Re: Sadd: some responses to Jim's comments

Dear Jim,

>Thank-you for your interesting response which prompted me to give the
>matter more thought. Most of what you wrote sounds plausible to me,
>but sfter a bit of reading up on some of the various suggested origins
>of the Pali language by others, I find the one relating to Ujjenii of
>particular interest. This is the one proposed by Westergaard, Kuhn,
>Franke, and Konow according to Geiger, pp. 3-4 in his Pali Literature
>and Language. Some of the arguments given is that the Asokan Girnar
>inscriptions (presumably in the same area) come closest to the Pali
>and Mahinda and his sister were both born in Ujjenii.

We need to distinguish the historical issue from that of language.
Very possibly at some point the Buddhist traditions which went
southward passed through the area around Ujjain, Vidisa and Sanchi,
but that doesn't mean that the language of their texts originated
there.

On the linguistic issue there are still two views among scholars:

1. Most German scholars seem still to accept the view given above.

2. K.R.Norman (followed I think by many or most British scholars) has
argued that the Girnar evidence shows only that the scribe there was
Sanskritizing more. This has the effect of producing something closer
to Pali. We do know that mechanical changes were being introduced.
The scribe at Sopara (near to Girnar) writes mam.gara for mam.gala.
In other words he is mechanically changing eastern 'l' to 'r' even
when that is not appropriate. For Norman the home of Pali lies
further East.

My own view is that Pali originates from the Deccan i.e. from an area
where the native language was Dravidian. It is only here that it
makes sense to keep the language as Middle Indian because the change
to a Dravidian dialect would have been too great. If the Pali texts
had been transmitted directly from a Prakrit speaking area to Ceylon,
then they would automatically have been converted into Sinhal.a
Prakrit. In the Northwest they were initially preserved in the local
Gandhaarii dialect. Note that Asoka's inscriptions are in the local
dialect in the northwest, but not so, in his southernmost domains in
modern Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh - here he uses an eastern
dialect, presumably his own or that of his officials. Many Buddhist
sites dating back to the second century B.C. have been discovered in
that area in recent decades.

>  I discovered
>that Ujjenii is also the birthplace of Maha Kaccaayana who is ascribed
>by tradition to be the author of the grammar and other works. As I was
>doing a random search on the web for Ujjain + Pali, I came upon an
>article recently submitted to indology.net entitled: _On the Origin of
>the Pali Language_ by Eisel Mazard.  It just so happens that he is
>working on a new edition of Kaccayana-vyakarana. He suggests the
>influence of Kaccayana on Pali...

For me this kind of early date for the grammar of Kaccaayana is just
not believable. Buddhaghosa and the other early commentators seem to
have no knowledge of Kaccaayana, although they do occasionally refer
to Panini. How would one account for that if he is earlier ?

>  I found a list of various names for the language in Ledi
>Sayadaw's Anudiipanii as follows:
>
>Maagadhabhaasaa hi muulabhaasaati ca ariyabhaasaati ca
>maagadhabhaasaati ca paa.libhaasaati ca dhammaniruttiiti ca
>sabhaavaniruttiiti ca vuccati. -- p. 13
>

Here at least paa.libhaasaa must mean 'language of the texts', not
Pali language.

Best Wishes,

Lance