welcome to the group. I am no real expert, but will share what I
understand. Your question is one which will puzzle anyone who first
take up Pali, which is a dialect of Prakrit. If you allow me to
expand the discussion, it is easier to understand. The major European
languages do not have their own native scripts, but adopted either
the Roman or Greek alphabets for their use. The same idea can be
applied to Pali. Although some scholars believe that Pali has its own
scripts, but I am not aware of any which exists today. But, when
Buddhism spread out of India, the Pali-stream was taken up in South
and Southeast Asian countries. Pali was written using their own
scripts (Thai, Burmese, etc.), just as people today learn Japanese
using Romanji or Mandarin with Hanyu-Pinyin. There are also Theravada
scriptures found written in Gandhari, which is another dialect of
Prakrit. India has many languages in use at any one time, so when
Buddhism spread across its native land, it was taught in the many
languages (this was allowed by the Buddha). However, the two main
streams that eventually left India and spread the Dhamma beyond India
are the Pali-stream and the Sanskrit-stream.
Here are some related sites which you may find useful:
http://depts.washington.edu/ebmp/software.html
http://titus.uni-
frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/ind/mind/gandhpkt/dhpgpkt/dhpgp.htm
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Gandharan-
ms.htm
Books available from Amazon:
(1) A Gandhari Version of the Rhinoceros Sutra: British Library
Kharosthi Fragment 5b ISBN: 0295980354
(2) Gandhari Dharmapada ISBN: 8120817400
Today, as in the way many foreigners learn Japanese and Mandarin, we
learn Pali with the Roman script.
Hopefully, others who know better can offer some insight too.
Hope that helps.
metta,
Yong Peng
--- Zasetsu57 <zasetsu57@...> wrote:
is there a written Pali? I have never encountered any samples of
written Pali before and would be interested in seeing what the
language loks like.