Re: MSV vs. Pali Canon

From: Balaji
Message: 4909
Date: 2017-03-09

Thanks a lot for the very good explanation Bryan. This is exactly what I have been trying to say.

I have to however ask: do we have any archaeological or other evidence to believe that Pāṇinī predated the Buddha?

I ask this because there are some interesting places where the Buddha actually does some word-play. For example, in explaining the meaning of the word loka, the Buddha draws on the relationship of the word with the verb luccati. This seems to me to be a very Pāṇinian way of looking at words. But then I also know that Pāṇinī himself said that such derivation from verb roots had been done by other grammarians predating him. This means that such grammar systems were present even before Pāṇinī. So I don't know if the Buddha was getting all this from other traditions or from Pāṇinī himself.

A second clarification is that we don't know if the Buddha actually said the word 'thero'. We only know that the recorded word in the Tipiṭaka is 'thero', but whether that word was said in exactly that way by the Buddha is just impossible to prove or disprove. In my view, the Buddha was an extremely versatile sage. He was able to speak a wide variety of dialects and was also highly educated in the arts and sciences that the elites learned. So while speaking with brāhmaṇs, in keeping with the principle of speaking at the same level as his listeners, he might have used a more elitist language, perhaps even Vedic itself. But I think the Pāḷi records we have are not in the same dialect, but in a dialect that was inter-intelligible with the languages the Buddha spoke.

Thanks,
Balaji

Balaji

On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 12:00 PM, Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

Dear Dmytro,
 
Thanks for your answer. I am probably not making my “point” very well, which is just that sthavira in the meaning “old, ancient, venerable” was extant at least from Vedic times, that the Prakrit form was thavira or ṭhavira, or thaira or thera (Pischel §166, 309) in the same meaning and they were well-known cognates.
 
There are 5 sthavira references in the RV, and at least some of them with the meaning of old, e.g. vajraṃ sthaviram RV 4.20.6, which Griffiths translates (“ancient thunder”) and 3.46.1 yunā sthavirasya (“ancient and ever youthful”) , but even if one goes with the primary meaning from sthāvara (”fixed, permanent, immovable, heirloom”, from which the metaphorical meaning “old” derives), one finds it unequivocally in the Brāhamaṇas in the meaning of “old” and  the Brāhmaṇas pre-date the Buddha by at least a few hundred years (early first millennium). See the St. Petersburg Dictionary (Bóthlingk and Roth).
 
The earliest Prakrit reference I can find is in the Rock Edicts where again it refers to “elders.” The earliest Buddhist reference I can find is in the Mahāvastu where Kātyāyana and Kāśyapa and others are referred to as sthaviraḥ, that is “Elder” (or “Venerable” as Jones translates). This is used throughout the text, and I assume some at least go back to Jones’ date of 2nd century BCE, which he gives for parts of the book. Edgerton says that this is the “oldest [BHS] text we have” and the only one he places in his “class one” text, based on the number of Middle-Indicisms present (that is, Prakrit forms). The Prajñapāramitā texts are younger and he places them in Class 3 (Edgerton BHSD Grammar and Dictionary, xxv).
 
The Prakrits (Middle Indic) are derived from Vedic or Old Indic (von Hinúber Áltere Mittelindisch im Úberblick, §5), according to, inter alia,  the regular rules of linguistic evolution, that is through regular sound change over time, usually towards simplification of things like conjuncts, lenition of consonants, de-aspiration, etc. Vedic was a sacred language only used for the RV, but the Prakrits were the language of the people and were certainly already extant by the late second millenium. Nobody knows for sure, but there are thousands of Prakrit forms in the various recensions of the RV which prove this point. In Vedic Variants (Bloomfield & Edgerton)  we find these forms listed and the authors’ conclusions, “The large mass of variants of this kind [Middle-Indic] clearly pointing to extensive influence of Middle-Indic phonetics in the earliest periods of the language, seems to us one of the most important result ot his volume of the Vedic Variants…” (§20). Wackernagel (Altindische Grammar) also has a lot of information on the Prarkit/Vedic relationship.

Sanskrit is closely related to Vedic (they are both known as “Old Indic”), but Pāṇini (who also pre-dates or at least was contemporaneous with the Buddha) was a north-westerner and his codification of the language was an attempt to stem the “bastardization” of Vedic by the Prakrits; as the Indo-Aryans moved further eastward, more and more Prakrit words spoiled the “purity” of Vedic which of course came from the Northwest, following the Indo-Aryan migrations.

So, even though the ealiest Skt. inscriptions are first century BCE, Old Indic was still in use well before then, and we know that the majority of the Buddha’s converts were brahmans and certainly knew their RV and commentary, so when the Buddha used the word thera, they certainly knew its Old Indic equivalent, sthavira. As we all know there was also a trend post-Asoka to Sanskritize (or better, Vedicize) the Buddha's teachings, which we think began in the second or first century BCE, but there is no reason that it could not have started earlier, we just don’t have the records. Old Indic had the big advantage of being universal and the Prakrits were many and confusing, so the Sarvāstivādins which are supposed to have originated sometime  after the Second Council, could well have used the term Sthavira to refer to the “old school” as a blanket term opposing the new (Mahāsaṃghīka). So yes, it is a Sanskritization/Vedicization, but the two languages existed side by side for centuries and many of the principal Buddhist proponents (including perhaps the Buddha, who was according to legend supposed to have received a Vedic education), knew both intimately.
 
Does that make sense to you?
 
Best wishes,
 
Bryan
 


From: "Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2017 4:22 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] MSV vs. Pali Canon

 
Dear Bryan,

Thank you for detailed answer.

Sanskrit has existed in its present form since Panini and it was derived from Vedic which as we all know, took its final form in the second millennium BCE. Sanskrit co-existed along with Pali and the Prakrits for centuries,

First Sanskrit inscription dates by first century BC. Until then there was another lingua franca - Standard Epigraphic Prakrit, much similar to Pali.
 
but from what we know did not come into being as a canonical language until the first or second century BCE in the Prajñapāramitā writings

And the earliest manuscript of Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, as Harry Falk and Seishi Karashima explain in their article " A first‐century Prajñāpāramitā manuscript from Gandhāra", is likely to be a translation from Gandhari. This helps to connect the onset of the wave of sanskritization with the beginnings of Kushan empire (CE 30-375).

 
(at least they are the earliest records we have, which doesn't mean it wasn't used by some schools earlier and the records lost). Up until then the transmission was in the Prakrits.

As for the schools earlier, - Theravada clearly didn't use Sanskrit. And the fact that Mahasanghika Vinaya has been preserved in half-sanskritized form, with grammar of Prakrit being retained, clearly shows that Mahasanghikas originally used Prakrit. Roth wrote that: ‘The general feature of this language… leads us to the west of India, during the era of the Mathura inscriptions,’ - i.e. Kushan empire.
They couldn't use Sanskrit at the time of the split.
 

The word sthavira itself is extant in the Rig Veda and other pre-Buddhist writings with the meaning of "old, ancient, venerable".


Not at all. In the Rig Veda, the meaning of this word is quite different - "broad , thick , compact , solid , strong , powerful" (as indicated by Monier-Williams dictionary). The meaning of 'sthavira' as 'elder' emerged later. In Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, it was a result of sanskritization of original Prakrit word.

 
I am not quite sure I understand your argument that it was a "Buddhological legend", as it was used as a label even in ancient times for the group that the Mahāsāṃghikas split away from.

Of course, it was used as a label after sanskritization. However it's just a sanskritized term for 'Thera' - not some legendary 'Sthavira' school that parted ways with Mahasanghika. 

 
Since the schism is supposed to have happened about a century after the Buddha's parinibbāna and the Sarvāstivādins were a sub-group of the Sthaviras, perhaps they used this name to refer to those who didn't join the "Great Assembly."

Yes, the descendant groups continued for a long time to use the old "brand' - until they solidly established their separate identity. By the 8th century, Vinītadeva in his list of schools described Arya-Sthavira Nikaya as just three Sri Lankan groups: Jetavaniya, Abhayagirivasin and Mahaviharavasin. 

 
   In the Dīpavaṃsa (3rd to 4th century BCE?) theravādin is named as the school from which the Mahāsāṃghikas separated and seems to be used in the sense of sthaviravādin (Chaper 5, v. 16), as the "Theravādins" of the Second Council were not the Theravādins of today, but the old school which opposed the Mahāsāṃghikas, that is the Sthaviras.

In the fifth chapter of Dīpavaṃsa, the term "Thera" is consistently used as the name of the school throughout its history - from the First Council until the time of the writing:
https://archive.org/stream/dpavasaanancien00oldegoog#page/n148/mode/2up/ 

 
This is also the term the MSV uses for "elder" in the Gilgit manuscripts, like the Sanghabhedavastu.

Sanghabhedavastu is a text in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, so it's natural it uses Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit terms.

 
The earliest record we have of the Prakrit change is the Asokan edicts (RE 14) where we find thaira-susrusā ("obedience to the elders"), indicating that the phonological change was sthavira > thavira > thaira > thera. This is third century BCE.

Perhaps the people who sanskritized this Prakrit term also thought of such probable phonological change.
 
I think that one could argue that the word existed (sthavira and thera)  at the second council (and earlier) and monks understood it to mean "old, ancient, venerable"  and it was co-opted to be used for opponents of the "new" Mahāsāṃghikas (as thera, and then later re-Sanskritized to sthavira, as were many Prakrit words). Of course it can't be proven, but it does not look like a modern back-formation for me, it that is what you (or Warder) is suggesting.

It's not a modern back-formation, it's a sanskritization, mistakenly thought of as the original title of the school.
 
  But perhaps I am misunderstanding you, as I find the whole argument and labelling a little bit anachronistic and confusing,

I'm trying to set the chronology straight. I find it anachronistic to use a sanskritized term for a Buddhist school at the time when no Sanskrit was in sight. This linguistic error brings about a whole legend of "Sthavira" school as somehow quite different from "Thera" school, and a lot of confusion which should be cleared up.

Best wishes,

Dmytro
 


From: "Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 2:22 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] MSV vs. Pali Canon

 
Hi Petra,

As evidenced by inscriptions, Sanskrit began to be used only in the first century B.C. So no Buddhist school before that could have used a sanskritized name, since Sanskrit didn't yet exist. Only several centuries after the Mahāsāṃghika split, due to sanskritization, Sanskrit names began to be used.

The "Sthaviras" are just a buddhological legend, which, similarly to "Sthaviravada" legend, originated from the erroneous assumption that Sanskrit somehow existed earlier that Pali.

The "Sthaviravada" legend has been discussed at:


Best wishes, Dmytro


2017-03-06 20:18 GMT+02:00 petra kieffer-pülz kiepue@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:


 
The first split in the Buddhist community is the one leading to the two branches of Mahāsāṃghikas and Sthaviras. Except for the Vinayas of the Mahāsāmghikas and of the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravādas all other extant Vinayas go back to the Sthavira branch, who naturally is not the Theravāda (i.e. the Pāli tradition), but comprises Dharmaguptaka, Sarvāstivāda, Mūlasarvāstivāda, Mahīśāsaka, Theravāda, etc. Some of these schools used Sanskrit from the beginning, others used Gandhārī or other Middle Indian languages.

Kind regards,
Petra Kieffer-Pülz

Am 06.03.2017 um 19:10 schrieb Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:


Dear Pali friends,

Shayne Clarke's article can be read fo free at https://www.jstor.org/ stable/24663789 , by adding it to the "shelf".

I'm a dilettante in this matter, yet I would say that IMHO, confusion here is caused largely by the popular buddhological myth about the mythical "Sthavira" school (quite different from Thera), which has parted ways with Mahasanghika school.

No "Sthavira" school could have existed at the time of the split, since Sanskrit wasn't yet invented, and the sanskitized name "Sthavira" couldn't have been used:

https://dhammawheel.com/ viewtopic.php?f=13&t=28943

As Richard Salomon wtites,

 "Sanskrit began to come into epigraphic use only in the first century B.C."


Best wishes, Dmytro





2017-03-06 18:25 GMT+02:00 petra kieffer-pülz kiepue@... de [palistudy] <palistudy@ yahoogroups.com>:
 
I think you got something wrong. It is the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya which is so different in structure form all the Sthavira Vinayas.
The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is special because of its length, and the many details it contains, which to a large extent reflect the reaction
of  the Buddhist community on the environment in which they settled.

Kind regards,
Petra

Am 06.03.2017 um 17:19 schrieb Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@...  [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:


After reading through Clarke's article, it sounds like the MSV is quite different from the other five Vinayas, which are quite similar to each other... And yet at one point he suggests that the MSV may have had an influence on the others, which seems counterintuitive. Given that the MSV is such an oddball, why give it such importance?

On Mar 6, 2017 9:52 AM, "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@...  [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

Thanks for the reference, Petra. And yes, Schopen was Shayne's supervisor,

Metta, Bryan


From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@...  [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] MSV vs. Pali Canon

 
Thank you both, that helps. Shayne Clarke is at our university, and i think a student of Schopen. I'll read his article. 


On Mar 6, 2017 5:04 AM, "petra kieffer-pülz kiepue@... e [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 
Dear Bryan and Ven Yuttadhammo,

with regard to the theory of the origin of the Vinayas you should read Shayne Clarke’s article, "VINAYA Mātṛkā – MOTHER OF THE MONASTIC CODES, OR JUST ANOTHER SET OF LISTS? A RESPONSE TO FRAUWALLNER’S HANDLING OF THE MAHĀSĀṂGHIKA VINAYA“, Indo Iranain Journal 47 (2004), 77–120.

Best,
Petra




Am 06.03.2017 um 04:55 schrieb Bryan Levman bryan.levman@...[ palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:


Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,
 
I don't think it's a question of the Mulasarvastivadin (MSV) Vinaya being closer to the original, but being derived from the same source as the Pali and other Vinayas extant, of which we have six different schools (Theravādin, Sarvāstivādin, Dharmaguptaka, Mahīśāsaka, Mahāsāṃghika and MSV). This is Frauwallner's thesis in his monograph The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature (1953), where he specifically examines the Khandhaka(Mahavagga and Cu lavagga) of the different schools and concludes that they all derive from a common source. Of course the language of the MSV is Sanksrit and much later than the Pali, but that doesn't necessarily mean the content is not as early, simply that it has been translated from an earlier Prakrit.
 
Lamotte in his History of Indian Buddhism, rejects Frauwallner's claim (p. 178) and says the MSV  is much later than the Pali and probably from Kashmir (Frauwallner argues against this), so there are obviously two different views as to the antiquity of the MSV; and Lamotte, as you know, is often very reliable – that would account for your intuition about the latteness of the MSV. I don't know enough about it to offer an informed opinion, and there must be further discussion since Lamotte's work in 1958. Schopen, as you have pointed out, does a lot of work on the MSV stories and what they indicate about the customs and practices of the Sangha in MSV communities and has published I think at least three anthologies of articles: Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks,  Buddhist Monks and Business Matters, Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India - many of the articles are based on texts from the MSV Vinaya. He may in fact discuss the relation between the MSV and the other Vinayas in terms of time line, and if you do find anything further on it, I would appreciate knowing (or if anyone else in the group knows),
 
Metta,
 
Bryan
 
 
 
For Frauwallner’s work: http://www. ahandfulofleaves.org/ documents/The%20Earliest% 20Vinaya%20and%20the% 20Beginnings%20of%20Buddhist% 20Literature_Frauwallner.pdf
 
For Lamotte's; http://www. ahandfulofleaves.org/ documents/History%20of% 20Indian%20Buddhism_Lamotte. pdf


From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@...   [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, March 5, 2017 11:43 AM
Subject: [palistudy] MSV vs. Pali Canon

 
Dear Friends,

I've been hearing more about the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya at our university... Apparently, there is some work by people like Gregory Schopen to show that it is more likely to have been closer to the original teachings than the Pali Vinaya. I'm just trying to piece together what evidence there is for the origins and alterations of the various texts... I always thought the MSV was clearly later with procedures surrounding money, etc. Anyone can point me in the right direction here? Thank you.

Metta,

Yuttadhammo





















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