Pali

About Course

Pali is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the P?li Canon or Tipi?aka and is the sacred language ofTherav?da Buddhism. The earliest archaeological evidence of the existence of canonical Pali comes from Pyu city-states inscriptions found in Burma dated to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE. P?li is the classical language in which the teachings of the Buddha have been preserved. The P?li sources are the Tipi?aka (the P?li Canon); the sub-commentaries, called the A??hakatha, Tika and others. P?li language, classical and liturgical language of the Therav?da Buddhist canon, a Middle Indo-Aryan language of north Indian origin. On the whole, P?li seems closely related to the Old Indo-Aryan Vedic and Sanskrit dialects but is apparently not directly descended from either of these. P?li’s use as a Buddhist canonical language came about because the Buddha opposed the use of Sanskrit, a learned language, as a vehicle for his teachings and encouraged his followers to usevernacular dialects. In time, his orally transmitted sayings spread through India to Sri Lanka (c. 3rd century BCE), where they were written down in P?li (1st century BCE), a literary language of rather mixed vernacular origins. P?li eventually became a revered, standard, and international tongue. The language and the Therav?da canon known as Tipi?aka (Sanskrit: Tripi?aka) were introduced toMyanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. P?li died out as a literary language in mainland India in the 14th century but survived elsewhere until the 18th.