Navigating Pali Studies

What is Pali Language? A little history

In all these grammar tutorials we have never stopped to ask: What is Pali?” “What does the word mean?” “What are the origins of Pali? And this is what we will investigate in this post.... What is Pali & Who Speaks it? Well, let's get the obvious answer out of the way: Pali is an ancient Middle Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language, in which, the scriptures of Theravada school of Buddhism - or Tipiṭaka - have been preserved and passed down. True. Today Pali is studied mainly to gain access to Theravada Buddhist scriptures, and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. But when we say a ' language ', most languages are named either after a population or a region, and we have no evidence of a region called Pali or even a population of Pali speakers... Along side this, nowhere in the Pali canon itself is there a mention of a language called Pali!

Pali Alphabet & using the PED Dictionary

What is the Pali Alphabet? How is it arranged? How do you use a Pali dictionary? Well, the first thing to note is that Pāli is written in many different scripts. As the buddhist canon travelled, local people used either Indian scripts or switched to their own local scripts. For more on local scripts see here . But for now we are just interested in the Romanized Pali alphabet. This runs Vowels first, then consonants. as follows: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, o (ṃ*) k, kh, g, gh, (ṅ) c, ch, j, jh, ñ ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, (ḍh), (ṇ) t, th, d, dh, n p, ph, b, bh, m y, r, l, (ḷ), (ḷh), v, s, h [Note: the letters in brackets have no entries in the dictionary.] Pali is a phonetic language so each entry above represents a single sound. Every letter always has the same pronunciation regardless of its context, so no letter has more ...

Sutta Number to PTS reference converter

Easily look up PTS references in the Sutta Piṭaka. [New expanded coverage tables. Includes alternate numbering. Search accepts space, comma or period separated numbers, case insensitive, diacritic insensitive.] Quick Jump Table PTS Vol Dīgha Nikāya (DN) D i , D ii , D iii Majjhima Nikāya (MN) M i , M ii , M iii Saṁyutta Nikāya (SN) S i , S ii , S iii , S iv , S v Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN) A i , A ii , A iii , A iv , A v Go to Khuddaka Nikaya (KN) ( New! KN ref converter ) Use the quick jump table above; Note: For Vol. i of SN, there are two sets of PTS page numbers for each sutta. This is because the L. Feer editions differs from Somaratne 1999. Or type a Sutta number or name into the search boxes below to search that column of the table!

Dissecting Compound Words

Two or more words combined together to form a single composite term is called a compound – e.g. blackboard, notebook, homemade etc. In older parts of the Pali canon, compounds are simple and seldom contain more than two or three elements: nāma-rūpa = name & form, ceto-vimutti = liberation of mind, But they become more complicated in later language: sīlasamādhipaññāvimuttivimuttiñāṇadassanaparibhāvitaṃ → sīla + samādhi + paññāvimutti + vimutti + ñāṇadassana + paribhāvitaṃ As a general rule, all members of a composite term are in their stem forms (no inflection of case, person or gender) except the final term which is inflected according to its gender, casting the whole composite to that inflection. pañca+upādāna+khandh ā pañca+upādāna+khandh ānaṃ pañca+upādāna+khandh esu The separate stems are joined using the rules of sandhi (joining) making compounds tricky sometime to tease apart. pañc u pādāna k khandhā → pañca+upādāna+khandhā The Digital Pali Re...

Full Guide to Noun Declension

Declension is the addition to the stems of Nouns suffixes which indicate grammatical category , such as: case , number & gender . Formally, declension is the variation in the endings of nouns, pronouns, & adjectives, by which grammatical case, number, and gender are identified. This subject is dealt with in many grammar guides and summary tables, so I'll be brief. Noun Stems The stem of a noun is the base form before any suffix has been added and are usually the forms listed in dictionaries. Noun stems in Pāli are regularly grouped into two divisions, those that end in: Vowels, comprising all the stems that end: -a, -ā, -i, -ī, -u, -ū, (o) Consonants, which include stems ending: -ar, -ī/in, -an, -at/ant, -as & -us

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