāṃghikas used Prakrit, the Sarvāstivādins used Sanskrit, the Sthaviravādins used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa . This observation has led some scholars to theorize connections between Pali and Paiśācī; Sten Konow concluded that it may have been an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Dravidian people in South India, and Alfred Master noted
1748-461: 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 , and the other commentaries that Buddhaghosa compiled, codified and condensed
1840-785: Is usually divided into canonical and non-canonical or extra-canonical texts. Canonical texts include the whole of the Pali Canon or Tipitaka . With the exception of three books placed in the Khuddaka Nikaya by only the Burmese tradition, these texts (consisting of the five Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka , the Vinaya Pitaka , and the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka ) are traditionally accepted as containing
1932-455: The amaccā s came back and waited for the recorders' decision. Another reflection of non-Indo-Aryan cultural practices of the Shakyas was the practice of sibling marriages among their ruling clans, which was forbidden among Vaidika peoples, and was a practice of social demarcation and of maintaining power within a smaller sub-group of the Shakya clan, and was therefore not permitted among
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#17327910298622024-579: The Government of India . The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word 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 vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of
2116-706: The Koliya tribe, with whom they intermarried. Scholars such as Michael Witzel and Christopher I. Beckwith have equated the Shakyas with Central Asian nomads who were called Scythians by the Greeks, Sakā s by the Achaemenid Persians, and Śāka by the Indo-Aryans. These scholars have suggested that the people of the Buddha were Saka soldiers who arrived in South Asia in the army of Darius
2208-732: The Mahāsāṃghika branch became influential in Central and East India . Akira Hirakawa and Paul Groner also associate Pali with Western India and the Sthavira nikāya, citing the Saurashtran inscriptions, which are linguistically closest to the Pali language. Although Sanskrit was said in the Brahmanical tradition to be the unchanging language spoken by the gods in which each word had an inherent significance, such views for any language
2300-629: The Mallakas of Kushinagar . To the north, the territory of the Shakyas stretched into the Himalayas until the forested regions of the mountains, which formed their northern border. The capital of the Shakyas was the city of Kapilavastu . The name of the Shakyas is attested primarily in the Pali forms Sakya and Sakka , and the Sanskrit form Śākya . The Shakyas' name was derived from
2392-783: The Milindapanha ) may have been composed in India before being transmitted to Sri Lanka, but the surviving versions of the texts are those preserved by the Mahavihara in Ceylon and shared with monasteries in Theravada Southeast Asia. The earliest inscriptions in Pali found in mainland Southeast Asia are from the first millennium CE, some possibly dating to as early as the 4th century. Inscriptions are found in what are now Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia and may have spread from southern India rather than Sri Lanka. By
2484-625: The Pali Canon and non-canonical texts, and include several examples of the Ye dhamma hetu verse. The oldest surviving Pali manuscript was discovered in Nepal dating to the 9th century. It is in the form of four palm-leaf folios, using a transitional script deriving from the Gupta script to scribe a fragment of the Cullavagga . The oldest known manuscripts from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia date to
2576-490: The 11th century, a so-called "Pali renaissance" began in the vicinity of Pagan , gradually spreading to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia as royal dynasties sponsored monastic lineages derived from the Mahavihara of Anuradhapura . This era was also characterized by the adoption of Sanskrit conventions and poetic forms (such as kavya ) that had not been features of earlier Pali literature. This process began as early as
2668-804: The 13th–15th century, with few surviving examples. Very few manuscripts older than 400 years have survived, and complete manuscripts of the four Nikayas are only available in examples from the 17th century and later. Pali was first mentioned in Western literature in Simon de la Loubère 's descriptions of his travels in the kingdom of Siam. An early grammar and dictionary was published by Methodist missionary Benjamin Clough in 1824, and an initial study published by Eugène Burnouf and Christian Lassen in 1826 ( Essai sur le Pali, ou Langue sacrée de la presqu'île au-delà du Gange ). The first modern Pali-English dictionary
2760-627: The 5th century, but intensified early in the second millennium as Pali texts on poetics and composition modeled on Sanskrit forms began to grow in popularity. One milestone of this period was the publication of the Subodhalankara during the 14th century, a work attributed to Sangharakkhita Mahāsāmi and modeled on the Sanskrit Kavyadarsa . Peter Masefield devoted considerable research to a form of Pali known as Indochinese Pali or 'Kham Pali'. Up until now, this has been considered
2852-573: The Buddha finally put an end to these hostilities. After the death of the Buddha, the Shakyas claimed a share of his relics from the Mallakas of Kusinārā on the grounds that he had been a Shakya. Shortly after the Buddha's death, the Kauśalya king Viḍūḍabha , who had overthrown his father Pasenadi , invaded the Shakya and Koliya republics, seeking to conquer their territories because they had once been part of Kosala . Viḍūḍabha finally triumphed over
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2944-850: The Great during the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley , and saw in Scytho-Saka nomadism the origin of the wandering asceticism of the Buddha. Scholars criticize the Scythian hypothesis due to a lack of evidence, with Bryan Levman maintaining that the Shakyas were native to the north-east Gangetic plain and unrelated to the Iranic Sakas. By the sixth century BCE, the Shakyas, the Koliyas , Moriyas , and Mallakas lived between
3036-512: 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 Maurya Empire . However, only some of the Buddha's teachings were delivered in the historical territory of Magadha kingdom . Scholars consider it likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had
3128-445: The Prakrits." According to K. R. Norman , differences between different texts within the canon suggest that it contains material from more than a single dialect. He also suggests 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
3220-458: The Sakya republic was an elected chief, which was a position of first among equals similar to Roman consuls and Greek archons , and whose incumbent had the title of mahārājā . The mahārājā was in charge of administering the republic with the help of the council. When sessions of the Assembly were held, the rājā s gathered in the santhāgāra; while four amaccā s were posted in
3312-439: The Sanskrit root śak ( शक् ) ( śaknoti ( शक्नोति ), more rarely śakyati ( शक्यति ) or śakyate ( शक्यते )) meaning "to be able," "worthy," "possible," or "practicable." The name of the Shakyas was also derived from the name of the śaka or sāka tree, which Bryan Levman has identified with either the teak or sāla tree, which is ultimately related to word śākhā ( शाखा ), meaning 'branch,’ and
3404-862: The Shakya Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha . The Shakyas worshipped the Sun-god , whom they considered their ancestor, hence why the Shakya khattiya clan claimed to be of the Ādicca ( Āditya in Sanskrit) gotta , and of the Sūryavaṃśa ("Solar dynasty"). The Shakya khattiya clan claimed descent from the Sun-god via his descendant, named Okkāka (in Pāli ) and Ikṣvāku (in Sanskrit ), and whose eight twin sons and daughters who were married to each other had founded
3496-587: The Shakya kingdom by Kosala. The earlier Burmese accounts stated that he was a descendant of Pyusawhti , son of a solar spirit and a dragon princess. The Shakyas lived in what scholars presently call the Greater Magadha cultural area, which was located in the eastern Gangetic plain to the east of the confluence of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā rivers. Like the other eastern groups of the Greater Magadha region,
3588-420: The Shakyas and Koliyas and annexed their state after a long war with massive loss of lives on both sides. Details of this war were exaggerated by later Buddhist accounts, which claimed that Viḍūḍabha exterminated the Shakyas in retaliation for having given in marriage to his father the slave girl who became Viḍūḍabha's mother. In actuality, Viḍūḍabha's invasion of Shakya might instead have had similar motivations to
3680-517: The Shakyas were saṃkīrṇa-yonayaḥ ("of mixed origin"), and therefore did not subscribe to the caturvarṇa social organisation consisting of brāhmaṇa s , khattiya s , vessa s , and sudda . While non-Indo-Aryan indigenous clans were given the status of sudda s, that is of slaves or servants, indigenous clans who collaborated with the Indo-Aryan clans were the status of khattiya s. The Buddhist suttas are ambiguous on
3772-436: The Shakyas, which originated from among the pre-Indo-Aryan Tibeto-Burman populations of northern South Asia. The cremation rituals of the Shakyas which were performed for the funeral of the Buddha as described by Buddhist texts involved wrapping his body in 500 layers of cloth, placing it in an iron vat full of oil as a mark of honour, and then covering it with another iron pot before being cremated. These rites originated from
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3864-658: The Sinhala commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in Sri Lanka since the 3rd century BCE. With only a few possible exceptions, the entire corpus of Pali texts known today is believed to derive from the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya in Sri Lanka. While literary evidence exists of Theravadins in mainland India surviving into the 13th century, no Pali texts specifically attributable to this tradition have been recovered. Some texts (such as
3956-458: The Sri Lankan tradition and then spread to other Theravada regions, some texts may have other origins. The Milinda Panha may have originated in northern India before being translated from Sanskrit or Gandhari Prakrit . There are also a number of texts that are believed to have been composed in Pali in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma but were not widely circulated. This regional Pali literature
4048-425: The Theravada commentaries, Pali was identified with ' Magadhi ', the language of the kingdom of Magadha, and this was taken to also be the language that the Buddha used during his life. In the 19th century, the British Orientalist Robert Caesar Childers argued that the true or geographical name of the Pali language was Magadhi Prakrit , and that because pāḷi means "line, row, series", the early Buddhists extended
4140-422: The UK; incongruously, the citizens of the UK were not nearly so robust in Sanskrit and Prakrit language studies as Germany, Russia, and even Denmark . Even 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 Pali manuscripts, and major traditions of Pali studies. Pali literature
4232-484: The Vedic peoples extended to the Shakyas, as recorded in the Ambaṭṭha Sutta , according to which the brāhmaṇa s described the Shakyas as "fierce, rough-spoken, touchy and violent," and accused them of not honouring, respecting, esteeming, revering or paying homage to the brāhmaṇa s owing to their "menial origin." The Shakyans were at least bilingual, under the linguistic influence of Munda languages , as attested by many of their villages having Mundari names, and
4324-498: The anusvāra is pronounced more strongly, like the velar nasal [ŋ] , so that these sounds are pronounced instead [ãŋ] , [ĩŋ] and [ũŋ] . However pronounced, ṁ never follows a long vowel; ā, ī and ū are converted to the corresponding short vowels when ṁ is added to a stem ending in a long vowel, e.g. kathā + ṁ becomes kathaṁ , not *kathāṁ , devī + ṁ becomes deviṁ , not * devīṁ . Kosala Too Many Requests If you report this error to
4416-418: The bite of snakes. Many people in Theravada cultures still believe that taking a vow in Pali 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
4508-419: The capital city of the Shakyas and were the tribe's ancestors. This was an origin myth of the ruling status of the khattiya families of the Shakya clan, who had the right to be represented in the santhāgāra , were often related to each other, and possessed adjacent areas of land, thus establishing kinship, which itself helped form rights of landownership, and, therefore, of political authority. This myth
4600-435: The compound pāli-bhāsa , with pāli being interpreted as the name of a particular language. The name Pali does not appear in the canonical literature, and in commentary literature is sometimes substituted with tanti , meaning a string or lineage. This name seems to have emerged in Sri Lanka early in the second millennium CE during a resurgence in the use of Pali as a courtly and literary language. As such,
4692-474: The conquest of the Vajjika League by Viḍūḍabha's relative, the Māgadhī king Ajātasattu , who, because he was the son of a Vajjika princess, was therefore interested in the territory of his mother's homeland. The result of the Kauśalya invasion was that the Shakyas and Koliyas merely lost political importance after being annexed into Viḍūḍabha's kingdom. The Shakyas nevertheless soon disappeared as an ethnic group after their annexation, having become absorbed into
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#17327910298624784-423: The death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language. 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 among
4876-441: The early grammarians because it was understood to have been purely a literary language. In works of Sanskrit poetics such as Daṇḍin 's Kavyadarsha , it is also known by the name of Bhūtabhāṣā , an epithet which can be interpreted as 'dead language' (i.e., with no surviving speakers), or bhūta means past and bhāṣā means language i.e. 'a language spoken in the past'. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation
4968-402: The eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region. The Shakyas lived in the Terai – an area south of the foothills of the Himalayas and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain with their neighbors to the west and south being the kingdom of Kosala , their neighbors to the east across the Rohni River being the related Koliya tribe, while on the northeast they bordered on
5060-626: The existing sources specifically document pre-Ashokan Magadhi, the available sources suggest that Pali is not equatable with that language. Modern scholars generally regard Pali to have originated from a western dialect, rather than an eastern one. Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts at Girnar in Saurashtra , and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription . These similarities lead scholars to associate Pali with this region of western India. Nonetheless, Pali does retain some eastern features that have been referred to as Māgadhisms . Pāḷi, as
5152-433: The four corners or sides of the hall so as to clearly and easily hear the speeches made by the rājā s; and the consul rājā took his appointed seat and put forward the matters to be discussed once the Assembly was ready. During the session, the members of the Assembly expressed their views, which the four amaccā s would record. The Assembly was then adjourned, after which the recorders compared their notes, and all
5244-408: The important role in their traditions of the Sāl tree, whose flowering marks the beginning of their New Year and Flower Feast festivals: the Santal tribe worship the Sāl tree and gather to make communal decisions under them Sāl trees. The importance of the tree spirits called yakkha s and yakkhī s in Pali ( yakṣa s and yakṣī s in Sanskrit) in early Buddhist texts is an attestation of
5336-404: The labour in the farms. The Sakyas were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha (an aristocratic oligarchic republic ) similarly to the Licchavikas . The heads of the Sakya khattiya clans of the Gotama gotta formed an Assembly, and they held the title of rājā s. The position of rājā was hereditary, and after a rājā 's death was passed to his eldest son, who while he
5428-408: The language and its literature, including the Maha Bodhi Society founded by Anagarika Dhammapala . In Europe, the Pali Text Society 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
5520-454: The language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation (i.e., MIA bamhana > brahmana, tta > tva in some cases). Bhikkhu Bodhi , 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
5612-414: The limits of Āryāvarta , with the Manusmṛiti grouping the Vaidehas , Māgadhīs , Licchavikas , and Mallakas , who were the neighbours of the Shakyas, as being "non-Aryan" and born from mixed caste marriages, and the Baudhāyana-Dharmaśāstra s requiring visitors to these lands to perform purificatory sacrifices as expiation. This negative view of the peoples of the Greater Magadha region by
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#17327910298625704-518: The lower classes of the Shakya. Since they lived in the Greater Magadha cultural area, the Shakyas followed non-Vedic religious customs which drastically differed from the Brahmanical tradition, and even by the time of the Buddha, Brahmanism and the brāhmaṇa s had not acquired religious or cultural preponderance in the Greater Magadha area to which Shakya belonged. It was in this non-Vedic cultural environment that Śramaṇa movements existed, with one of them, Buddhism , having been founded by
5796-517: The meaning of the term to mean "a series of books", so pāḷibhāsā means "language of the texts". However, modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined and partially Sanskritized. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali. In the modern era, it has been possible to compare Pali with inscriptions known to be in Magadhi Prakrit, as well as other texts and grammars of that language. While none of
5888-601: The monastic ordination died out in Sri Lanka, many texts were lost also. Therefore the Sri Lankan Pali canon had been translated first into Indo-Chinese Pali, and then back again into Pali. Despite an expansion of the number and influence of Mahavihara-derived monastics, this resurgence of Pali study resulted in no production of any new surviving literary works in Pali. During this era, correspondences between royal courts in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia were conducted in Pali, and grammars aimed at speakers of Sinhala, Burmese, and other languages were produced. The emergence of
5980-436: The name of the founder of their clan, which has been recorded in the Sanskrit form Ikṣvāku and the Pali form Okkāka , being of Munda origin . The society of the Shakyas and Koliyas was a stratified one which did not subscribe to the caturvarṇa social organisation consisting of brāhmaṇa s , khattiya s , vessa s , and sudda s , but instead consisted of an aristocratic class of khattiya s and
6072-404: 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 voiced retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ] or non-retroflex [l] "l" sound. Both the long ā and retroflex ḷ are seen in the ISO 15919 / ALA-LC rendering, Pāḷi ; however, to this day there
6164-465: The natural language, the root language of all beings. Comparable to Ancient Egyptian , Latin or Hebrew in the mystic traditions of the West , Pali 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 Pali dhāraṇī s used as charms, as, for example, against
6256-415: The population of Kosala, with only a few displaced families maintaining the Shakya identity later. The Koliyas likewise disappeared as a polity and as a tribe soon after their annexation. The massive life losses incurred by Kosala during its conquest of Shakya and Koliya weakened it significantly enough that it was itself soon annexed by its eastern neighbour, the kingdom of Magadha , and its king Viḍūḍabha
6348-415: The pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous populations of the eastern Gangetic plains, as were the practices such as honouring the Buddha's body with singing, dancing, and music, as well as placing his bones in a golden urn, the veneration of these remains and their burial in a round stūpa which possessed a central mast, flags, pennants, and parasols at a public crossroads, which were rituals that were performed by
6440-421: The pre-Indo-Aryan populations for their greater rulers. Pali Pāli ( / ˈ p ɑː l i / ), also known as Pali-Magadhi , is a classical Middle Indo-Aryan language on the Indian subcontinent . It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka as well as the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism . Pali is designated as a classical language by
6532-433: The princess Māyā , who was the daughter of a Koliya noble, and the son of Suddhodana and Māyā was Siddhartha Gautama , the historical Buddha and founder of Buddhism . During the life of the Buddha, an armed feud opposed the Shakyas and the Koliyas concerning the waters of the river Rohiṇī, which formed the boundary between the two states and whose water was needed by both of them to irrigate their crops. The intervention of
6624-401: The recently departed, and this ceremony routinely occupies as much as seven working days. There is nothing in the latter text that relates to this subject, and the origins of the custom are unclear. Pali died out as a literary language in mainland India in the fourteenth century but survived elsewhere until the eighteenth. Today Pali is studied mainly to gain access to Buddhist scriptures, and
6716-466: 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. e and o are long in an open syllable: at the end of a syllable as in [ne-tum̩] เนตุํ 'to lead' or [so-tum̩] โสตุํ 'to hear'. They are short in a closed syllable: when followed by a consonant with which they make a syllable as in [upek-khā] 'indifference' or [sot-thi] 'safety'. e appears for
6808-420: The status of the Buddha, sometimes calling him a kshatriya, but mostly ignoring the varna system. Additionally, the populations of Greater Magadha did not subscribe to the supremacy of the brāhmaṇa s of the peoples of Āryāvarta , and khattiya s were regarded as higher in the societies of Greater Magadha. Vedic literature therefore considered the populations of Greater Magadha as existing outside of
6900-569: The subtle nuances of that thought-world. According to A. K. Warder , the Pali language is a Prakrit language used in a region of Western India . Warder associates Pali with the Indian realm ( janapada ) of Avanti , where the Sthavira nikāya was centered. Following the initial split in the Buddhist community , the Sthavira nikāya became influential in Western and South India while
6992-479: The surname Shakya and also claim to be the descendants of the Shakya clan with titles such as Śākyavamsa (of the Shakya lineage) having been used in the past. According to Hmannan Yazawin , first published in 1823, the legendary king Abhiyaza , who founded the Tagaung Kingdom and the Burmese monarchy belonged to the same Shakya clan of the Buddha. He migrated to present-day Burma after the annexation of
7084-479: The term 'Pali' as the name of the language of the Theravada canon also occurred during this era. While Pali is generally recognized as an ancient language, no epigraphical or manuscript evidence has survived from the earliest eras. The earliest samples of Pali discovered are inscriptions believed to date from 5th to 8th century located in mainland Southeast Asia, specifically central Siam and lower Burma . These inscriptions typically consist of short excerpts from
7176-629: The territories of the Kauśalyas to the west and the Licchavikas and Vaidehas to the east, thus separating the Vajjika League from the Kosala kingdom. By that time, the Shakya republic had become a vassal state of the larger Kingdom of Kosala . During the fifth century itself, one of the members of the ruling aristocratic oligarchy of the Shakyas was Suddhodana . Suddhodana was married to
7268-429: The third century BCE, subjected to a partial process of Sanskritization. While the language is not identical to what Buddha himself would have spoken, it belongs to the same broad language 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
7360-425: 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 from then on. Following this period,
7452-446: The words of the Buddha and his immediate disciples by the Theravada tradition. Extra-canonical texts can be divided into several categories: Other types of texts present in Pali literature include works on grammar and poetics, medical texts, astrological and divination texts, cosmologies, and anthologies or collections of material from the canonical literature. While the majority of works in Pali are believed to have originated with
7544-417: The worship of these beings done at yakkha cetiya s . The worship of yakkha s and yakkhī s, which was of pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous origin, was prevalent in the Greater Magadha region. The nāga king Mucalinda , who in Buddhist mythology protected the Buddha during a storm under a mucalinda tree, was a both snake- and a tree-deity, thus alluding to the practice of serpent worship among
7636-427: Was also a foundation myth of the city which, as the residence of the ruling families of the clan, the city, which was the centre of political and economic activity, was associated with that clan's janapada (territory), and was equated with the whole janapada itself. The myth of the Shakyas' ancestors being four pairs of married twin siblings was a myth which traced the origins of the ruling Shakya families to
7728-471: Was connected to the Shakyas' practice of worshipping the śaka or sāka tree. The Shakyas were an eastern sub-Himalayan ethnic group on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Gangetic plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region. The Shakyas were of 'mixed origin' ( saṃkīrṇa-yonayaḥ ) of Indo-Aryan and Munda descent , with the former group forming a minority. The Shakyas were closely related to their eastern neighbours,
7820-704: Was defeated and killed by the Māgadhī king Ajātasattu . The Buddha was given the epithet of the "Sage of the Shakyas," Sakka-muni in Pali and Śākya-muni in Sanskrit, by his followers. The functioning of the proceedings in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven ruled by Sakka , lord of the devas in Buddhist cosmology , are modelled on those of the Shakya santhāgāra or general assembly hall. Tharu people of Tarai region of India and Nepal claim descent from Sakya. Significant population of Newars of Kathmandu valley in Nepal use
7912-706: Was living held the title of uparājā ("Viceroy"). The political system of the Sakyas was identical to that of the Koliyas, and like the Koliyas and the other gaṇasaṅgha s, the Assembly met in a santhāgāra , the main of which was located at Kapilavatthu, although at least one other Sakya santhāgāra also existed at Cātuma. The judicial and legislative functions of the Assembly of the Sakyas were not distinctly separated, and it met to discuss important issues concerning public affairs, such as war, peace, and alliances. The Sakya Assembly deliberated on important issues, and it had
8004-600: 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 . Vowels may be divided in two different ways: 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:
8096-421: Was not shared in the early Buddhist traditions, in which words were only conventional and mutable signs. This view of language naturally extended to Pali and may have contributed to its usage (as an approximation or standardization of local Middle Indic dialects) in place of Sanskrit. However, by the time of the compilation of the Pali commentaries (4th or 5th century), Pali was described by the anonymous authors as
8188-576: Was prominently used by Jain scholars and is preserved in the Jain Agamas. Ardhamagadhi Prakrit differs from later Magadhi Prakrit in similar ways to Pali, and was often believed to be connected with Pali on the basis of the belief that Pali recorded the speech of the Buddha in an early Magadhi dialect. Magadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indic language spoken in present-day Bihar, and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Its use later expanded southeast to include some regions of modern-day Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, and it
8280-573: Was published by Robert Childers in 1872 and 1875. Following the foundation of the Pali Text Society , English Pali studies grew rapidly and Childer's dictionary became outdated. Planning for a new dictionary began in the early 1900s, but delays (including the outbreak of World War I) meant that work was not completed until 1925. T. W. Rhys Davids in his book Buddhist India , and Wilhelm Geiger in his book Pāli Literature and Language , suggested that Pali may have originated as
8372-593: Was published using the research of Robert Caesar 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' dictionary later received the Volney Prize in 1876. The Pali Text Society was founded in part to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to Indology in late 19th-century England and the rest of
8464-431: Was used in some Prakrit dramas to represent vernacular dialogue. Preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit are from several centuries after the theorized lifetime of the Buddha, and include inscriptions attributed to Asoka Maurya . Differences observed between preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit and Pali lead scholars to conclude that Pali represented a development of a northwestern dialect of Middle Indic, rather than being
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