Learning Sanskrit and Pali

@UpasakaMalavaro

Greetings :slight_smile: Just a little housekeeping matter :slight_smile:
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Thank you, I am new to posting in forums, so I have much to learn.

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No worries at all :slight_smile: That’s why we moderators are here, to help smooth things along. :slight_smile:

with Metta

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Yes, I am grateful for that.

Dear Andrej,

If we look at the traditional way of learning Pāli in Myanmar, we see that they don’t learn Sanskrit, but instead, they learn traditional Pāli grammars (like Kaccāyana, RĆ«pasiddhi, etc.). This could be a possibility if you don’t want to learn Sanskrit, but would like to become proficient in Pāli. The only difficulty is a scarcity of resources in English language. These grammars are written in Pāli, and it is surely a barrier for a beginner. But there are few translations of Kaccāyana, with the latest being one done by A.Thitzana with notes, and a guide for using the grammar for actual language learning.
Very recently I had to write an essay about the traditional Pāli learning where I demonstrate its value. Should you like, you can read it here S Piyadassi coursework essay.docx - Google Drive

On the other hand, should you choose to learn Sanskrit (which is much more complicated than Pāli) I would recommend The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit by A. M. Ruppel. He gives good tips on how to connect countless declension and conjugation paradigms, and makes their memorization easier.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

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Just to note, this isn’t the case; until modern times (the 1950s Nalanda edition), Pali was never written in Devanagari. The script doesn’t really matter, it is just for the convenience of people learning it. It’s worth mentioning, though, due to the persistent efforts of Hindutva fundamentalists on Wikipedia to present Pali in Devanagari.

But as others have said, I wouldn’t worry too much, the main key is persistence and care, whatever means you choose, you’ll make it in the end.

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Oh wow! I can totally see that.

What was the most common script in which Pali was found then? Sinhala?

I think I have heard quite a few people say that Pali and Sanskrit are similar and yes, saw the terms right next to each other on Wikipedia - and also in the Pali learning books often have Pali in both the Sanskrit and Romanized script - I think based on all of these I assumed that it must have been the case. Thank you for pointing it out!

You can highlight a line like I highlighted your line^ here - and the word “Quote” will appear on top of it. You can click it and it will quote it into a message.

If you wish, you can edit (by clicking the pencil) and then respond to each message to which you replied “Thank you” and then basically “Quote” each person and thank them all in one message.

Even though you already message them - you can basically “edit” your message, include many of thee short ones in the same and then delete the extra messages. Does that make sense?

That way you can still compile all your previous messages into one message even now, after you have already made them.

Whatever was in common use. Originally it would have been in a form of Brahmi, later in Sinhala, Thai, Khmer, etc. All these share a common ancestor and, while they appear quite different to the casual observer, in fact use a similar system, so the underlying Pali text can be expressed equally well no matter what the script. (The differences between the scripts, apart from just style, can often be explained by the fact that they needed to express their own unique sounds not found in Pali/Sanskrit, such as the extra vowels and tones found in Thai.)

The 13th century manuscript we are studying uses an early form of modern Sinhala script, which is readily readable by modern Sinhalese readers. It was, I think, around this time, or a little earlier, that Sinhala replaced Brahmi in Sri Lanka.

Many of the Thai manuscripts used Khmer (Khom) script until fairly recently.

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Many years ago when I was staying at a Thai wat in Birmingham one of the resident monks attempted to explain the above point to a visiting party of secondary school pupils. Unfortunately his English was a little poor and he confused the words ‘script’ and ‘scripture’. To the pupils’ great bemusement he explained:

“In Buddhism we never had any scripture of our own. Buddhists are very practical people and in each new country that we went to we just borrowed whatever scripture the people were already using.”

One boy then asked, “So you mean in England Buddhists would use the Bible?”

But in the Birmingham accent Bible sounds like ‘Boible’ and the monk somehow misheard this as ‘Bengal’.

“No, that’s what the Buddhists in Bangladesh use. In England we use the English scripture.”

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2,500 years of the most advanced linguistic science ever developed, and here we are.

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Very funny 
 I hope somebody could correct the matter.

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Thank you for the best laugh 
 :rofl: 
 Laughter really is a great gift. :pray:

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If someone reading is interested in the topic, here is a post on the connection between sanskrit and pali.
https://www.quora.com/Can-someone-fluent-in-Sanskrit-understand-Pali

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I have been studying Sanskrit as a gateway to Pali. Without it, you will always be a little less than proficient. A good, though perhaps not nowadays so useful , parallel is New Testament Greek, Koine. You don’t really need classical Greek to read it, but those who just learn Koine so they can plunge right in always miss the fine points of expression. There are excellent Sanskrit textbooks now, I started with Egenes and have not regretted it.

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Some random observations:

Every Sanskritist I have known who works in a Western university has been outstanding in terms of their knowledge of the language to a very high level. Sanskritists who actively teach like McComas Taylor and Antonio Ruppell (N.B. she/her
she was mentioned previously as AM Ruppell) are basically just really good at their jobs, and Antonio’s book is superb.

There are some things which are just genuinely different in Pali though (sometimes Pali words even have different genders to Sanskrit, aiyyo, lunar mansion of Asalha) and words can often have radically different meanings across different contexts. E.G. “viveka” in Sanskrit is discernment, in Pali it is seclusion. And confusingly, nirutti in Pali doesn’t mean niryukta. Punya in Sanskrit can be an adjective meaning “pure”, not just the opposite of papa.

But it goes the other way, too, that sometimes knowing Pali is an advantage to reading Sanskrit. I have seen a group of advanced Sanskrit students deal with sophisticated compounds, but fail to pick up sunya meaning “empty”. (?!)

They are two different languages, and sometimes their similarity can be both a blessing and a curse. So if you learn both Pali and Sanskrit, you have three jobs, not two. The first job is to learn Sanskrit. The second job is to learn Pali. And the third job is to learn that they are not the same thing. Job no. 3 isn’t that hard, but still good not to be lazy about it.

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You make an excellent point. Every language has its own character and genius, and even closely related ones finally must be regarded as unique—which they are.

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Given the drift in terms over the centuries and “Buddhist Hybrid” forms, etc this is arguably more than one job itself! :sweat_smile:

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