Thanks for the clue Dmytro. Since Mahavira was a
contemporary of the Buddha it is indeed interesting to
know that. But do you know when was the Jain Canon put
to writing ?

With Metta

Jacques

--- "Dmytro O. Ivakhnenko" <aavuso@...> wrote:

> Dear Jacques,
>
> > But I wonder if the Sanskrit that the Buddha
> spoke, if
> > he did, must not have been closer to a still very
> > "Vedic" dialect (Ardha Magadhi?) rather than
> classical
> > Sanskrit as Panini who definitely stabilized
> Sanskrit
> > is posterior to the Buddha by about 2 centuries.
>
> Sanskrit didn't exist at the time of Buddha. In the
> suttas the
> Brahmanical language is referred to as 'chandaso'.
> Panini also used this
> term. The meaning of it - "metrics, prosody"
> indicates that this
> language was then used mostly for the purposes of
> reciting Vedas.
>
> The language Buddha spoke, which now became Pali, is
> indeed very similar
> to Ardha-Magadhi preserved in Jain canon. You can
> check it yourself at
> the webpages:
>
> http://www.jainworld.com/scriptures/samansuttam9.asp
>
> Yours with Metta,
>
> Dmytro
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com