Hello. I’m new here, and I’m not really sure if this is the right place for me. I’m not a Buddhist and my main interest is the linguistic history of the subcontinent and its other history. Of course the dates of Buddha and the Pali texts is of crucial importance in this regard, so here is my question.
I understand that the claim that the Pali canon was first written down in the 1st century BCE comes from the fifth century commentator Buddhaghosa. There is no evidence for the Pali language before the fifth century. It seems to be a constructed language, of various dialects, with a veneer of Classical Sanskrit, which was the elite dialect of the time. To get to the point, the Pali literature seems to be later than some of the other Buddhist literature. For instance, I understand some of the oldest Buddhist texts are written in Gandhari, and may go back to the 2nd century BCE. Also, much of the Sanskrit Buddhist literature must be older. For instance, Ashvaghosha’s Buddha carita, which can be fixed around the early/mid 2nd century with fair certainty. This also raises the question: how can we know that the teachings in the Pali canon are really the earliest? Could they not reflect beliefs that developed over the centuries, as people had to confront philosophical questions that may not have been issues at earlier times.
Sorry, it took me a long time to get to the point here. I’d be grateful for opinions on this.
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I’m not an academic, just an ordinary lay Buddhist of average intelligence. Where does Prakrit fit in the scheme of things? Is this the language/dialect that Lord Buddha spoke? Is Pali a derivation of Prakit? If I’m completely off base can someone enlighten me please. Just a mundane enlightenment .I’ll leave the real enlightenment to Buddha and my practice. Metta to all
No, that would be the chronicles Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa. From Nyanatusita’s excellent article:
The earliest mention of written Pali texts in Sri Lanka is found in the Dīpavaṃsa and the
Mahāvaṃsa, chronicles describing how the good and bad deeds of kings affected Mahāvi-
hāra Theravāda Buddhism in Sri Lanka. According to these chronicles, the Pali Canon (ti-
piṭaka) and its commentaries (aṭṭhakathā) were first written down in the reign of King
Vaṭṭagāmaṇi-Abhaya (Mhv 33.100–101, Dīp 20.20–21) in the 1st century BCE (Geiger
1960: §65). Both chronicles state: “The text of the three piṭakas and the aṭṭhakathā thereon
… in order that the true doctrine might endure, they wrote them down in books.” (Piṭaka-
ttayapāḷiñca, tassa aṭṭhakathampi ca; … ciraṭṭhitatthaṃ dhammassa potthakesu likhāpa-
yuṃ) (Geiger 1912: 237). These “books,” potthaka, were usually made of talipot palm
(Corypha umbraculifera) or “Ola” palm leaves.
Full article here:
More to the point though, the Western obsession with writing down the canon is a colonializing narrative. In the West, writing was key to the formation of ancient literature, but this was not the case in India. We know for a fact that extremely large, sophisticated textual corpii were created and passed down in oral tradition for many centuries, even millennia in the case of the Rig Veda, with no writing involved.
What matters to us is the fidelity of transmission, and there’s no evidence that an oral transmission is less reliable than a written one. People change things in written texts all the time! What matters is the care with which the work is done.
Sure there is, it’s the Pali canon. This sounds like the ideas of Gregory Schopen and his followers. FWIW, I don’t know any actual Pali scholars who’d agree with this. Schopen’s work has been repeatedly debunked by experts in the field, including myself.
Schopen’s argument begins by demanding a certain kind of evidence that he knows in advance does not exist, and then acting as if he’s proven something. It’s not serious scholarship.
The most recent work in this area is that of Stefan Karpik, who appears around here from time to time, and is actively pursuing his research.
What Stefan did was to take a second look at the widespread inscriptions from a few hundred years after the Buddha in what is often called epigraphic Prakrit. He carefully examined a range of texts, introducing corrections based on editor’s advice, or on the orthographic conventions, etc. The corrected and modernized text that emerges is just Pali.
Where it differs from canonical Pali, Stefan shows that this depends on spelling variations already present in canonical Pali, where archaic and modern spelling are found side by side (eg. the absolutive in tvā and ttā). In the epigraphic language, the archaic form has dropped away and the modern form persists. This is clear sign of language continuity from the older forms in the canon to the more recent forms in the inscriptions.
I believe that Stefan has established that Pali was the prevailing language of northern India for the five hundred years or so from the Buddha, and the Buddha was just using the vernacular.
Generally speaking, no. Some of the Agamas or Vinaya material might be earlier than the Pali, as within the collections, there are signs of earliness or lateness in different passages. But on the whole, the Pali texts are at least as early as other texts in virtually all cases. But generally they’re all of a similar period.
These are the oldest physical manuscripts, not the oldest texts. The Gandhari texts represent the situation in approx. 2nd century CE, with a mix of early and late texts as you would imagine in a monastery library. Gandhari itself is clearly later than Pali.
Absolutely not. Buddhacarita is much later than the early texts, and depends on them throughout.
Because later texts depend on earlier, but earlier texts do not depend on later.
Ven @Brahmali and I wrote extensively on this a few years ago.
Since writing the book on Authenticity, I have done extensive research on the connections between the early Buddhist texts (EBTs) and Vedic literature. I have found that the connections are far deeper and more detailed than previously understood. The Buddha was speaking to Vedists, adopting their language and responding to their ideas, because he didn’t live in a Buddhist culture. Later literature is almost entirely Buddhists talking to other Buddhists.
So no, the distinctive feature of the EBTs is not that they respond to concerns of the Buddhists in later times. That’s the feature of later literature, which deals with such things as international trade to Persia, for example, or the consequences of the rule of Ashoka, or the spread of Buddhism to the Himalayas.
The distinctive feature of the EBTs is that they respond to non-Buddhists, especially Vedists. This is characteristic of a first-generation movement, which had not yet established its own culture.
This research is so far mostly in my notes to the suttas, although you’ll find some posts on this forum. I plan to make a book about it if I live that long!
