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91-484: The town's classical name is Dīparaṅga ( ဒီပရင်္ဂ ), which means 'continental theatre' or 'dyed field' in Pali . According to the founding myth of Tabayin, when King Sithu I toured the land, the gods assumed the forms of goats and bleated as if they were thirsty. The king saw the signal of the deities and established a settlement on the spot thereafter. The settlement is named ' Dee-pae-yin ' ( Here-bleat-those) after

182-415: 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

273-515: 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,

364-531: 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

455-447: A voiced retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ] or non-retroflex [l] "l" sound. Both the long ā and retroflex ḷ are seen in the ISO 15919 / ALA-LC rendering, Pāḷi ; however, to this day there 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

546-664: 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

637-594: A day-to-day language. Sanskrit remains as the only liturgical link language which connects the different strains of Hinduism that are present across India . The de facto position that Sanskrit enjoyed, as the principal language of Hinduism, enabled its survival not only in India, but also in other areas, where Hinduism thrived like Southeast Asia . Old Tamil is the language of the Shaiva (Devaram) and Vaishnava ( Divya Prabhandham ) scriptures. Most of Carnatic Music

728-552: 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

819-575: 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

910-643: A few rites, rituals, and ceremonies. This did not include the Roman Liturgy of the Mass. The Catholic Church , long before the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), had accepted and promoted the use of the non-vernacular liturgical languages listed above; while vernacular (i.e. modern or native) languages were also used liturgically throughout history; usually as a special concession given to religious orders conducting missionary activity. In

1001-665: 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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1092-424: A language becomes associated with religious worship, its believers may ascribe virtues to the language of worship that they would not give to their native tongues. In the case of sacred texts, there is a fear of losing authenticity and accuracy by a translation or re-translation, and difficulties in achieving acceptance for a new version of a text. A sacred language is typically vested with a solemnity and dignity that

1183-495: A mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined and partially Sanskritized. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali. In the modern era, it has been possible to compare Pali with inscriptions known to be in Magadhi Prakrit, as well as other texts and grammars of that language. While none of the existing sources specifically document pre-Ashokan Magadhi,

1274-415: 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

1365-772: A translation of the Qur'an's message. Salah and other rituals are also conducted in Classical Arabic for this reason. Scholars of Islam must learn and interpret the Qur'an in classical Arabic. According to the four accepted Sunni schools of jurisprudence , it is a requirement for sermons ( khutbah ) to be delivered completely in classical Arabic . The core of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , referred to by some Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לשון הקודש , "Language of Holiness"). Hebrew (and in

1456-687: Is a classical Middle Indo-Aryan language on the Indian subcontinent . It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka as well as the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism . Pali is designated as a classical language by 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

1547-725: Is a language that is cultivated and used primarily for religious reasons (like church service ) by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Some religions, or parts of them, regard the language of their sacred texts as in itself sacred. These include Hebrew in Judaism , Arabic in Islam and Sanskrit in Hinduism , and Punjabi in Sikhism . By contrast Christianity and Buddhism do not generally regard their sacred languages as sacred in themselves. Akkadian

1638-500: Is a major tenet of the Catholic Traditionalist movement. Meanwhile, the numerous Eastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome each have their own respective parent-language. Eastern Orthodox churches vary in their use of liturgical languages. Koine Greek and Church Slavonic are the main sacred languages used in communion. Other languages are also permitted for liturgical worship, and each country often has

1729-577: 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

1820-678: Is derived from Sanskrit . In Thailand , Pali is transliterated into the Thai alphabet , resulting in a Thai pronunciation of the Pali language. Something similar also happens in Myanmar, where Pali is also transliterated into the Burmese alphabet , also resulting in a Burmese pronunciation of Pali. Mahayana Buddhism, now only followed by a small minority in South Asia makes little use of its original language, Sanskrit, mostly using versions of

1911-484: 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

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2002-502: 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

2093-553: Is in Telugu . Amaravati Stupa . It is dated to 2nd century BCE and is probably, the name of a stonemason. Its structural and grammatical analysis played a key role in studying Indus script by Iravatham Mahadevan . Several personal names and place names traceable to Telugu roots are found in various Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions of 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. Many Hindu epics were also composed in Telugu. Some examples are

2184-677: 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

2275-436: Is sometimes substituted with tanti , meaning a string or lineage. This name seems to have emerged in Sri Lanka early in the second millennium CE during a resurgence in the use of Pali as a courtly and literary language. As such, 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

2366-936: 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

2457-522: Is the language of the Qur'an . Muslims believe the Qur'an as divine revelation —it is a sacred and eternal document, and as such it is believed to be the direct word of God . Thus Muslims hold that the Qur'an is only truly the Qur'an if it is precisely as it was revealed—i.e., in Classical Arabic. Translations of the Qur'an into other languages are therefore not treated as the Qur'an itself; rather, they are seen as interpretive texts, which attempt to communicate

2548-517: 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

2639-438: Is used, Judith Simmer-Brown explains that a tantric Vajrayana text is often written in an obscure twilight language so that it cannot be understood by anyone without the verbal explanation of a qualified teacher . Old Tamil was used for Sangam epics of Buddhist and Jain philosophy. Christian rites, rituals, and ceremonies are not celebrated in one single sacred language. Most churches which trace their origin to

2730-785: 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

2821-480: The Pāli (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of 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

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2912-580: The Bhagavatam , the Upanishads , the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata , and various other liturgical texts such as the Sahasranama , Chamakam , and Rudram . Sanskrit is also the tongue of Hindu rituals. It also has secular literature along with its religious canon. Most Hindu theologians of later centuries continued to prefer to write in Sanskrit even when it was no longer spoken as

3003-732: 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

3094-783: The Milindapanha ) may have been composed in India before being transmitted to Sri Lanka, but the surviving versions of the texts are those preserved by the Mahavihara in Ceylon and shared with monasteries in Theravada Southeast Asia. The earliest inscriptions in Pali found in mainland Southeast Asia are from the first millennium CE, some possibly dating to as early as the 4th century. Inscriptions are found in what are now Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia and may have spread from southern India rather than Sri Lanka. By

3185-625: 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

3276-579: The Reformation in England , when the Protestant authorities banned the use of Latin liturgy, various schools obtained a dispensation to continue to use Latin, for educational purposes. From the end of the 16th century, in coastal Croatia , the local vernacular language began to replace Church Slavonic as the liturgical language. This change occurred because Church Slavonic, which had been used in

3367-592: The Tabayin Massacre , which occurred during a stop in Depayin by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi 's nationwide tour. The last stanzas of a recent poem titled "Diparinga" ( ဒီပရင်္ဂ ), which refers to the classical name of Debayin and extols the past glories of the place, by Khin Maung Than, raised the ire of the authorities as they read like a thinly veiled reference to the massacre. In October 2022,

3458-442: The cross in three different languages, thereby sanctifying them as the first languages to proclaim Christ's divinity. These are: Liturgical languages are those which hold precedence within liturgy due to tradition and dispensation. Many of these languages have evolved from languages which were at one point vernacular, while some are intentional constructions by ecclesial authorities. These include: The extensive use of Greek in

3549-676: The glagolitic liturgical books published in Rome , was becoming increasingly difficult to understand. This difficulty arose from linguistic reforms that adapted the Church Slavonic of Croatian recension used in Croatia to the norms of Church Slavonic used in Russia. For example, the vernacular was used to ask the bride and groom if they accepted their marriage vows. Jesuit missionaries to China initially obtained permission to translate

3640-490: 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

3731-804: 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

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3822-570: The 20th century, Vatican II set out to protect the use of Latin as a liturgical language. To a large degree, its prescription was disregarded and the vernacular not only became standard, but was generally used exclusively in the liturgy. Latin, which remains the chief language of the Latin liturgical rites and of Catholic canon law , but the use of liturgical Latin is now discouraged. The use of vernacular language in liturgical practice after 1964 created controversy, and opposition to liturgical vernacular

3913-627: 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

4004-590: The Amukthamalayada, Basava Purana, Andhra Mahabharatam, and the Ranganatha Ramayanamu. Apart from Sanskrit, several Hindu spiritual works were composed in the various regional languages of India such as Hindi , Assamese , Awadhi , Bhojpuri , Bengali , Odia , Maithili , Punjabi , Gujarati , Kannada , Malayalam , Marathi , Tulu , as well as Old Javanese , and Balinese of Southeast Asia . Classical Arabic , or Qur'anic Arabic,

4095-602: The Apostles continue to use the standard languages of the first few centuries AD. Many Christian churches make a distinction between a sacred language, a liturgical language, and a vernacular language. The three most important languages in the early Christian era were Latin , Greek , and Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic ). The phrase " Jesus, King of the Jews " is reported in the Gospel of John as having been inscribed upon

4186-422: The Buddha used during his life. In the 19th century, the British Orientalist Robert Caesar Childers argued that the true or geographical name of the Pali language was Magadhi Prakrit , and that because pāḷi means "line, row, series", the early Buddhists extended 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

4277-450: 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

4368-445: 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

4459-405: The Roman Missal into Classical Chinese , a scholarly form of the language. However, this permission was later revoked amid the Chinese Rites controversy . In contrast, among the Algonquin and Iroquois peoples, missionaries were allowed to translate certain parts of the Mass into their native languages. In the 20th century, Pope Pius XII granted permission for a few vernaculars to be used in

4550-484: The Roman Liturgy has continued, in theory; it was used extensively on a regular basis during the Papal Mass , which has not been celebrated for some time. By the reign of Pope Damasus I , the continuous use of Greek in the Roman Liturgy had come to be replaced in part by Latin. Gradually, the Roman Liturgy took on more and more Latin until, generally, only a few words of Hebrew (e.g. Dominus Deus sabaoth ) and Greek (e.g. Kyrie eleison ) remained. The adoption of Latin

4641-467: 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

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4732-399: 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

4823-422: 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

4914-521: The anusvāra is pronounced more strongly, like the velar nasal [ŋ] , so that these sounds are pronounced instead [ãŋ] , [ĩŋ] and [ũŋ] . However pronounced, ṁ never follows a long vowel; ā, ī and ū are converted to the corresponding short vowels when ṁ is added to a stem ending in a long vowel, e.g. kathā + ṁ becomes kathaṁ , not *kathāṁ , devī + ṁ becomes deviṁ , not * devīṁ . Sacred language A sacred language , holy language or liturgical language

5005-562: The available sources suggest that Pali is not equatable with that language. Modern scholars generally regard Pali to have originated from a western dialect, rather than an eastern one. Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts at Girnar in Saurashtra , and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription . These similarities lead scholars to associate Pali with this region of western India. Nonetheless, Pali does retain some eastern features that have been referred to as Māgadhisms . Pāḷi, as

5096-418: 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

5187-408: The bleat of the divine goats. The settlement of Depayin has been in existence for over 700 years and it was called ' Dhipaesyin ' ( ဓိပေအ်သျင်) during the Bagan Dynasty . Located a few kilometers west of Shwebo , the birthplace of Konbaung dynasty , Tabayin was a major source of many Konbaung soldiers and officials, including the country's most famous general Maha Bandula . Having Tabayin as fief

5278-414: The case of a few texts such as the Kaddish , Aramaic ) remains the traditional language of Jewish religious services . Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic are used extensively by the Orthodox for writing religious texts. Among the Sephardim , Ladino was used for translations such as the Ferrara Bible . It was also used during the Sephardi liturgy. Ladino is also often referred to as Judeo-Spanish , as it

5369-423: The course of language development. In some cases, the sacred language is a dead language , while in others, it may simply reflect archaic forms of a living language . For instance, 17th-century elements of the English language remain current in Protestant Christian worship through the use of the King James Bible from 1611, or older versions of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer . In more extreme cases,

5460-423: 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

5551-425: The divine (i.e. God or gods) and may not necessarily be natural languages. The concept, as expressed by the name of a script, for example in Dēvanāgarī , the name of a script that roughly means "[script] of the city of gods ", and is used to write many Indian languages . When the Buddha 's sutras were first written down, probably in Pali , there were around 20 schools, each with their own version derived from

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5642-441: 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

5733-410: The epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure". There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha , which was located in modern-day Bihar . Beginning in 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

5824-408: 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

5915-548: The language has changed so much from the language of the sacred texts that the liturgy is barely comprehensible without special training. For example, the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church remained in Latin after the Council of Tours in 813 ordered preaching in local Romance or German, because Latin was no longer understood. Similarly, Old Church Slavonic is incomprehensible to speakers of modern Slavic languages , unless they study it. Sacred languages are distinct from divine languages , which are languages ascribed to

6006-454: 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

6097-649: The liturgical services in their own language. This has led to a wide variety of languages used for liturgical worship, but there is still uniformity in the liturgical worship itself. Liturgical languages used in the Eastern Orthodox Church include (but are not limited to): Koine Greek , Church Slavonic , Romanian , Georgian , Arabic , Ukrainian , Bulgarian , Serbian , English , German , Spanish , French , Polish , Portuguese , Italian , Albanian , Finnish , Swedish , Chinese , Estonian , Korean , Japanese , and multiple African languages. Oriental Orthodox churches outside their ancestral lands regularly pray in

6188-666: The local language. In East Asia , Classical Chinese is mainly used. In Japan, texts are written in Chinese characters and read out or recited with the Japanese pronunciations of their constituent characters. In Vajrayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism is the main surviving school, and Classical Tibetan is the main language used for study, although the Tibetan Buddhist canon was also translated into other languages, such as Mongolian and Manchu . Many items of Sanskrit Buddhist literature have been preserved because they were exported to Tibet, with copies of unknown ancient Sanskrit texts surfacing in Tibet as recently as 2003. Sanskrit

6279-437: The local vernacular, but some clergymen and communities prefer to retain their traditional language or use a combination of languages. Many Anabaptist groups, such as the Amish , use High German in their worship despite not speaking it amongst themselves. Hinduism is traditionally considered to have Sanskrit as its primary liturgical language. Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas , Bhagavad Gita , Puranas like

6370-601: The monastic ordination died out in Sri Lanka, many texts were lost also. Therefore the Sri Lankan Pali canon had been translated first into Indo-Chinese Pali, and then back again into Pali. Despite an expansion of the number and influence of Mahavihara-derived monastics, this resurgence of Pali study resulted in no production of any new surviving literary works in Pali. During this era, correspondences between royal courts in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia were conducted in Pali, and grammars aimed at speakers of Sinhala, Burmese, and other languages were produced. The emergence of

6461-465: The natural language, the root language of all beings. Comparable to Ancient Egyptian , Latin or Hebrew in the mystic traditions of the West , Pali recitations were often thought to have a supernatural power (which could be attributed to their meaning, the character of the reciter, or the qualities of the language itself), and in the early strata of Buddhist literature we can already see Pali dhāraṇī s used as charms, as, for example, against

6552-2740: The nearby village of Let Yet Kone became the site of the Let Yet Kone massacre , during which the Myanmar Armed Forces killed 13 civilians, including 6 schoolchildren. Tabayin is linked to Monywa , Budalin , Ye-U and Kin-U by road. Tabayin Township is also subdivided into 56 Village Tracts which include Ywar Shey Village Tract, Khun Taung Village Tract, Ta Nei Village Tract, Pauk Taw Village Tract, Bagan Village Tract, Let Tee Village Tract, Yin Dway Village Tract, Kyi Village Tract, Wa Bar Village Tract, Taw Kyaung Village Tract, In Taing Lay Village Tract, Sat Pyar Kyin Village Tract, In Boke Village Tract, Paung Taw Ku Village Tract, Na Gar Twin Village Tract, In Taing Gyi Village Tract, Tha Yet Kyin Village Tract, Saing Pyin Village Tract, Kya Khat Village Tract, Pyan Kya Village Tract, Min Te Kone Village Tract, Min Swe Hnit Village Tract, Tha Peik Le Village Tract, Ma Gyi Zauk Village Tract, Ein Yar Village Tract, Thein Bar Village Tract, Ye Kyi Waa Village Tract, Thane Mayar Chan Village Tract, Yet Thit Village Tract, Mu Kan Village Tract, Su Tat Village Tract, Tei Taw Village Tract, Kyaung Shar Taww Village Tract, Taik Village Tract, Boke Htan Taw Village Tract, Mi Chaung Aing Village Tract, Let Hloke Village Tract, Tha Yet Kan Village Tract, Nyaung Hla Village Tract, Na Myar Village Tract, Ma Ya Kan Village Tract, Me Oe Village Tract, Let Yet Kone Village Tract, Daing Nat Village Tract, In Pin Village Tract, Kaing Kan Village Tract, Htone Bo Village Tract, Htaung Tan Village Tract, Htan Ta Pin Village Tract, Na Gar Bo Village Tract, Ma Gyi Oke Village Tract, Tet Khaung Village Tract, Tauk Ka Shat Village Tract, Ohn Ta Pin Village Tract, Thit Yar Aik Village Tract, Sat Lu Village Tract, Se Taw Village Tract, In Kyin Pin Village Tract, In Kyin Tha Poe Village Tract, Chon Ywar Village Tract, Tha Yet Taw Village Tract, and Urban Village Tract. 192 Villages Pali Pāli ( / ˈ p ɑː l i / ), also known as Pali-Magadhi ,

6643-575: The original. The present Pāli Canon originates from the Tamrashatiya school . The Chinese and Tibetan canons mainly derive from the Sarvastivada , originally written in Sanskrit , of which fragments remain. The texts were translated into Chinese and Tibetan . Theravada Buddhism uses Pali as its main liturgical language and prefers that scripture be studied in the original Pali. Pali

6734-401: 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

6825-466: 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

6916-569: The subtle nuances of that thought-world. According to A. K. Warder , the Pali language is a Prakrit language used in a region of Western India . Warder associates Pali with the Indian realm ( janapada ) of Avanti , where the Sthavira nikāya was centered. Following the initial split in the Buddhist community , the Sthavira nikāya became influential in Western and South India while

7007-479: 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

7098-429: 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

7189-425: 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,

7280-420: The vernacular lacks. Consequently, the training of clergy in the use of a sacred language becomes an important cultural investment, and their use of the tongue is perceived to give them access to a body of knowledge that untrained laypeople cannot (or should not) access. Because sacred languages are ascribed with virtues that the vernacular is not seen to have, these typically preserve characteristics lost in

7371-446: 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

7462-537: Was a long used liturgical language. A sacred language is often the language which was spoken and written in the society in which a religion's sacred texts were first set down; these texts thereafter become fixed and holy, remaining frozen and immune to later linguistic developments. (An exception to this is Lucumí , a ritual lexicon of the Cuban strain of the Santería religion, with no standardized form .) Once

7553-423: Was a powerful symbol before one became king. King Naungdawgyi was Prince of Tabayin before he became the second king of Konbaung dynasty in 1760. Crown Prince Thado Minsaw was another famous Prince of Tabayin, who conquered Arakan (now Rakhine State) in 1784. In 1808, Thado Minsaw's son Prince of Sagaing (later King Bagyidaw ) inherited the title Prince of Tabayin. On 30 May 2003, pro-military mobs perpetrated

7644-623: Was further fostered when the Vetus Latina (old Latin) version of the Bible was edited and parts retranslated from the original Hebrew and Greek by Saint Jerome in his Vulgate . Latin continued as the western Church's language of liturgy and communication. In the mid-16th century the Council of Trent rejected a proposal to introduce national languages as this was seen, among other reasons, as potentially divisive to Catholic unity. During

7735-600: 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:

7826-421: 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

7917-576: 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

8008-573: 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

8099-593: 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

8190-431: 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

8281-651: Was valued in Tibet as the elegant language of the gods. Although in Tibetan Buddhist deity yoga the rest of the sadhana is generally recited in Tibetan, the mantra portion of the practice is usually retained in its original Sanskrit. In Nepal , the Newar Buddhist form of Vajrayana is a storehouse of ancient Sanskrit Buddhist texts , many of which are now only extant in Nepal . Whatever language

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