SuttaCentral
It is absolutely the case that when studying ancient European mythology, the introduction of the languages, customs, and stories of the Indo-Aryans into the pre-existing European cultures is a critical lens through which to understand the dynamics and changes.
Historical scholarship isn’t the problem. Hindutva fundamentalism is.
Thanks! That’s a great sign of a scholar of care and integrity.
Hi I’ve just read Chapter One of this book and the opening paragraph is intriguing to say the least:
Its first section deals with the history of early Buddhism which was largely written by Brahmans centuries after the Buddha lived. Although the Buddha came from a mixed ethnic and linguistic background, much of his background has been obscured by a Brahmanical overprint which obfuscates his connection with the indigenous tribes and presents the Buddha as an exclusive product of an Indo-Aryan Brahmanical culture.
And then later on:
For the Sakyas were historically a Dravidian and/or Munda speaking group—or perhaps more accurately described, based on the proportions of words borrowed into Pāli, as a Dravidian speaking group with a Munda substrate—and the Buddha almost certainly taught them in their own language, but none of his teachings have survived except the loan-words borrowed into Middle Indic.
Is Levman claiming that the sutta piṭaka is incomplete and only contains teachings which have been delivered in Pali, and excludes teachings delivered in other languages?
Up till now I thought conventional wisdom was that the Buddha may have taught in a variety of languages, but they were all homogenised/translated into Pali in the sutta piṭaka. If only the Pali teachings have been retained and the other teachings “lost” that would be sad indeed, but understandable.
As I said, I think this is somewhat of a straw-man argument. It’s true in popular culture, but in scholarly circles, while the pre-IE links are doubtless understudied, no-one really contests that they are there. There is, for example, the influential theory of “Greater Magadha” by Bronkhorst, which again i find to be overblown, but which argues that the region was dominated by the pre-IA culture and Brahmanization came later.
The wording is confusing, but I think he’s saying that he would have taught the Sakyans in Dravidian, but none of those Dravidian teachings have survived. Generally he argues the Buddha, or at least the early community, used a koine.
Indeed, something like that. Personally I think it would be almost impossible for him not to use different dialects. Pretty much most people do, especially if you’re travelling among regions for most of your life.
Thanks, there seems to be a thread amongst scholars such as Gombrich, Polak etc. to imply that the “Brahmanisation” of the Buddha’s heritage came later, and brahmanic and Vedic references were added to the suttas at a much later stage.
I find the idea that there was a koine interesting, and in countries like Malaysia it is common to intermix words from multiple languages into a kind of common language that was intelligible to multiple races and cultures, but I certainly would not want to teach a soteriology in that way!
It’s also interesting that amongst modern Indians I detect a tendency to use English as a koine when Indians from different backgrounds communicate with each other.
In some of the suttas with obvious brahmanic references it seems that the Buddha had a deep knowledge of Vedic texts, or someone else with a deep knowledge of Vedic texts inserted them later and attributed them to the Buddha, and I wonder how someone without such a knowledge can possibly hope to interpret these texts correctly, and realise the “Buddha” was criticising and parodying them.
I am now reading Chapter Two, and whilst Levman’s discussion of the possible Dravidian origins of various words is compelling, it doesn’t necessarily imply there was a koine and could equally be evidence of an original Dravidian passage translated into Pali with the help of loan words.
Indeed. I hope Lauren Bausch’s work, and also my own, puts this to rest.
The problem is that later Buddhist traditions were uninterested in Brahmanism and lost such detailed knowledge. Of course they would have known basic things, but the commentary often completely misses references.
Malaysian language is so complex. In a way, yes, there’s a common language, but isn’t it also highly personalized, especially in more diverse places like KL or Penang? It seems to me that people pick up on, say, what Chinese dialect the person they’re speaking to uses, or the degree to which they’re fluent in Bahasa or English, and mixes those words and references in. And it can vary completely with the next speaker!
It is very individualistic, and yet more uniform that you might think. For example, I discovered even speakers from East vs West Malaysia can understand each other perfectly and there are enough common cultural context to enable communication.
Of course, a Chinese speaker from Penang is more likely to interject Hokkien words in the conversation and a speaker from KL is more likely to add Cantonese words, but somehow they would both understand each other perfectly. And of course, the ability to swear in multiple languages is an ability that many possess!
It’s also interesting that many Pali words made it into Malay/Indonesian (utara, bhumi as well the more obvious raja, putera/puteri, etc.) and I guess the region would have been Buddhist/Hindu at one point before converting to Islam.
So I do find the idea of a koine not too outlandish, and it would have been invented by traders and merchants carrying goods across towns and villages. The Buddha in his travels would have no doubt picked it up and used it. Pali itself could have evolved out of this koine, with some Sanskritisation and standardisation of technical terms.
How this happens is honestly kind of mystifying to someone who grew up in a monolingual society. Except the last part, which to an Australian makes perfect sense!
Right, but that’s not what Levman means by a koine.
That would require that, say, all Chinese speakers—leaving aside the difficulties of differing language groups—used the same pronunciation, something like a hyper-Mandarin, which comes closest to the ideal of a koine. This form would a reduced version possessing the common features of all.
So the word for Buddha might be fo. Everyone would say that. Then a later generation would “translate” it into dialects to produce fut, fat, put, and so on.
It’s actually the opposite of a polyglot language that is mixed and remixed ad hoc.
Yes, but what I find interesting is the tendency for Malaysians to use the grammatical constructs for one language, and apply it to words from another language.
For example, in Malay there is a tendency to repeat a word for emphasis or to signify plurality, Malaysians will often repeat words in English or various Chinese dialects for the same effect, and this grammatical construct is understood (and appreciated) by the other speaker. For example instead of saying “boleh boleh” the speaker will just substitute the English word: “can can”, signifying assent or agreement to do an action. I’ve even heard Chinese speakers use the repeating pattern on Chinese words when speaking to another Chinese speaker.
Or adding the English “-ing” affix to Malay words, or the Malay “ber-” prefix to English words, etc. Or, for even greater emphasis, the use of both on a word (of any language) to emphasise an action is in progress.
Sometimes, an English affix can even be attached to an English word creating a new word (not actually present in “proper” English) with a new meaning. For example, the word “actsy” or “act-sy” signifying someone who is full of themselves or a bit conceited.
So it’s not just intermixing of words, it’s a creation of a quasi common language with a unique superset of grammatical constructs.
To me, this seems similar to the “koine” examples cited by Levman. So I find it plausible for example Sanskrit or Pali case endings could be applied to a Dravidian word, and the result will be intelligible.