Re: Slightly OT: Podcast Tagline in Pali

Bryan,
> Dear Lance
>
> Thanks for your answers. A few questions:
>
>> Attempts to find more than two dialects elsewhere have generally been
>> rejected.
> My understanding is that three dialects are normally identified by scholars: eastern, western and northwestern, as described by Salomon (p. 73-76).  Is that what you are saying? (in which case I think we are not in disagreement, as I do not consider Kālsī and Eṛṛaguḍi separate dialects, although sometimes there are different word forms).
Yes. I understand that the dialect of the NW (in a different script) is
the administrative language of a different country. I suspect it goes
back to a time before the incorporation of that area into the Mauryan
Empire.

That would leave two. But for India proper one dialect is used in a
large number of locations. The so-called western dialect is found only
at Girnār and is anomalous.
>> Note that in the Pillar Edicts Asoka indicates unhappiness or at least
>> awareness that his earlier inscriptions had been edited or inscribed
>> incorrectly. Certainly the Pillar Edicts are written in a much more
>> standardized language.
> Does this refer to Rock Edict 14 (E), "But some of this may have been written incompletely, either on account of the locality, or because (my) motive was not liked, or by the fault of the writer."?
Yes, you are quite right. What was in my mind was that the statement is
rather late. As Harry Falk indicates (Aśokan Sites and Artefacts,
p.112), the Edicts were distributed in batches. So it looks as if RE 13
and 14 were later. (Only at Girnār were all 14 inscribed at the same
time. So it is again anomalous.)
> I am unfamiliar with a similar statement in the Pillar Edicts?
>
> Thanks for your help on the epigraphic language. It is of course all post-Aśokan and reflects, I think, the increasing prominence of Pāli which must have originated in Aśokan times or earlier ("originated" is perhaps the wrong word - "evolved" might better express the process). Perhaps its first standardization was prompted by Mahinda's trip to Śri Laṅka in the mid 3rd century B.C. which required some kind of standard canon - that would have been a strong impetus to produce a formal Buddhavacana. However we do know from the Bhabra edict that there was already something resembling the notion of a  "canon" in Aśoka's time.
>
I do not think that the issue of dialect/language arises until the texts
are written down. Whether any texts were written down as early as the
time of Asoka is doubtful.

Lance