Dear Mahinda,
thank you for sharing your personal reflection. There is no doubt Pali is influenced by classical Sanskrit, which was the scholarly and religious language of ancient Brahmanical India.
As to whether the study of classical Sanskrit is necessary for Pali students, and if so when, I think is an academic matter. It is almost like asking if a student of Sinhala should also study Sanskrit, and if so at what age. We shall not push for it on this list, but leave it to the individual member to pursue as an additional 'bondage', to use your word.
On the other hand, we will definitely continue with our readings of the suttas and Saddaniti and other Pali readers.
metta,
Yong Peng.
--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Mahinda Palihawadana wrote:
One has to become familiar with the ways of expression of these texts. Language of post-canonical texts is an almost dialectal variation of the Pali of Sutta and Vinaya texts. Most of the authors knew classical Sanskrit, even refer to it (as "sakkate: in Sanskrit" or "sakkata-ganthesu: in Skt texts"). The Kaccaayana grammar for example definitely follows Paanini, as James De Alwis pointed out long ago. Many commentaries, especially those of Dhammapala, often take recourse to the 'debating style' adopted by Sanskrit commentators.
So, what can one do? One has to read these texts. Perhaps in bits, not large chunks at a time. You are doing that. You are reading from the Suttas to become familiar with those texts. And now this Saddaniiti, a very different terrain. Specially for these texts, it helps to be able to break up a word into all its constituent parts. Ex. aá¹á¹hivÄcakatte(pi) = aá¹á¹hi+vÄc+aka+tta+i_(api). How does one identify these elements? There is no short cut. One has to learn the stems, roots, affixes. One who enjoys maths might like it. That's the other tool , a compatible frame of mind.