PALI, pli'M (Slot.. line, series, sacred text). The language and literature of primitive Bud dhism (fix.). now represented in Ceylon, Bu ruin. and Siam. Strictly speaking, Pali is the name of the literature only, which is so called because it is regarded as a series of sacred texts. The lan guage itself was called Palibhasii. 'language of the series,' or _llagadhadoisa, 'language of Mag adha' (q.v.). It appears, however, to have formed a linguistic belt along the northern slope of the Vindhya Mountains. It is not impossible that its centre was in the city of Ujjain (q.v.), where the first great patron of Buddhism, .A4oka (q.v.), had been governor before he ascended the throne. Thence the language was carried to Ceylon by the Buddhist missionaries. Pali may be divided into two groups. that of the inscriptions and that of the literature. Of these the inscriptional Pali is the older. Its earliest records in India are in the inscriptions of .V.loka, and date from the third quarter of the third century B.C., and the youngest are as late as the tenth century A.D. In Ceylon the oldest inscriptions cannot be dated before the first century "Lc. The relation of Pali to the other languages of India is in some re spects uncertain. It is clear, however. that it is not a corruption of classical Sanskrit, but is descended from a dialect closely akin to Vedic Sanskrit. (See SANSKRIT LANGUAGE.) There is much evidence for the view that Pali was the language of India between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas before the rise of classical San skrit. Sanskrit inscriptions are not coalition be fore the first century n.c., and it was not until the fourth century A.D. that Pali inscriptions, except for a few, chiefly archaistic in character, were superseded by those in Sanskrit. Many proper names in Megasthenes (about 300 n.c.) and other classical authors, are evidently Pali, while others are as plainly Sanskrit. Epigraphi cal evidence further leads to the view that the classical Sanskrit originated in the region which was bounded by the Ganges and the .Jwnna, and which stretched between these rivers from the Himalayas to Muttra. From this country ChB: Acal Sanskrit spread. superseding Pah and the other Indo-Germanic folk-dialects of India. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that clas sical Sanskrit was at an early date a language of high culture, and that it was fixed in its ht erary form by Panini (q.v.) as early as n.c. 300. Again, the resemblances between Pali and Pra krit (q.v.) are so close that Pali may be re garded merely as a Prakrit dialect (see Pit5 KniT), and the Prakrits long survived as literary and doubtless. also. as spoken languages. so that not only is Prakrit found in the Hindu drama, but we have a collection of Prakrit poems by Hain, probably about A.D. 1100. It would ap pear, therefore, that Pali and the later Prakrits existed contemporaneously with classical San skrit, which was the language of the higher classes and of literature, while l'ali was ver nacular and sectarian in use. Within Pali itself
the existence of a number of dialects may be inferred from the epigraphieal remains.
As contrasted both with Vedie and with clas sical Sanskrit, Pali, like Prakrit, shows a marked decadence both in phonology and in morpholo;,*y. As a few of the most striking deviations from the Sanskrit phonology found in Pali, and frequently also in Prakrit, may be mentioned: The loss of r. as Sanskrit rrqq/m, `large,' Pali raddka, riddha, butldha, ruddhu, Prakrit raddha, riddha, cutHha ; the frequent change of denials to cerebrals, as Sanskrit dehati, `burns,' Pali elahati, Prakrit cfahai; the (yea sional change of d to 1, as Sanskrit dohada, 'long ing of a pregnant woman,' Pali d61/a/a, Prakrit dohala, doluula; the change of Sanskrit .4, ti to s, as Sanskrit gahati, 'is beautiful,' Pali sobbhati, Prakrit sohai, Sanskrit rrsabha, 'hull,' Pali rasa bha, Prakrit rasaha ; the avoidance of consonant groups, usually by assimilation, but occasionally by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel. as San skrit bhakta, 'boiled rice,' Pali and Prakrit bhat ta. Sanskrit itagha, 'praise,' Pali sitayho, Pra krit Inflection in Pali closely resembles that of classical Sanskrit, except that the aorist. comparatively rare in classical Sanskrit, occurs not infrequently in Pali. Pali has no distinctive alphabet, but is written according to locality in Ceylonese, Burmese, or Cambodian script. The Devanagari (q.v.) writing is never employed.
Pali literature is almost entirely religious. The greatest work in it is the Tripitaha. Of importance are the Visuddhi Jiagga. or Way of Purity. by Buddhaghosa. a treatise on Buddhist doetrine dating from the fourth cen tury A.D., and the Milindapanha, or Questions of Milittda (q.v.), which was probably composed about the beginning of the CIn•istian Era. There are further a number of historical works, which have an increased interest from the fact that Sanskrit literature (q.v.) is almost without authentic histories. Among the most important works of this class in Pali are the Maharansu (q.v.), or Great History, and the Diparansa (q.v.), or History of the Island (of Ceylon). There is an abundant literature besides. includ ing not only religious and historical writings, but also metrics. grammar, and lexieography.
Consult: Burnout and Lassen, Essai sur le Pali (Paris. 1826) ; Minayef, Grammaire translated by Guyard (ib., 1874) ; Kuhn, Beitriige c.ur Pali-Grammatik (Berlin, 1875) ; Frankfurter, Handbook of Pali (London. 1883) ; Muller, Simplified Grammar of the Pali Lan guage (ib.. 1881) ; Tilbe, Pali Grammar (Ran goon, 1899) Oung, Grammar of the Pali Lan guage (Akyab, 1899-1903) ; Childers, Pali-Eng lish Dictionary (London, 1875) ; Flexion des Pali in ilerent terloiltniss zum Sanskrit (Christiania. 1SS1); Franke, Geschiehte need Kritik der einheimischen Paii-orummatik need Le.rikographie (Strassburg. 1902) ; id.. Pali tend Sanskrit (ib., 1902) ; Takaku-u. PCdi rhresto mathy (Tokio. 1900) ; Andersen. Pun Reader (London, 1901),