Dear Bandhu (brother),

Hello & a very good day to you. First of all remove the misnomer from your mind that sanskrit is  OLDER than Pali. It is difficult to really trace out the exact period of origin of Sanskrit. we can take it that it may be as old as Pali itself. But for our current discussion what is more significant is the fact that that the Pali was the language spoken and understood by the native people of India then. And this is precisely the reason why the Tathagat Siddharth Gautam Buddha chose Pali, although he was equally proficient in Sanskrit. This was with the intention to spread his acquired knowlwdge for the benefit of common people at large. On the other hand the Vedic scholars  used Sanskrit as their language only because, this was not widely followed & understood. Moreover, in the Indian social system, prevalent then, the use & study of Sanskrit was permitted only to the two upper classes (compartments) of society out of four.

The pronounciation of Pali & Sanskrit may appear similar to those who are conversant with Indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, Magadhi, Ardhamagadhi, Bhojapuri etc. However, there are subtler and finer differences. And at any rate, they have different grammer & gramatical syntax.

The writting of of both Pali & Sanskrit appear same because both of them are using the same script i.e. Devnagari.

with metta.

Vijay Gaikwad
Materials Manager (Purchase)
Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd., Thal
ph 02141 238580 Ext 2709 Fax 02141 238081/ 238206

---------- Original Message -----------
From: HUNG TRAN <tranlehung@...>
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:36:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: {Disarmed} [Pali] Pali versus Sanskrit

>  
>
> Dear All,
> I am a vietnamese buddhist.  I recently joined the group.  I would like to say hi to everybody.  Wish you all success in studying Pali.
>
> I have a couple questions.
> 1. My current understanding is that Pali came about in 4th or 5th century.  Sanskrit is when Lord Buddha used to talk to followers.  Is this true?
>
> 2. Sanskrit is known as the language of the deity.  The pronunciation of Sanskrit is similar to that of the Pali.  Is this concept right?
>
> 3.  if the answer to question 2 is correct, then the spelling (writing of pali ) of pali is different from Sanskrit.
>
> I am confused because Wikipedia seems to be confusing in different paragraphs when you search for the Pali versus Sanskrit differences. 
>
> Regards,
> Hung Le Tran
> California, USA
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> _

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