Sugata ( सुगत ) is a Sanskrit epithet for Gautama Buddha . In some sects of Vaishnavism , a Sugata Buddha is regarded as the ninth avatar of Vishnu , instead of Gautama Buddha.
99-495: "Su"' is a prefix meaning good and "gata" is the past passive participle of "to go". Among other meanings, Buddhaghosa says the Buddha is sugata because both the way he took ( gata ) is good ( su ) and where he has gone ( gata ) is good ( su ). The Mahayana author Haribhadra also says the Buddha is sugata because he is one from whom all faults are totally ( suṣṭhu ) gone ( gata ), or into whom all good qualities have gone ( gata ) with none remaining ( suparipūrṇa ). It
198-415: 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
297-515: 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,
396-531: 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
495-621: A Buddhist monk named Revata was Buddhaghosa bested in debate, first being defeated in a dispute over the meaning of a Vedic doctrine and then being confounded by the presentation of a teaching from the Abhidhamma . Impressed, Buddhaghosa became a bhikkhu (Buddhist monk) and undertook the study of the Tipiṭaka and its commentaries. On finding a text for which the commentary had been lost in India, Buddhaghosa determined to travel to Sri Lanka to study
594-573: A Sinhala commentary that was believed to have been preserved. In Sri Lanka, Buddhaghosa began to study what was apparently a very large volume of Sinhala commentarial texts that had been assembled and preserved by the monks of the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya . Buddhaghosa sought permission to synthesize the assembled Sinhala-language commentaries into a comprehensive single commentary composed in Pali . Traditional accounts hold that
693-459: A Sugata Buddha is four handed like Vishnu . He holds the Vedas, a lotus , a japamala, and a vessel to receive alms. In Shiva Purana , he is described as a bald man with faded clothes who was sent to earth as a monk with the task of making Tripurasura leave worship of Vedas and Shiva . Sugata ("pleasing gait") is a Prakrit name based on the beauty of the human body, mentioned as an example in
792-664: 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
891-552: 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
990-575: 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
1089-665: 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
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#17327727580631188-564: A legal case. It also explains the eventual loss of the Sinhala originals that Buddhaghosa worked from in creating his Pali commentaries by claiming that Buddhaghosa collected and burnt the original manuscripts once his work was completed. Buddhaghosa was reputedly responsible for an extensive project of synthesizing and translating a large body of ancient Sinhala commentaries on the Pāli Canon . His Visuddhimagga (Pāli: Path of Purification)
1287-415: 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
1386-537: A pioneer, and a creative thinker." Yet, according to Buddhadasa , Buddhaghosa was influenced by Hindu thought, and the uncritical respect for the Visuddhimagga has even hindered the practice of authentic Buddhism. 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
1485-533: 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, 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
1584-554: 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
1683-719: Is "characterized by relentless accuracy, consistency, and fluency of erudition, and much dominated by formalism." According to Richard Shankman, the Visuddhimagga is "meticulous and specific," in contrast to the Pali suttas, which "can be vague at times, without a lot of explanatory detail and open to various interpretations." According to Maria Heim, Buddhaghosa is explicitly clear and systematic regarding his hermeneutical principles and exegetical strategies in his commentaries. He writes and theorizes on texts, genre , registers of discourse, reader response , Buddhist knowledge and pedagogy . Buddhaghosa considers each Pitaka of
1782-460: Is "the principal text on the subject of meditation ." The interpretations provided by Buddhaghosa have generally constituted the orthodox understanding of Theravada scriptures since at least the 12th century CE. He is generally recognized by both Western scholars and Theravadins as the most important philosopher and commentator of the Theravada, but is also criticised for his departures from
1881-399: Is a comprehensive manual of Theravada Buddhism that is still read and studied today. Maria Heim notes that, while Buddhaghosa worked by using older Sinhala commentarial tradition, he is also "the crafter of a new version of it that rendered the original version obsolete, for his work supplanted the Sinhala versions that are now lost to us". Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu writes that Buddhaghosa's work
1980-453: Is a listing of the fourteen commentaries ( Aṭṭhakathā ) on the Pāli Canon traditionally ascribed to Buddhaghosa While traditional accounts list Buddhaghosa as the author of all of these works, some scholars hold that only the Visuddhimagga and the commentaries on the first four Nikayas as Buddhaghosa's work. Meanwhile, Maria Heim holds that Buddhaghosa is the author of the commentaries on
2079-622: Is a phenomenon of attention is one he develops with greater sophistication than has been done elsewhere. Ganeri sees Buddhaghosa's work as being free from a mediational picture of the mind and also free of the Myth of the Given , two views he sees as having been introduced by the Indian philosopher Dignāga . The Visuddhimagga ' s doctrine reflects Theravada Abhidhamma scholasticism, which includes several innovations and interpretations not found in
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#17327727580632178-560: Is assumed to be generally accurate. While the Mahavamsa claims that Buddhaghosa was born in northern India near Bodh Gaya, the epilogues to his commentaries make reference to only one location in India as being a place of at least temporary residence: Kanci in southern India. Some scholars thus conclude (among them Oskar von Hinüber and Polwatte Buddhadatta Thera ) that Buddhaghosa was actually born in Amaravati , Andhra Pradesh and
2277-577: 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
2376-490: Is customary to relate three denotations of sugata with three stages through which a buddha must pass in order to reach the goal of enlightenment : he has gone well beyond rebirth in saṃsāra , he has gone well into nirvāṇa , and he has gone well into the state of perfect buddhahood ( samyaksaṃbuddha ). According to Bhikkhu Khantipalo, the term "sugato" can be translated as "auspicious", "fortunate" or more literally "well gone", "one who has gone to goodness", "one whose going
2475-428: 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
2574-502: 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
2673-522: 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 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
2772-511: Is not the same as what the Visuddhimagga says [...] they are actually different," leading to a divergence between a [traditional] scholarly understanding and a practical understanding based on meditative experience. Gunaratana further notes that Buddhaghosa invented several key meditation terms which are not to be found in the suttas, such as " parikamma samadhi (preparatory concentration), upacara samadhi (access concentration), appanasamadhi (absorption concentration)." Gunaratana also notes that
2871-677: 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
2970-936: 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
3069-579: 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 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)
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3168-517: 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
3267-485: Is unlikely that the meditative tradition could have survived in such a healthy way, if at all, without his detailed lists and exhaustive guidance." Yet, according to Buswell, by the 10th century vipassana was no longer practiced in the Theravada tradition, due to the belief that Buddhism had degenerated, and that liberation was no longer attainable until the coming of Maitreya . It was re-introduced in Myanmar (Burma) in
3366-785: 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
3465-413: Is with the immediate and transformative impact of the Buddha's words on his audiences, as attested in the suttas Regarding his systematic thought, Maria Heim and Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad see Buddhaghosa's use of Abhidhamma as part of a phenomenological "contemplative structuring" which is expressed in his writings on Buddhist praxis. They argue that "Buddhaghosa’s use of nāma-rūpa should be seen as
3564-540: The Mahavamsa a composition of the second part(often called Culavamsa) of that historical poem is attributed to Dhammakitti, who lived in or about the thirteenth century records that Buddhaghosa was born into a Brahmin family in the kingdom of Magadha . He is said to have been born near Bodh Gaya , and to have been a master of the Vedas , traveling through India engaging in philosophical debates. Only upon encountering
3663-882: The Mahavamsa , a Sri Lankan chronicle written in about the 13th century; and a later biographical work called the Buddhaghosuppatti . A few other sources discuss the life of Buddhaghosa, but do not appear to add any reliable material. The biographical excerpts attached to works attributed to Buddhaghosa reveal relatively few details of his life, but were presumably added at the time of his actual composition. Largely identical in form, these short excerpts describe Buddhaghosa as having come to Sri Lanka from India and settled in Anuradhapura . Besides this information, they provide only short lists of teachers, supporters, and associates of Buddhaghosa, whose names are not generally to be found elsewhere for comparison. In
3762-645: The Five Tathāgatas : In some sects of Vaishnavism , Sugata Buddha is regarded by various Puranas as the ninth avatar among the Dashavatara of Vishnu , instead of Gautama Buddha. Some Vaishnavite schools argue that Sugata Buddha, the incarnation of Vishnu, was born around 1800 BC in Bodhi-Gaya ( Kikata ) to Ajana, and was a different person from Gautama Buddha. As per the Agni Purana ,
3861-645: The Great Monastery ( Mahāvihāra ) at Anurādhapura , Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajjavāda school and in the lineage of the Sinhalese Mahāvihāra. His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga ("Path of Purification"), a comprehensive summary of older Sinhala commentaries on Theravada teachings and practices. According to Sarah Shaw, in Theravada this systematic work
3960-517: The Mahayana ) were emerging, many of them making use of classical Sanskrit both as a scriptural language and as a language of philosophical discourse. The monks of the Mahavihara may have attempted to counter the growth of such schools by re-emphasizing the study and composition in Pali, along with the study of previously disused secondary sources that may have vanished in India, as evidenced by
4059-732: 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
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4158-724: 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
4257-625: 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
4356-465: The Tipiṭaka and match in every respect, the monks acceded to his request and provided Buddhaghosa with the full body of their commentaries. Buddhaghosa went on to write commentaries on most of the other major books of the Pali Canon, with his works becoming the definitive Theravadin interpretation of the scriptures. Having synthesized or translated the whole of the Sinhala commentary preserved at
4455-421: The dhamma to be "well-spoken [...] visible here and now, timeless," visible meaning that the fruits of the path can be seen in the behavior of the noble ones, and that comprehending the dhamma is a transformative way of seeing, which has immediate impact. According to Heim, this idea of the transformative and immediate impact of the scriptures is "vital to Buddhaghosa's interpretative practice," concerned as he
4554-490: 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
4653-804: 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
4752-610: The 18th century by Medawi (1728–1816), leading to the rise of the Vipassana movement in the 20th century, re-inventing vipassana -meditation and developing simplified meditation techniques, based on the Satipatthana sutta , the Visuddhimagga , and other previous texts, emphasizing satipatthana and bare insight. The Mahavamsa ascribes a great many books to Buddhaghosa, some of which are believed not to have been his work, but composed later and attributed to him. Below
4851-627: 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
4950-555: The Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya, Buddhaghosa reportedly returned to India, making a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya to pay his respects to the Bodhi Tree . The details of the Mahavamsa account cannot readily be verified; while it is generally regarded by Western scholars as having been embellished with legendary events (such as the hiding of Buddhaghosa's text by the gods), in the absence of contradictory evidence it
5049-504: The Aṅgavijjā chapter 26. This chapter includes general rules to follow when deriving proper names. The Aṅgavijjā (mentioning sugata ) is an ancient treatise from the 3rd century CE dealing with physiognomic readings, bodily gestures and predictions and was written by a Jain ascetic in 9000 Prakrit stanzas. Buddhaghosa Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher . He worked in
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#17327727580635148-610: The Buddhaghosa's emphasis on kasina -meditation is not to be found in the suttas, where dhyana is always combined with mindfulness. Bhikkhu Sujato has argued that certain views regarding Buddhist meditation expounded in the Visuddhimagga are a "distortion of the Suttas" since it denies the necessity of jhana . The Australian monk Shravasti Dhammika is also critical of contemporary practice based on this work. He concludes that Buddhaghosa did not believe that following
5247-420: The Buddhist canon a kind of method ( naya ) that requires different skills to interpret. One of his most important ideas about exegesis of the buddha's words ( buddhavacana ) is that these words are immeasurable, that is to say, there are innumerable ways and modes to teach and explain the Dhamma and likewise there are innumerable ways in which to receive these teachings. According to Heim, Buddhaghosa considered
5346-429: The Mahavamsa. Early indications of this resurgence in the use of Pali as a literary language may be visible in the composition of the Dipavamsa and the Vimuttimagga , both dating to shortly before Buddhaghosa's arrival in Sri Lanka. The addition of Buddhaghosa's works — which combined the pedigree of the oldest Sinhala commentaries with the use of Pali, a language shared by all of the Theravada learning centers of
5445-640: The Mon records refer to another figure, but whose name and personal history are much in the mold of the Indian Buddhaghosa. Finally, Buddhaghosa's works likely played a significant role in the revival and preservation of the Pali language as the scriptural language of the Theravada, and as a lingua franca in the exchange of ideas, texts, and scholars between Sri Lanka and the Theravada countries of mainland Southeast Asia. The development of new analyses of Theravada doctrine, both in Pali and Sinhala, seems to have dried up prior to Buddhaghosa's emergence in Sri Lanka. In India, new schools of Buddhist philosophy (such as
5544-450: 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
5643-445: 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
5742-467: 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
5841-399: 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
5940-457: The Theravada following the reunification of the Sri Lankan (Sinhala) monastic community by King Parakramabahu I . Sariputta incorporated many of the works of Buddhaghosa into his own interpretations. In subsequent years, many monks from Theravada traditions in Southeast Asia sought ordination or re-ordination in Sri Lanka because of the reputation of the Sri Lankan (Sinhala) Mahavihara lineage for doctrinal purity and scholarship. The result
6039-422: 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
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#17327727580636138-408: The analytic by which he understands how experience is undergone, and not his account of how some reality is structured." Some scholars have argued that Buddhaghosa's writing evinces a strong but unacknowledged Yogācāra Buddhist influence, which subsequently came to characterize Theravada thought in the wake of his profound influence on the Theravada tradition. According to Kalupahana , Buddhaghosa
6237-418: 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
6336-526: The canonical texts . The name Buddhaghosa means "Voice of the Buddha" ( Buddha + ghosa ) in Pali , the language in which Buddhaghosa composed. In Sanskrit, the name would be spelled Buddhaghoṣa (Devanagari बुद्धघोष), but there is no retroflex ṣ sound in Pali, and the name is not found in Sanskrit works. Limited reliable information is available about the life of Buddhaghosa. Three primary sources of information exist: short prologues and epilogues attached to Buddhaghosa's works; details of his life recorded in
6435-423: 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
6534-468: The earliest discourses ( suttas ) of the Buddha. Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga includes non-canonical instructions on Theravada meditation , such as "ways of guarding the mental image (nimitta)," which point to later developments in Theravada meditation. According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu , "the Visuddhimagga uses a very different paradigm for concentration from what you find in the Canon." Bhante Henepola Gunaratana also notes that what "the suttas say
6633-441: 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
6732-408: The elder monks sought to first test Buddhaghosa's knowledge by assigning him the task of elaborating the doctrine regarding two verses of the suttas ; Buddhaghosa replied by composing the Visuddhimagga . His abilities were further tested when deities intervened and hid the text of his book, twice forcing him to recreate it from scratch. When the three texts were found to completely summarize all of
6831-410: The first four Nikayas, the Samantapasadika , the Paramatthajotika, the Visuddhimagga and the three commentaries on the books of the Abhidhamma. Maria Heim also notes that some scholars hold that Buddhaghosa was the head of a team of scholars and translators, and that this is not an unlikely scenario. In the 12th century, the Sri Lankan (Sinhalese) monk Sāriputta Thera became the leading scholar of
6930-408: 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
7029-454: 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
7128-471: The long ā and retroflex ḷ are seen in the ISO 15919 / ALA-LC rendering, Pāḷi ; however, to this day there 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
7227-723: 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
7326-516: 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
7425-414: The nature of consciousness and attention. Ganeri calls Buddhaghosa's approach a kind of "attentionalism", which places primacy on the faculty of attention in explaining activities of thought and mind and is against representationalism . Ganeri also states that Buddhaghosa's treatment of cognition "anticipates the concept of working memory , the idea of mind as a global workplace, subliminal orienting, and
7524-466: The practice set forth in the Visuddhimagga will really lead him to Nirvana, basing himself on the postscript ( colophon ) to the text which states the author hopes to be reborn in heaven and wait until Metteyya ( Maitreya ) appears to teach the Dharma. However, according to the Burmese scholar Venerable Pandita, the colophon to the Visuddhimagga is not by Buddhaghosa. According to Sarah Shaw, "it
7623-401: 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
7722-514: The relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha , which was located in modern-day Bihar . Beginning in 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
7821-466: 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
7920-516: 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
8019-479: 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
8118-413: The thesis that visual processing occurs at three levels." Ganeri also states: Buddhaghosa is unlike nearly every other Buddhist philosopher in that he discusses episodic memory and knows it as a reliving of experience from one’s personal past; but he blocks any reduction of the phenomenology of temporal experience to the representation of oneself as in the past. The alternative claim that episodic memory
8217-429: 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
8316-425: 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,
8415-435: The time — provided a significant boost to the revitalization of the Pali language and the Theravada intellectual tradition, possibly aiding the Theravada school in surviving the challenge to its position posed by emerging Buddhist schools of mainland India. According to Maria Heim, he is "one of the greatest minds in the history of Buddhism" and British philosopher Jonardon Ganeri considers Buddhaghosa "a true innovator,
8514-419: The true or geographical name of the Pali language was Magadhi Prakrit , and that because pāḷi means "line, row, series", the early Buddhists extended 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
8613-446: 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
8712-421: 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 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
8811-555: Was good". This refers to both the fact that his nirvana was good and that his awakening was a good for the world. Teeuw and Robson mention "5 saugata" in their translation of Kuñjarakarṇa Dharmakathana or Kakawin Kuñjarakarṇa , an Old Javanese kakawin from 15th century written by Mpu Ḍusun. Lokesh Chandra notes that in the Buddhist system this expression would be incorrect; as the pentad isn't termed pañcasugata ("Five Sugatas") but pañcabuddha ("Five Buddhas"), and refers to
8910-540: Was influenced by Mahayana-thought, which were subtly mixed with Theravada orthodoxy to introduce new ideas. According to Kalupahana, this eventually led to the flowering of metaphysical tendencies, in contrast to the original stress on anattā in early Buddhism. According to Jonardon Ganeri, though Buddhaghosa may have been influenced by Yogacara Vijñānavāda, "the influence consists not in endorsement but in creative engagement and refutation." The philosopher Jonardon Ganeri has called attention to Buddhaghosa's theory of
9009-600: 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:
9108-421: 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
9207-576: 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
9306-573: 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
9405-593: 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
9504-502: Was recorded, in an expanded and likely exaggerated form, in a Pali chronicle known as the Buddhaghosuppatti , or "The Development of the Career of Buddhaghosa". Despite the general belief that he was Indian by birth, he later may have been claimed by the Mon people of Burma as an attempt to assert primacy over Sri Lanka in the development of Theravada tradition. Other scholars believe that
9603-452: Was relocated in later biographies to give him closer ties to the region of the Buddha. The Buddhaghosuppatti , a later biographical text, is generally regarded by Western scholars as being legend rather than history. It adds to the Mahavamsa tale certain details, such as the identity of Buddhaghosa's parents and his village, as well as several dramatic episodes, such as the conversion of Buddhaghosa's father and Buddhaghosa's role in deciding
9702-416: Was the spread of the teachings of the Mahavihara tradition — and thus Buddhaghosa — throughout the Theravada world. Buddhaghosa's commentaries thereby became the standard method by which the Theravada scriptures were understood, establishing Buddhaghosa as the definitive interpreter of Theravada doctrine. In later years, Buddhaghosa's fame and influence inspired various accolades. His life story
9801-431: 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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