The fist thripitaka book written in sir lanka in mathula viharaya at kurnagala (not in mathale alu viharaya) it is written by “ hela Sinhala language “ at time of king parkarmabahu time…
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I am 6 years late to this discussion, but the topic is still a hot one. I am now immersed in the question of the script which the Pali Canon was first written in. I do not think it was Brahmi. Evidence of writing is so weak in India that despite the Brahmi script on the some of the southern Asokan pillars, it was probably merely a borrowed idea from the numerous inscripted pillars throughout the Achaemenid empire. In the north (Pakistan etc) the pillars are in Greek and Aramaic in the Karosthi script. And it is likely that many of the Greek immigrants and Greek bhikkhus could read and write fluently. There, the pillars made sense. There were many Greek (Yavana) monks in the area because of both the Persians settling them even before Alexander arrived in 330 BC. After Alexander, Greek settlements were abundant. These monks would have likely transcribed suttas and vinaya almost immediately upon hearing them recited, since they were literate and entirely familiar with book compilations.
Sri Lankan records such as the Mahavamsa, record Sri Lankan monks travelling to the Yavana area in the north of India to study with Greek buddhist scholars. They apparently had a reputation for Abhidhamma, as would be natural to literate monks.
The teacher of Bhikkhu Nagasena, of the the Questions of king Milinda,(the Greek king Menander,) was Dhammarakshita, a Greek abhidhamma master. He lived during the time of Asoka.
The Mahavamsa records the arrival of “30,000 Yavana bhikkhus” to the fourth council in Sri Lanka. This seems a wildly exaggerated number, but the event is certainly a large one. And now here is my theory. I think the Greek monks brought a fully transcribed copy of the Pali Canon to Sri Lanka. It was either in Greek script or Karosthi. The Greeks taught reading and writing to both Indian and Sri Lankan bhikkhus and left them to copy or write in any script available. Sinhalese script did not exist at the time, it evolved out of Brahmi apparently. The earliest written pali outside of the Asokan pillars are the birch bark scrolls from as early as 10 B.C. to 30 AD. They are in Karosthi script. They are very close in time to the so called writing of the Pali Canon at the Aluvihara in Sri Lanka. In fact they may be from that very time ( 30 BC).
One thing which is fairly certain: Greek monks were in the robes before Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka. It seems that “western monks” are not a recent phenomena in Buddhism, but second after the Indian monks of the Buddha’s home area.
Now, Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali are really the knowledgeable historians of early Buddhism so I leave these “theories” for their scrutiny and in fact would welcome any and all critiques of my conjectures. I doubt that the case can ever be proven, but I think it is plausible, unless I have overlooked some strong evidence to the contrary.
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Hi Ven,
How’s life in Canada? Not too cold I hope.
So there are a couple of points here.
You’re quite right about the connections with ancient Greeks. In fact Chandragupta had a Greek wife, so there is a non-zero chance that Mahinda and Sabbamitta were part Greek.
Okay, but let’s not overstate it. There is one (1) story in the Pali commentaries of a monk travelling there to ask a question on Abhidhamma of Dhammarakkhita (who IMHO is the founder of the Dharmaguptakas). We know there was a lot of Abhidhamma activity in the Kashmir/Gandhara area, but there was also a lot in Sri Lanka and elsewhere too.
As to whether Indian writing was influenced by Greek or some other Western form of writing, it seems reasonable, but my understanding is that there is no consensus on this.
Incidentally, you can find a mention of Brahmi and Kharosthi (and Puṣkarasāri) in the Mahavastu:
yā vā imā loke saṁjñā brāhmī puṣkarasārā kharostī yāvanī
Those worldly conventions brāhmī, puṣkarasārā, kharostī, Greek …
The Lalitavistarasutra has what seems to be a later list. Greek is missing.
lipiṁ śikṣāpayasi | brāhmīkharoṣṭīpuṣkarasāriṁ aṅgalipiṁ vaṅgalipiṁ magadhalipiṁ
(Should I) learn the scripts: Brahmī, Kharoṣṭī, Puṣkarasāri, Anga script, Bangla script, Magadhan script (and a lot of others!)
I’ve not seen a study of this passage, but it does strike me that the form is interesting. The first three are just listed, then all the others have -lipi appended. Maybe the first list is the old one (agreeing with the Mahavastu more or less) and the others are regional variations?
This is missing a key ingredient: paper. You need something to write on, and existing methods were expensive and time consuming. You don’t just need monks who know how to write, you need the craftsmanship, resources, and technical infrastructure to create the materials for massive, large scale writing. It’s not like writing a letter or a bill of lading. Heck, it’s still hard to amass the resources to print the whole Tipitaka: I know, trust me!
? Citation required. I’m not aware of any Pali written in Kharosthi? The Wikipedia article on Kharosthi mentions some coins in Pali, but there is no citation, and I suspect it’s just being used as a generic name for early Prakrit.
Early Buddhist writing in Kharosthi is indeed close in time to the writing down of the canon in Sri Lanka, and this is one of the reasons the Mahavamsa’s account is generally accepted. But it is 3,500km distant.
Don’t forget that both the Mahavastu and Lalitavistara are products of mainstream Indian Buddhism around this time. So around the turn of the millennium we have:
- physical manuscripts from Gandhara in Kharosthi
- historical record of writing the canon in Pali in Sri Lanka in Brahmi
- references in at least two mid-Indian texts to writing, which includes both Brahmi and Kharosthi
- (probably other details! Mahayana sutras start from the same period and they frequently mention writing)
It seems to me more plausible that writing was generally adopted in the greater Indic sphere at this time.
Anyway, as to the role of Kharosthi and/or Greek in Sri Lanka, so far as I know there is none. There are 1000+ old inscriptions in Sinhala/Pali and they’re all in Brahmi. In fact, Sinhalese Brahmi is among the oldest in existence, and local scholars argue it is attested earlier than Ashoka.
Regardless of the exact age and origin of the inscriptions, they certainly predate by some centuries the writing down of the Pali canon. There seems no reason to assume the texts were written in Sri Lanka in anything else.
Worth noting that all these scripts—Greek, Kharosthi, Brahmi—are phonetic, and given that we know the state of linguistic science was very advanced, it would have been no great task for any scholar to learn them and transpose between them. So if scholars arrived in Sri Lanka schooled in other scripts, they could easily adopt the local style.
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Dear Ajahn Sujato,
Thank you very much for your detailed reply. There are very few people in the academic world who might have a reasonable opinion on this topic, which makes your opinions on this topic very valuable. And in the monastic world there are also strong nationalistic tendencies that favor their slant on history, like the crazy idea that Buddhism originated in Sri Lanka! By the way, my true interest in all of this is to highlight the earliest “western” monks…the Greeks. It is of course known and rather obvious, but has slipped off the public radar. Western monks, such as you and I, are not so exotic after all. That early participation of advanced western/ European/ middle eastern people in the Sasana needs to be restored to its proper place. Indian nationalism is also rewriting history at the moment, rejecting influences from outside of India. Lately Modi has them removing the fact that Mahatma Ghandi’s assassin was a Hindu extremist, from high school textbooks.
I value your critique and suggestions, some of which I also had considered earlier. The case is still uncertain due to lack of concrete specific accounts and extant written versions from the time of the council, but the Birch Bark documents are as close as we can get. Some of those happen to be at the University of Washington, which is within driving distance of me. I will be taking a close up look at them at the next opportunity. Thanks again for the prompt reply to this rather esoteric topic.
Aj Sona
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Ha ha, you’ve heard that one too! So sad to see so many people consumed by such nonsense.
This is a deeply concerning movement, and TBH I think we are globally underestimating the harm Modi and his Hindutva extremists are causing.
You should see if you can visit Richard Salomon while you’re there, I’m sure he’d love to chat about all this.
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Thanks for the recommendation. I just googled Richard Salomon and he looks like a treasure trove of information on this topic. By the way, I did recheck the Birch bark texts: here is what the description is from the University of Washington:“The fragmentary birch bark scrolls, which were found inside one of a set of inscribed clay pots, are written in the Gandhari Prakrit language and in Kharosthi script. Dating from around the beginning of the Christian era, the scrolls are probably the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered.”
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