Re: Paali
From: Jim Anderson
Message: 3941
Date: 2014-11-18
Dear D.C.,
<< I agree with you that "norm" is peculiar. That is why I put "literary
language". The writing of the Pali canon was in Sri Lanka (general
consensus. Something like Pali Sammuti.) >>
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That would be in the first centruy BCE (around the time of the Fourth
Council?).
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<< Let me put forward a proposal. Let's define Maagadhi as the language the
people of Magadha spoke. This is a non controversial definition. Of course,
we don't know anything about the Maagadhi language. Bodhisatta was born in
Magadha (again consensus, I don't know, well I have heard). It is not
possible for him to have learnt any other language. Hence we can be sure
that the words in the first four Nikaayas and some in the Khuddhaka belong
to Maagadhi, especially where Lord Buddha was involved in the
"samaya"--meeting or occassion. >>
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I'm fine with Māgadhī or Magadhabhāsā being the language in which the Buddha
taught the Dhamma and Vinaya. The Pāli that has come down to us is probably
not quite the same but it's about as close as we'll ever come to the
original.
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<< There is a full discussion of this in the PREFACE of the Childers
Dictionary on the origin of Pali. Please do read this preface; in my
opinion it is the most rational discussion of Paali (not Pali) >>
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Thank you. I have begun reading the preface. His dictionary article on Pāli
is more informative than the PED one.
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<< With regard to the mass I used the definition from the OD (website): A
noun
denoting something which cannot be counted (e.g. a substance or quality).
OD gives collective noun for for something like samuuhika naama. >>
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Is OD an abbreviation for Oxford Dictionary? MW defines samūhika as a
collective noun too, yet the examples jar, cloth given for this term in Sadd
(see below) don't look like the collective nouns one finds in English.
Tatra ghaṭa paṭa icc ādi samūhikaṃ anekadabbasamudāyasambhūtanāmattā, . . .
Sadd III 879,31-880,1.
A jar or cloth could be considered collective or mass nouns on account of
their being composite and reducible and not paramattha objects.
Best wishes,
Jim