Tipiṭaka Studies :
What is the Language in the Tipiṭaka... pali or Pāḷi ?
Scholars have been studying the pali for a very long time now. Much research has been attempted and comparative studies have been done of the major languages of ancient India in an effort to discover and understand the beginning of the pali language, as well as the relationships that other languages may have to the pali language. Scholars have also studied and analyzed pali in mostly very conventional terms, as historians, linguists, Buddhist studies and Tipiṭaka historiography, etc. Though these approaches have their value to scholars and academics, they have blinded scholarship and have thwarted clear perception : that the Buddha used Pāḷi as both conventional, mundane definition and, much more importantly, as a higher, supramundane language to convey the Ultimate Reality of Nature. The second supramundane definition from now on will be referred as Pāḷi with capital P together with ā and ḷ with diacritical marks to convey the correct sounds which have been handed down for over twenty-five centuries through the Great Theravāda Councils and now preserved in the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka.
Thus, the only truly intelligent approach to the study of the Pāḷi language of the Buddha necessitates the inclusion of the conventional and the supra-conventional : to study Pāḷi as the language by which right understanding of Ultimate Reality can be attained and liberation from Dukkha can be achieved.
Here Dukkha is used not in a local language and mundane definition of “dukkha” — suffering as opposed to happiness, but Dukkha — a stage of unsatisfactoriness embracing both suffering and happiness in the endless circle of birth and rebirth.
Pāḷi, therefore, is a language both conventional as the common language of the people whom the Buddha instructed, and as a language special in refined connotative meaning and sound especially utilized by the Buddha to convey the Dhamma. Pāḷi is the sacred language spoken by the Buddha in his 45 years of conveying the Dhamma and the language through which the Buddha's enlightened wisdom has been handed down in Buddhist Theravāda tradition more than 2,500 years.
To find the “roots” of the sacred Pāḷi language of the Buddha, one must study the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka to discover its very conception. The Tipiṭaka says that for seven weeks or 49 days after Enlightenment the Buddha remained in various stages of meditation of an utmost refined quality. Immediately after Enlightenment, the Buddha contemplated sabhāvadhamma or the Ultimate Reality of Nature in consummate detail. At this time, though the Buddha had yet to utter one word of Dhamma to anyone, the language to be used to teach the Dhamma was realized by the Buddha.
Seven weeks after Enlightenment, the Buddha began teaching, using Māgadhikabhāsā, the language spoken by the people of Magadha, in northern India, where the Buddha spent most of his life, for an obvious reason : it was the language of the common people and thus made the Dhamma accessible to all the people. Rather than using the language of a special, elite class of people, with a terminology strictly defined and confined, the 'language of the devas', the Buddha used the language of the common people, which allowed for development of meaning, of nuance or refinement of meaning, and of formatting for the purpose of conveying sabhāvadhamma or the Ultimate Reality of Nature.
Free from an “elite” language of unmalleable terminology already indelibly imbued with fixed meaning, the Buddha established a pattern of language, in sound and form, capable of new definition, connotation and nuance to convey sabhāvadhamma. This “new” language is evident in the Buddha's very first discourse, when the Wheel of the Law was put into motion. The Buddha redefined a pivotal term in Buddhasāsana, for example Dukkha in Pāḷi, giving it an entirely new meaning (see in Abhidhamma Piṭaka, especially volume 29 in the Romanised International edition printed by the Dhamma Society in 2005), a redefinition which would have been difficult and problematic had the Buddha spoken in the elite language of his time.
Once the root, the very seed, of the sacred language of Pāḷi has been understood, it is essential that both the conventional and the supra-conventional be considered in any proper study and analysis of Pāḷi. Moreover, an understanding of the Pāḷi language is impossible without a study of the Dhamma. Pāḷi, as the language used by the Buddha to convey the Teaching, is inseparable from the Dhamma, from the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka, from the Buddha as Teacher. Thus, it cannot be studied and analyzed in the same way as mundane, conventional language. More especially, the special, sacred meaning —through terminology, syntax, form and sound— and the value of Pāḷi as the sublime medium through which sabhāvadhamma is conveyed is unique in the world and is essential for attaining understanding of the Teaching, for achieving true peace and liberation. (See Pāḷi Tipiṭaka in comparison with pali text on page 30-31)
With the right understanding that the Pāḷi language is the sacred and sublime language of sabhāvadhamma, it is therefore of great importance that the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka must be preserved in its utmost purity. The publication of the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka edition in Roman script which was published by the Dhamma Society in 2005 for international readers is a way in which the purity will be preserved and propagated. Finally, the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka will be an indispensable source of reference for the sabhāvadhamma both for scholars and lay people alike, to learn and also to put into practice in accordance with the Tipiṭaka, for the benefit of oneself, society and the world.
English version by
Donald W. Sandage
From Tipitaka Studies 2005
by Dhamma Society Fund
