137-687: The Noble Eightfold Path ( Sanskrit : आर्याष्टाङ्गमार्ग , romanized : āryāṣṭāṅgamārga ) or Eight Right Paths ( Sanskrit : अष्टसम्यङ्मार्ग , romanized : aṣṭasamyaṅmārga ) is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara , the painful cycle of rebirth , in the form of nirvana . The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi ('meditative absorption or union'; alternatively, equanimous meditative awareness). In early Buddhism, these practices started with understanding that
274-417: A "critical awareness" of the impossibility of giving full and final expression to his conviction in fixed conceptual terms'. One therefore cannot cling to any particular formulation in a rigid and dogmatic manner." Right Resolve ( samyak-saṃkalpa / sammā-saṅkappa ) can also be known as "right thought", "right aspiration", or "right motivation". In this factor, the practitioner resolves to leave home, renounce
411-528: A "heightened awareness," "overcoming distracting and disturbing emotions," which are not particular elements of the path to awakening, but rather common disturbing and distracting emotions. According to Sujato, samatha and vipassana are complementary elements of the Buddhist path. Satipatthana explicates mindfulness, the seventh limb of the eightfold path, and is to be understood as an integral part of this path. Polak, elaborating on Vetter, notes that
548-554: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." Mahasatipatthana Sutta The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta ( Majjhima Nikaya 10: The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness ), and the subsequently created Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta ( Dīgha Nikāya 22: The Great Discourse on
685-481: A deeper understanding, is suitable for monastics. Mundane and supramundane right view involve accepting the following doctrines of Buddhism: Gombrich notes that there is a tension in the suttas between "right view" and 'no view', release by not clinging to any view at all. According to Chryssides and Wilkins, "right view is ultimately non-view: though the Enlightened One sees things as they really are, 'he has
822-536: A factor of the path—in one of noble mind and undefiled mind, who possesses the noble path and develops the noble path. This is called right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path. They make an effort to give up wrong view and embrace right view: that's their right effort. Mindfully they give up wrong view and take up right view: that's their right mindfulness. So these three things keep running and circling around right view, namely: right view, right effort, and right mindfulness. Other suttas give
959-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
1096-591: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
1233-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
1370-457: A more extensive overview, stating that our actions have consequences, that death is not the end, that our actions and beliefs also have consequences after death, and that the Buddha followed and taught a successful path out of this world and the other world (heaven and underworld or hell). The Mahācattārīsaka Sutta ("The Great Forty," Majjhima Nikaya 117) gives an extensive overview, describing
1507-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
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#17327655569891644-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
1781-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
1918-578: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
2055-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
2192-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
2329-802: A variety of ways that one could use the methods described in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta including: According to Analāyo and Soma, writing from a traditional point of view, the Papañcasudani recommends a different satipaṭṭhāna depending on whether a person: Based on these two dimensions the commentary's recommended personality-based satipaṭṭhāna is reflected in the grid shown at right. Soma (2003, p. xxiv) adds that all practitioners (regardless of their character and temperament) should also practice mindfulness of Postures (moving, standing, sitting, lying down) and Clear Understanding , about which he writes: "The whole practice of mindfulness depends on
2466-578: Is "eightfold path of the noble ones", or Eightfold Ariya Path". All eight elements of the Path begin with the word samyañc (in Sanskrit) or sammā (in Pāli) which means "right, proper, as it ought to be, best". The Buddhist texts contrast samma with its opposite miccha . The Noble Eightfold Path, in the Buddhist traditions, is the direct means to nirvana and brings a release from the cycle of life and death in
2603-431: Is a "definite affinity" between the bojjhaṅgā , the seven factors of awakening, and the four jhanas , which actualize the Buddhist practices aiming at calming the mind. According to Gethin, satipatthana and anapanasati are related to a formula that summarizes the Buddhist path to awakening as "abandoning the hindrances, establishing [...] mindfulness, and developing the seven factors of awakening." This results in
2740-483: Is a convention started by the early translators of Buddhist texts into English, just like ariya sacca is translated as Four Noble Truths . However, the phrase does not mean the path is noble, rather that the path is of the noble people ( Pali : ariya meaning 'enlightened, noble, precious people'). The term magga (Sanskrit: mārga ) means "path", while aṭṭhaṅgika (Sanskrit: aṣṭāṅga ) means "eightfold". Thus, an alternate rendering of ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga
2877-535: Is a root of unwholesomeness, hatred is a root of unwholesomeness, and delusion is a root of unwholesomeness − these are reckoned the roots of unwholesomeness. In this way the roots of unwholesomeness are understood as they really are. "How does [a learned noble disciple] understand wholesome states as they really are? Wholesome bodily actions, verbal actions and mental actions − these are reckoned wholesome states. In this way wholesome states are understood as they really are. "How does [a learned noble disciple] understand
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#17327655569893014-516: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
3151-730: Is called right action. The prohibition on killing precept in Buddhist scriptures applies to all living beings , states Christopher Gowans, not just human beings . Bhikkhu Bodhi agrees, clarifying that the more accurate rendering of the Pali canon is a prohibition on "taking life of any sentient being", which includes human beings, animals, birds, insects but excludes plants because they are not considered sentient beings. Further, adds Bodhi, this precept refers to intentional killing, as well as any form of intentional harming or torturing any sentient being. This moral virtue in early Buddhist texts, both in context of harm or killing of animals and human beings,
3288-532: Is called right speech. Instead of the usual "abstention and refraining from wrong" terminology, a few texts such as the Samaññaphala Sutta and Kevata Sutta in Digha Nikaya explain this virtue in an active sense, after stating it in the form of an abstention. For example, Samaññaphala Sutta states that a part of a monk's virtue is that "he abstains from false speech. He speaks the truth, holds to
3425-508: Is expressed in the stock phrase of dhammalsaddhalpabbajja : "A layman hears a Buddha teach the Dhamma, comes to have faith in him, and decides to take ordination as a monk." The venerable Sāriputta said: "Venerable Mahākotthita, [this takes place if] a learned noble disciple understands unwholesome states as they really are, understands the roots of unwholesomeness as they really are, understands wholesome states as they really are and understands
3562-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
3699-540: Is in the Ekottara Agama (EA 12.1) and it is called the Ekayāna sutra, Direct Path sūtra . An early Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra version also survives inside some of the large Prajñāpāramitā sutras (Tibetan and Chinese), one of which has been translated into English by Edward Conze . These passages on mindfulness are treated as the first element in the 37 wings to awakening . According to Bhante Sujato, "This version of
3836-604: Is mentioned in many early Buddhist texts, such as the Mahācattārīsaka Sutta in Majjhima Nikaya as follows: And what is right livelihood? Right livelihood, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right livelihood with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions; there is right livelihood that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path. And what is the right livelihood with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions? There
3973-495: Is not beneficial; and, only speaking what is true and beneficial, "when the circumstances are right, whether they are welcome or not". Right action ( samyak-karmānta / sammā-kammanta ) is like right speech, expressed as abstentions but in terms of bodily action. In the Pali Canon, this path factor is stated as: And what is right action? Abstaining from killing, abstaining from stealing, abstaining from sexual misconduct. This
4110-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
4247-433: Is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment? ‘There is meaning in giving, sacrifice, and offerings. There are fruits and results of good and bad deeds. There is an afterlife. There are such things as [serving] mother and father, and beings [devas] that are reborn spontaneously. And there are ascetics and Brahmins who are well attained and practiced, and who describe
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4384-414: Is similar to ahimsa precepts found in the texts particularly of Jainism as well as of Hinduism, and has been a subject of significant debate in various Buddhist traditions. The prohibition on stealing in the Pali Canon is an abstention from intentionally taking what is not voluntarily offered by the person to whom that property belongs. This includes taking by stealth, by force, by fraud or by deceit. Both
4521-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
4658-402: Is the case where a disciple of the noble ones abandons wrong livelihood and maintains his life with right livelihood. This is the right livelihood with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions. And what is the right livelihood that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The abstaining, desisting, abstinence, avoidance of wrong livelihood in one developing
4795-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
4932-887: The Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta , this is the 22nd discourse in the Digha Nikaya (DN 22). In the PTS edition of the Canon, the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta begins on the 289th page of the second volume of the PTS' three-volume Digha Nikaya (D ii 289). In the Chinese Canon, the Nian Chu Jing (念處經, Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra), based on a Sarvastivadin source, is found on page 582 of the Taisho Tripitaka Vol. 1, Madhyama Ā gama No. 26. Another similar sutra
5069-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
5206-535: The Abhaya-raja-kumara Sutta , the Buddha explains the virtue of right speech in different scenarios, based on its truth value, utility value and emotive content. The Tathagata , states Abhaya Sutta, never speaks anything that is unfactual or factual, untrue or true, disagreeable or agreeable, if that is unbeneficial and unconnected to his goals. Further, adds Abhaya Sutta, the Tathagata speaks
5343-621: The Bodhisattva path, which is believed to go beyond Arhatship to full Buddhahood . In Buddhist symbolism , the Noble Eightfold Path is often represented by means of the dharma wheel (dharmachakra), in which its eight spokes represent the eight elements of the path. The Pali term ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga ( Sanskrit : āryāṣṭāṅgamārga ) is typically translated in English as "Noble Eightfold Path". This translation
5480-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
5617-675: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
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5754-525: The Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in
5891-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
6028-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
6165-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
6302-511: The Samyukta-āgama , refer to faith in the Buddha and understanding ( dhamma vicaya ) the path-factors of wholesome bodily actions, verbal actions and mental actions. Right View can be further subdivided, states translator Bhikkhu Bodhi, into mundane right view and superior or supramundane right view: According to Theravada Buddhism, mundane right view is a teaching that is suitable for lay followers, while supramundane right view, which requires
6439-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
6576-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
6713-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
6850-532: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
6987-402: The Buddha's discourse to Subhuti. It only outlines specific practices for the contemplation of the body, the other three satipatthanas are simply enumerated. Various scholars have attempted to use the numerous early sources to trace an " ur-text " i.e. the original satipaṭṭhāna formula or the earliest sutta. Bronkhorst (1985) argues that the earliest form of the satipaṭṭhāna sutta only contained
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#17327655569897124-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
7261-532: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
7398-521: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
7535-618: The Eightfold Path. In the Mahācattārīsaka Sutta which appears in the Chinese and Pali canons, the Buddha explains that cultivation of the noble eightfold path of a learner leads to the development of two further paths of the Arahants , which are right knowledge, or insight ( sammā-ñāṇa ), and right liberation, or release ( sammā-vimutti ). These two factors fall under the category of wisdom ( paññā ). The eight Buddhist practices in
7672-654: The Establishing of Mindfulness ), are two of the most celebrated and widely studied discourses in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, acting as the foundation for contemporary vipassana meditation practice. The Pāli texts of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta are largely similar in content; the main difference being a section about the Four Noble Truths (Catu Ariya Sacca) in
7809-637: The Four Noble Truths: And what is right view? Knowing about suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering. This is called right view. In this, right view explicitly includes karma and rebirth , and the importance of the Four Noble Truths . This view of "right view" gained importance when "insight" became central to Buddhist soteriology, and still plays an essential role in Theravada Buddhism. And what
7946-476: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
8083-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
8220-532: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
8357-496: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
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#17327655569898494-562: The Noble Eightfold Path are: The purpose of "right view" ( samyak-dṛṣṭi / sammā-diṭṭhi ) or "right understanding" is to clear one's path from confusion, misunderstanding, and deluded thinking. It is a means to gain right understanding of reality. The Pali canon and the Agamas contain various "definitions" or descriptions of "right view." The Mahasatipatthana Sutta ( Digha Nikaya 22), compiled from elements from other suttas possibly as late as 20 BCE, defines right view summarily as
8631-555: The Observation of Phenomena (Dhammānupassana), which is greatly expanded in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta. These sutta s (discourses) stress the practice of sati (mindfulness) "for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the extinguishing of suffering and grief, for walking on the path of truth, for the realization of nibbāna ." While elements of the Satipathana sutta can be found in
8768-804: The Samyutta Nikaya and the Samyukta Nigama, which belong to the oldest strata of the Buddhist suttas, the elaborate Maha Satipatthana Sutta exists only in the Theravada Digha Nikaya. Bhante Sujato postulates that the sutta was compiled from elements from other suttas as late as 20 BCE. satipaṭṭhāna is a compound of sati , mindfulness; and either paṭṭhāna , "foundation," or upaṭṭhāna , "presence." The compound term can be interpreted as sati-paṭṭhāna ("foundation of mindfulness") or sati-upaṭṭhāna , "presence of mindfulness". According to Anālayo,
8905-499: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
9042-638: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
9179-550: The Theravadin version emphasizes Vipassana or insight. The text also often refers to 'bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs' instead of just male bhikkhus. A section on Smṛtyupasthāna is found in various Tibetan and Chinese recensions of large Prajñāpāramitā sutras, such as the 25,000 line version translated by Edward Conze . This skeletal version of the Smṛtyupasthāna is incorporated into the larger sutra and thus appears as part of
9316-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
9453-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
9590-492: The abstention from sensual misconduct means strict celibacy while for lay Buddhists this prohibits adultery as well as other forms of sensual misconduct. Later Buddhist texts state that the prohibition on sexual conduct for lay Buddhists includes any sexual involvement with someone married, a girl or woman protected by her parents or relatives, and someone prohibited by dhamma conventions (such as relatives, nuns and others). Right livelihood ( samyag-ājīva / sammā-ājīva ) precept
9727-410: The afterlife after realizing it with their own insight.’ This is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment. And what is right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path? It's the wisdom—the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the awakening factor of investigation of principles [ dhamma vicaya ], and right view as
9864-459: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
10001-532: The analysis of the term as sati-upaṭṭhāna , "presence of mindfulness," is a more etymologically correct derivation as upaṭṭhāna appears both throughout the Pali Canon and in the Sanskrit translation of this sutta; whereas the paṭṭhāna is only found in the Abhidhamma and post-nikaya Pali commentary . English translations of the title, " Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta ," include: In regard to
10138-419: The body-mind works in a corrupted way (right view), followed by entering the Buddhist path of self-observance, self-restraint, and cultivating kindness and compassion; and culminating in dhyana or samadhi , which reinforces these practices for the development of the body-mind. In later Buddhism, insight ( prajñā ) became the central soteriological instrument, leading to a different concept and structure of
10275-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
10412-718: The classic commentary on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (as well as for the entire Majjhima Nikaya) is found in Buddhaghosa 's Papañcasudani (Bullitt, 2002; Soma, 2003). Later works, such as the Abhidharmakośakārikā of Vasubandhu , and Asanga 's Yogacarabhumi and Abhidharma-samuccaya , also comment on the four satipatthanas. In the Satipatthana Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 10, the Buddha identifies four "foundations of mindfulness" or "frames of reference," on which he contemplates or focusses after leaving behind
10549-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
10686-614: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
10823-711: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
10960-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
11097-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
11234-460: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
11371-490: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in
11508-461: The factual, the true, if in case it is disagreeable and unendearing, only if it is beneficial to his goals, but with a sense of proper time. Additionally, adds Abhaya Sutta, the Tathagata , only speaks with a sense of proper time even when what he speaks is the factual, the true, the agreeable, the endearing and what is beneficial to his goals. The Buddha thus explains right speech in the Pali Canon, according to Ganeri, as never speaking something that
11645-548: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
11782-441: The first seven practices as requisites of right samadhi c.q. dhyana . It makes a distinction between mundane right view ( karma , rebirth ) and noble right view as a path-factor, relating noble right view to dhamma vicaya ("investigation of principles), one of the bojjhanga , the "seven factors of awakening" which give an alternate account of right effort and dhyana . Alternatively, right view (together with right resolve)
11919-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
12056-482: The four absorptions (jhāna)." Yet, in the older Buddhist tradition, mindfulness aided in abandoning the five hindrances , which then leads into the first jhana . According to Gethin, the early Buddhist texts have "a broadly consistent vision" regarding meditation practice. Various practices lead to the development of the factors of awakening , which are not only the means to, but also the constituents of awakening. Gethin, followed by Polak and Arbel, notes that there
12193-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
12330-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
12467-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
12604-676: The intention and the act matters, as this precept is grounded on the impact on one's karma. The prohibition on sexual misconduct in the Noble Eightfold Path refers to "not performing sexual acts". This virtue is more generically explained in the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta , which teaches that one must abstain from all sensual misconduct, including getting sexually involved with someone unmarried (anyone protected by parents or by guardians or by siblings), and someone married (protected by husband), and someone betrothed to another person, and female convicts or by dhamma . For monastics,
12741-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
12878-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
13015-514: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
13152-406: The livelihood avoid causing suffering to sentient beings by cheating them, or harming or killing them in any way. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of
13289-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
13426-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
13563-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
13700-602: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
13837-451: The noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is without effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. (...) The early canonical texts state right livelihood as avoiding and abstaining from wrong livelihood. This virtue is further explained in Buddhist texts, states Vetter, as "living from begging, but not accepting everything and not possessing more than is strictly necessary". For lay Buddhists, states Harvey, this precept requires that
13974-597: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
14111-435: The observation of the impure body parts under mindfulness of the body, and that mindfulness of dhammas was originally just the observation of the seven awakening factors. Sujato's reconstruction similarly only retains the contemplation of the impure under mindfulness of the body, while including only the five hindrances and the seven awakening factors under mindfulness of dhammas. According to Analayo, mindfulness of breathing
14248-406: The onset of the first dhyana is described as a quite natural process, due to the preceding efforts to restrain the senses and the nurturing of wholesome states . According to Grzegorz Polak, the four upassanā do not refer to four different foundations of which one should be aware, but are an alternate description of the jhanas , describing how the samskharas are tranquilized: There are
14385-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
14522-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
14659-523: The path, in which the "goal" of the Buddhist path came to be specified as ending ignorance and rebirth . The Noble Eightfold Path is one of the principal summaries of the Buddhist teachings , taught to lead to Arhatship . In the Theravada tradition, this path is also summarized as sila (morality), samadhi (meditation) and prajna (insight). In Mahayana Buddhism, this path is contrasted with
14796-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
14933-683: The prefix "Maha-" in the Pāli title of DN 22, this simply means "great," or "larger" and likely refers to DN 22's expanded section on mindfulness of the Four Noble Truths. In the Pali Canon, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is the tenth discourse in the Majjhima Nikaya (MN 10). In the Pali Text Society (PTS) edition of the Canon, this text begins on the 55th page of the first volume of its three-volume Majjhima Nikaya (M i 55). As for
15070-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
15207-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
15344-477: The realms of samsara. According to Indologist Tilmann Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term the Middle Way . In time, this short description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the Eightfold Path. Tilmann Vetter and historian Rod Bucknell both note that longer descriptions of "the path" can be found in the early texts, which can be condensed into
15481-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
15618-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
15755-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
15892-451: The roots of wholesomeness as they really are. "How does [a learned noble disciple] understand unwholesome states as they really are? Unwholesome bodily actions, verbal actions and mental actions − these are reckoned unwholesome states. In this way unwholesome states are understood as they really are. "How does [a learned noble disciple] understand the roots of unwholesomeness as they really are? There are three roots of unwholesomeness: greed
16029-491: The roots of wholesomeness as they really are; then, for this reason, [a learned noble disciple] in this teaching and discipline is endowed with right view, has accomplished straight view, has accomplished unshakeable confidence in the Buddha, has come to and arrived at the right teaching, has attained this right Dharma and awoken to this right Dharma." Likewise, the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 9), and its parallel in
16166-502: The roots of wholesomeness as they really are? That is, there are three roots of wholesomeness: non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion − these are reckoned the roots of wholesomeness. In this way the roots of wholesomeness are understood as they really are. "Venerable Mahākotthita, [if] in this way a learned noble disciple understands unwholesome states as they really are, understands the roots of unwholesomeness as they really are, understands wholesome states as they really are and understands
16303-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
16440-476: The satipaṭṭhāna material displays a refreshing simplicity that may indicate that it lies close to the early sources." There does exist in Tibetan translation a "Saddharma Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra" ( dam pa'i chos dran pa nye bar bzhag pa'i mdo//dampé chödren panyé barzhak pé do ) but this is a very large early Mahayana sutra and is an entirely different text. Bhante Sujato completed an extensive comparative survey of
16577-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
16714-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
16851-403: The supramundane level, the factor includes a resolve to consider everything and everyone as impermanent, a source of suffering and without a Self. Right speech ( samyag-vāc / sammā-vācā ) in most Buddhist texts is presented as four abstentions, such as in the Pali Canon thus: And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter: This
16988-434: The truth, is firm, reliable, no deceiver of the world." Similarly, the virtue of abstaining from divisive speech is explained as delighting in creating concord. The virtue of abstaining from abusive speech is explained in this Sutta to include affectionate and polite speech that is pleasing to people. The virtue of abstaining from idle chatter is explained as speaking what is connected with the Dhamma goal of his liberation. In
17125-653: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
17262-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
17399-695: The various recensions of Sutta, entitled A History of Mindfulness . The Satipaṭṭhāna material, including the various meditation objects and practices, is treated in various later Abhidharma works such as the Theravada Vibhanga and Paṭisambhidāmagga , the Sarvastivada Dharmaskandha , the Jñānapraṣṭhāna , the Śāriputrābhidharma and the Arthaviniscaya Sutra . In post-canonical Pali commentaries ,
17536-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
17673-526: The worldly life and dedicate himself to an ascetic pursuit. In section III.248, the Majjhima Nikaya states, And what is right resolve? Being resolved on renunciation, on freedom from ill will, on harmlessness: This is called right resolve. Like right view, this factor has two levels. At the mundane level, the resolve includes being harmless ( ahimsa ) and refraining from ill will ( avyapadha ) to any being, as this accrues karma and leads to rebirth. At
17810-509: The worldly life: kāyā (body), vedanā (sensations/feelings aroused by perception), cittā (mind/consciousness), and dhammas (elements of the Buddhist teachings). The sutta then gives an overview of Buddhist practices, under these four headings: The Sarvāstivāda Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra differs in some ways from the Theravada version, including postures as the first contemplation instead of breathing for example. According to Bhante Sujato, it seems to emphasize samatha or calm abiding, while
17947-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
18084-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
18221-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
18358-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
18495-738: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
18632-411: Was probably absent from the original scheme, noting that one can easily contemplate the body's decay taking an external object, that is, someone else's body, but not be externally mindfull of the breath, that is, someone else's breath. According to Rupert Gethin , "[t]he sutta is often read today as describing a pure form of insight ( vipassanā ) meditation that bypasses calm ( samatha ) meditation and
18769-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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