Pali, the Language of the Southern Buddhists

Arthur Berriedale Keith

Pali, the Language of the Southern Buddhists

Vol. 1 · No. 3September - 1925pp. 501–517English

Summary

This long essay reviews competing theories about the origin of Pāli, the canonical language of Theravāda Buddhism. One school holds that Pāli is Magadhan, basing the claim on a passage in the Cullavagga where monks propose to recite the Buddha’s words in Sanskrit and he instructs them to use their own dialect (sakāya niruttiyā). Proponents argue that the Buddha spoke Magadhī and that his teachings were preserved in that vernacular. Others suggest that Pāli derives from the dialect of Avanti, Ujjain or Kosala, or that it is an artificial literary language combining features of several dialects to facilitate pan‑regional communication. Examining phonology, morphology and vocabulary, the author notes that Pāli exhibits both eastern and western traits: assimilation of consonant clusters and change of r to l, typical of Magadhan speech, coexist with forms characteristic of northwest India. It lacks a single distinctive trait that would identify it with one region. The paper reviews inscriptions and manuscripts which show that early Buddhist texts were written in various local prakrits; even Sanskrit was used alongside vernaculars. The author concludes that Pāli was standardised by missionaries who selected forms intelligible to a wide audience in southern India and Sri Lanka. Its origin cannot be pinned to a single city, and its development reflects the cosmopolitan character of Buddhism’s expansion.

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Conclusion

The study rejects the notion that Pāli is identical with Magadhī and emphasises its composite character. By tracing dialectal features and historical context, it portrays Pāli as a missionary koine shaped by the spread of Buddhism rather than the direct survival of one provincial speech.

Key passages

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“The Cullavagga® records that two Bhikkhus made com- plaint to the Master that the memnbers of the community, being of diverse origin, were changing the utterances of the Buddha by the use of their own dislects (sukaya niruttiya).”
“we must realise that we have no substantial ground for the belief that Magadhi must be regarded as the sacred language of Buddhism par”

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In this issue

Vol. 1 · No. 3

406–414Two Copperplate Charters of the Haihaya king Prthvideva II of the Cedi years 900 and 905Hiralal Jain 415–422Date of KaniskaR. Kimura 422–428DharmasamuccayaDharmaditya Dharmacharya 429–432Surunga and the Kautiliya ArthasastraMaurice Winternitz 433–442Magadhi Prakrit and BengaliMuhammad Shahidullah 443–456Will in Early Buddhist ScripturesC. A. F. Rhys Davids 456–463Rasitala or the Under‑worldNandu Lal Dey 464–472The Northern BuddhismHariprasad G. Shastri 473–482A Problem of Ancient South Indian HistoryK. G. Sesha Aiyar 483–489The Evidence of Panini on Vasudeva‑WorshipUmesh Chandra Bhattacharya 489–500Politics and Political History in the MahabharataNarayan Chandra Banerji 501–517Pali, the Language of the Southern BuddhistsArthur Berriedale KeithCurrent article 518–522Bhati Rajputs — The Modern Representatives of the Indo‑Bactrian Rulers of Kabul and Northern PunjabKunwar Shivnath Singh Sengar 522–532Ministers in Ancient IndiaRadha Govinda Basak 532–537SelihotraGirindranath Mukherji 537–539Inscription on the Pedestal of a newly found Visnu ImageHaridas Mitra 539–544Indian Literature AbroadPrabhat Kumar Mukherji 545–560Hindu Politics in ItalianHaridas Mitra 561–565The Andhras and the TelugusM. Venkataramayya 565–566Report of the Archaeological Department, Hyderabad StateC. S. Srinivasachari 566–568Sankaracarya CaritamK. Rama Pisharoti 569–570A Note on the Word KautalyaV. Venkatarama Sharma 570–577Hindu Imperial Systems and Mr. K. P. Jayaswal 577–578Hindu Theories of the Origin of Kingship and Mr. K. P. Jayaswal—A Supplement 578–580The Punjab Sanskrit SeriesD. Bhattacharya 581–590ReviewsU. N. Ghoshal, Kaccayana, Arthur Berriedale Keith, Bimala Charan Law 591–594Select Contents of Oriental JournalsU. N. Ghoshal 595–598Obituary NoticeB. M. Barua

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