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Pali
is a Middle Indo-Aryan language
or prakrit of India. It is best
known as the language of the
earliest extant Buddhist canon,
the Pāḷi Tipitaka or Pāḷi Canon,
and as the liturgical language
of Theravada Buddhism. Pali has
since been written in a variety
of scripts, from the Brahmic
family scripts through to a
romanised form devised with the
research and contributions of
Robert Caesar Childers and T. W.
Rhys Davids, both of the Pali
Text Society.
Pali
was considered by early
Buddhists to be linguistically
similar to Old Magadhi or even a
direct continuation of that
language. Many Theravada sources
refer to the Pali language as
“Magadhan” or the “language of
Magadha.” This seems to be
problematic, as the later form
of Magadhi of Asoka's
inscriptions (3rd century BC) is
an Eastern Indian language
whereas Pali most closely
resembles Western Indian
inscriptions. Ancient Magadha
may, however, have been in the
West of ancient India after all. There are many
remarkable analogies between Pali and Ardhamagadhi (Half
Magadhi), an old form of Magadhi
preserved in ancient Jain texts.
Ardhamagadhi differs from the
eastern Prakrit of Ashokan
inscriptions on similar points
as Pali. For example,
Ardhamagadhi too does not change
r into l, and in the noun
inflexion it shows the ending -o
instead of the eastern Prakritic
-e at least in many metrical
places. This similarity is not
accidental, since Mahavira, the
24th Tirthankara of Jainism
preached in the same area (Magadha)
as Buddha Gotama.
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