Learn Pali Language

Easily look up PTS references in the Khuddaka Nikaya. (Or look up PTS references in the first four Nikayas ) The Khuddaka Nikaya is the fifth Nikaya known as Collection of Minor Texts , it consists of 15 to 18 books depending on tradition. I beleive, the original Pali Canon has 15 books while the Thai edition has 17 and the Burmese edition 18 books. These then have been arranged and numbered in a couple of different ways.

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!

For those wishing a bit more of a challenge the Atthaka-vagga, of the Sutta Nipata, according to scholars, may well be the oldest portion of the entire canon. It is composed mostly in verse, and includes some lovely imagery. In this guide I've chosen the Attadaṇḍā Sutta (Snp 4.15) which, according to tradition, was taught by the Buddha when he went to settle a quarrel. The title of the sutta, translated here as "arming oneself," conveys the image of a person taking up a stick, (daṇḍa) - the stick being a common symbol in Indian literature for both violence and punishment. This then sets out the basic problem of confrontation  - people hurting each other. The sutta continues by outlining the cause  - the misplaced wish for security driven by desire - and finally, its solution - letting go of the ego.

Continuing my look at the Sutta Nipata, - which contains some of the oldest portion of the canon. This translation guide analyses the Mettā Sutta (Snp 1.8) which, is perhaps the most popular discourse for reciting. It is a poem on the virtues of mettā, loving-kindness. It is a brief set of ten verse which lays out the ethical foundations for good will, and shows how to develop it in meditation. The word “Metta” is derived from the Pali word “Mitta” meaning “friend”. In the English, it has been translated as kindness, loving kindness, love and goodwill. Verse composition can throw up challenges to the amateur translator as it often employs alternate forms of words according to the needs of the metre. As such, we may find some unusual archaic endings in verse, or instances where words have been altered (vowel lengths, dropping of a niggahãta etc.) in order to meet the metre. And several examples of these can be found in the verses below.

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!

This the final section of the Satipatthāna sutta deals with dhamma which literally translates as: 'to hold , bear (also bring forth)'.  As to what this term represents, whole books have been written! Here, in common with I think most translators, I take it in it's technical sense as the object to 'manas'; the constituents of mind, or knowable things; what is available to inner observation; in a word: phenomena. Note: Bhikkhu Ānandajoti points out: in other versions of this teaching it appears that the original structure of this section only included the hindrances (nīvaraṇa) and the factors of awakening (bojjhaṅga), which are both lists of ethical qualities of mind. I believe dhamma in this original context probably meant ethical states, a well-attested meaning for dhamma, but one no longer useable once the additions of the constituents (khandha), sense-spheres (āyatana) and truths (sacca) have been included. I'm switching to MN10 for this final sec...

I have received a couple of request now for information about accent or stress in Pali pronunciation. This is a poorly covered area - and I have to add I'm not an expert. But from reading mainly Sanskrit guides and guides to Pali Prosody (poetry & metre) I think there are a few things to be aware of. First, Pali tends towards time duration rather than accent or stress. So in pronunciation, a short vowel is half the length of a long vowel. Vedic Sanskrit has a musical 'pitch accent' that I believe did not transfer to Pali.

Convert to Unicode Type these Velthuis codes to convert into Pali unicode. aa → ā .m → ṃ ii → ī .t → ṭ uu → ū .d → ḍ "n → ṅ .n → ṇ ...

This post continues the translation of the Satipatthāna Sutta and expounds the sections on Vedanā & Citta . Much of the translation hinges on how these two terms are themselves interpreted. Vedanā is generally seen as the sensations/feelings aroused by perception and is understood as feelings of pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. This is the bare affective quality of an experience, or valence which is the subjective positive-negative evaluation. It is generally associated with one’s attachment (positive or negative) to people, objects, ideas, etc This in turn leads to motivation; the intensity or strength of urge to move toward or away from a particular stimulus. The Pali-English Dictionary suggests citta as heart / mind, emphasizing the more emotive side of mind, as opposed to the intellect. Motivation is what directs behaviour, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behaviour, a set of forces that acts behind our rational exterior. In this way Vedanā & Citta ca...

The Satipatthāna Sutta can be found in two forms: Majjhima Nikaya 10 (MN 10), & Digha Nikaya 22 (DN 22) There are also, I believe, versions in the Chinese āgama: Madhyama Āgama No. 26 & Ekottarika Āgama 12.1 The term satipaṭṭhāna is a compound of sati, (mindfulness) and either paṭṭhāna, (foundation) or upaṭṭhāna, (presence). The compound term could thus be interpreted as sati-paṭṭhāna ("foundation of mindfulness" : preferred by Buddhaghosa's commentary) or sati-upaṭṭhāna, "presence of mindfulness". According to Anālayo, "presence of mindfulness," is a more etymologically correct (cf. smṛty-upasthāna in BHS). Upaṭṭhāna is derived from the verb upaṭṭhāti (itself a variant of upatiṭṭhati), and literally means standing near, and by extension, attending on, serving. The word sati is a feminine action noun derived from the past participle of sarati the basic meaning of which is to remember. It is cognate with Vedic smṛti：memory, recogn...

In this post we'll look at how both nouns and verbs can be formed into adjectives by use of suffixes. (And though a little off subject, how they can be formed for other uses...). It follows on from the post on  participles in Pali . What is an adjective? It's probably worth pointing out, in these posts I've been happily talking about word classes - nouns, verb, adjectives etc - without really defining what I mean. Linguists have categorised words as belonging to certain groups. And we are told that a noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea; a verb is an action or state; while an adjective is a description word that tells us more about a noun. The question arises 'how do we know?' Some words appear to belong to two or more categories: cold : 'I have a cold' (noun) or 'it is a cold night' (adj) smile : 'the monk smiled' (verb) or 'I like your smile' (noun)

The Samyutta Nikaya, the third division of the Sutta Pitaka, contains a couple of thousand, mainly short suttas, grouped by topic into five sections (vaggas). In this, the Pheṇapiṇḍūpama sutta, the Buddha invokes a series of vivid similes to illustrate the core-less-ness of the five aggregates. As Bhikkhu Bodhi points out: The sutta is one of the most radical discourses on the empty nature of conditioned phenomena; its imagery (especially the similes of the mirage and the magic illusion) has been taken up by later Buddhist thinkers, most persistently by the Madhyamikas... In the context of early Buddhist thought these similes have to be handled with care. They are not intended to suggest an illusionist view of the world but to show that our conceptions of the world, and of our own existence, are largely distorted by the process of cognition... Instead of being seen as transient and selfless, they appear as substantial and as a self You can find more of...

The Aṅguttara Nikāya, the fourth division of the Sutta Piṭaka, consists of several thousand suttas arranged in eleven books (nipatas). The first nipata — the Book of the Ones — contains suttas concerning a single topic. I have chosen the Aṅguttara Nikāya for my first attempt at translation as it's grammar is fairly straightforward and shows the same sentence pattern repeatedly. I publish it here as an aid to other students attempting the same thing. You can find more of my sutta translation exercises here. I must stress that I myself am just a student of Pali and make mistakes. For the sake of example, the translations are very literal and of course could be phrased differently.

This post is a bit of an aside to my normal investigation of Pali language. It is a partial overview of the term grammar which will hopefully shed some light on the difference between grammatical subject and thematic agent. What is this Grammar thing anyway? Not that long ago, "grammar" meant the study of Latin, the language of choice for educated people. In fact, "grammar" came to referred to any kind of learning. This is reflected in the English term "Grammar School" and as such the word grammar can have many meanings and uses. More specifically grammar is used to describe an attempt to understand the make up of a language - the ways that words can be put together in order to make sentences. Even in linguistics, there are  several types of grammar. What follows is a rough and ready summary of what can fall under the umbrella of grammar.

Participles are a kind of adjective formed from a verbal base. Like verbs, they divide into Present, Past and Future; and each group can again be divided into Active and Passive (voice). Being in the nature of adjectives most decline in the three genders - agreeing with their nouns (subjects), in number, gender and case. . So in Pali, we have seen there are roughly six kinds of participles: Past Passive Participles, Past Active Participles, Present Passive Participles, Present Active participles, Future Passive Participles / Gerundive & Indeclinable Participles, In this post we are going to look at how the declinable participles are formed (that's the first 5 above). There's going to be a lot of tables of endings and I apologise now for this. But it's an area where the tools (DPR & Pali Lookup) often fail. All the participles are composed of three components: verb root/stem + participle infix + nominal (case) ending. In the previous post we saw ...

One of the main problems facing the novice student learning Pali is understanding the many terms and technical phrases littering the grammar guides. The theory of Pali verbs and verbal tense systems as described in the mainly Victorian Pali grammar guides employs many grammatical terms (often borrowed from Latin) to describe systems that were detailed by early Pali grammarians who themselves were usually following Paninian Sanskrit grammars. No wonder then that the modern reader can often feel overwhelmed. So this is an attempt to explain what's going on.

The Pali verb tenses/moods discussed so far are termed primary derivations. What is known as a secondary   stem can be developed from a primary stem by the addition of a new 'secondary infix or by the replacement of an existing suffix. √kar Primary base       prefix Pres. stem modal infix Personal Ending     - karo eyya si   present, opt 2nd per, sgl => kareyyāsi       Secondary base       prefix Pres. stem sec infix modal infix Personal Ending     - karo iya eyya si   present, pass opt 2nd per, sgl => kariyeyyāsi ...

The term aorist  derives from the grammar of ancient Greek. In Pali, it can be regarded as a simple past tense. Note however, the use of the aorist tense in Pali covers both the simple past, the present perfect and occasionally also the imperfect aspect . For example, agami can mean:  he/she went" (simple past), "he/she has gone" (present perfect), and occasionally (imperfect) "he/she was going. It should also be noted that the past participle is often used for the past tense. The aorist verb is often used with the prohibitive negation mā: mā agamāsi =  do not go. mā atthāsi, = do not stand. mā bhuñji, = do not eat. Checkout this video tutorial on Tense and aspect in Pali. Tense vs Aspect & Participles in Pali Following on from the previous tutorial on tenses of the English Language, this tutorial looks at Tense & Aspect in the Pali language. You will see the difference between inflection and auxiliary verb... Formation o...

Tense and Moody? Must be a Verb... Pāḷi has three moods  in the present tense, which are used to express the speaker’s attitude toward the action. Indicative : used to express statements, proclamations, opinions. Optative : used to express the hypothetical, and also wishes or hopes Imperative : used to express commands and invitations The conditional too is often classified as a mood rather than a tense, though it is most often placed with the future tense. With this exception, all of the above moods exist only in the present tense. Each of the other tenses has only one mood. We saw the indicative mood in the last post.

The inflection of verbs is known as “ conjugation ”. It consists of changes in form to show differences in person, number, tense, mood, and voice. In this post we will start our look at the present tense in Pali. By now you may have realised that the available tools (DPR & Pali Lookup) are good but not infallible when it comes to detecting the inflections of Pali verbs. Nouns tend to be straightforward, there are many groups but the ending are fairly regular. However, verbs and their derivatives can be very irregular and multitudinous and not all the variations are caught by the automated parser - nor the dictionary. This then can cause the amateur translator hours of frustration in their attempts to search for that one illusive word not in the dictionary.