Source: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4630
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Question:
-- What language did the Buddha speak? Some sources say Sanskrit and some Magadhi. Now I wonder is there any evidence?
Answer by Kare Albert Lie (Norway, 11 June 2010):
-- He did not speak Sanskrit. At the Buddhas time different dialects were spoken in Northern India. They were probably not very different from each other, and not very different from Sanskrit. Pali is a standardization from these dialects (we find traces of different dialects in Pali), a couple of hundred years after Buddha, and the Pali texts therefore probably are as close to the Buddha's own language as we can reasonably expect to get.
The term Magadhi is ambiguous. It means "from Magadha", and so we have to ask what area was called Magadha, and at what time.
At the Buddha's time Magadha was one of several states in Northern India. We do not know if, or how much, the dialect in Magadha at that time differed from the neighboring dialects. As far as I know, we have no documentation for the use of Magadhi as a linguistic term at that time.
Magadha was a rather aggressive kingdom, and after the Buddha's time it conquered other states and expanded until it covered most of India at the time of Asoka. Asoka was king of Magadha, that is, he was king of "greater Magadha" - most of India. At his time Buddhism was exported to Sri Lanka, and so were the Pali texts. But Sri Lankan commentators did not call the language "Pali". They called it Magadhi, which is quite logical, since the texts had been brought to them from Magadha, from "greater Magadha", that is - from the Indian mainland. Therefore the term Magadhi for the Pali language as used in the commentaries, probably mean nothing more than "Indian".
Later, the Asokan dynasty fell from power, and the name Magadha was again restricted to the area, the province that had been the original state of Magadha at the Buddha's time. During the centuries the dialects in different parts of India had diverged (as is normal for languages), and the dialect of Magadha had acquired its own distinctive features. Now came the time of the great Sanskrit dramas, and the Sanskrit authors consciously used different dialects and cultivated these as written sociolects, which were called Prakrit. Thus there arose a Prakrit language/dialect called Magadhi.
There seems to have been quite a lot of confusion due to these different usages of the term "Magadhi".
To sum up:
"Magadhi 1" - whatever dialect was spoken in Magadha at the Buddha's time. We do not know to what degree, if at all, this was any different from the language spoken over most of Northern India.
"Magadhi 2" - the language of the texts from "greater Magadha" that arrived in Sri Lanka at the time of Asoka. This "Magadhi 2" is the same as we today call Pali.
"Magadhi 3" - the later dialect of the province of Magadha that became a Prakrit language in the Middle Ages. No special connection to Buddhism or the Pali texts.
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Question:
-- What language did the Buddha speak? Some sources say Sanskrit and some Magadhi. Now I wonder is there any evidence?
Answer by Kare Albert Lie (Norway, 11 June 2010):
-- He did not speak Sanskrit. At the Buddhas time different dialects were spoken in Northern India. They were probably not very different from each other, and not very different from Sanskrit. Pali is a standardization from these dialects (we find traces of different dialects in Pali), a couple of hundred years after Buddha, and the Pali texts therefore probably are as close to the Buddha's own language as we can reasonably expect to get.
The term Magadhi is ambiguous. It means "from Magadha", and so we have to ask what area was called Magadha, and at what time.
At the Buddha's time Magadha was one of several states in Northern India. We do not know if, or how much, the dialect in Magadha at that time differed from the neighboring dialects. As far as I know, we have no documentation for the use of Magadhi as a linguistic term at that time.
Magadha was a rather aggressive kingdom, and after the Buddha's time it conquered other states and expanded until it covered most of India at the time of Asoka. Asoka was king of Magadha, that is, he was king of "greater Magadha" - most of India. At his time Buddhism was exported to Sri Lanka, and so were the Pali texts. But Sri Lankan commentators did not call the language "Pali". They called it Magadhi, which is quite logical, since the texts had been brought to them from Magadha, from "greater Magadha", that is - from the Indian mainland. Therefore the term Magadhi for the Pali language as used in the commentaries, probably mean nothing more than "Indian".
Later, the Asokan dynasty fell from power, and the name Magadha was again restricted to the area, the province that had been the original state of Magadha at the Buddha's time. During the centuries the dialects in different parts of India had diverged (as is normal for languages), and the dialect of Magadha had acquired its own distinctive features. Now came the time of the great Sanskrit dramas, and the Sanskrit authors consciously used different dialects and cultivated these as written sociolects, which were called Prakrit. Thus there arose a Prakrit language/dialect called Magadhi.
There seems to have been quite a lot of confusion due to these different usages of the term "Magadhi".
To sum up:
"Magadhi 1" - whatever dialect was spoken in Magadha at the Buddha's time. We do not know to what degree, if at all, this was any different from the language spoken over most of Northern India.
"Magadhi 2" - the language of the texts from "greater Magadha" that arrived in Sri Lanka at the time of Asoka. This "Magadhi 2" is the same as we today call Pali.
"Magadhi 3" - the later dialect of the province of Magadha that became a Prakrit language in the Middle Ages. No special connection to Buddhism or the Pali texts.
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Từ Pali không tìm thấy ở Tam Tạng.
Ở Chú Giải, khi đề cập đến việc học tập của vị tỳ khưu thì Ngài Buddhaghosa có ghi là vị ấy cần học tập “pāliñca atthakathañca,” nghĩa là học "pali và atthakathā." Từ atthakathā có nghĩa là Chú Giải, nhờ đó có thể biết được rằng từ Pali có nghĩa là Chánh Tạng, là những gì được chứa đựng trong Tam Tạng.
Và ngôn ngữ ghi lại Tam Tạng thì Ngài Buddhaghosa ghi rằng Māgadhabhāsā, nghĩa là ngôn ngữ của xứ Magadha (Ma Kiệt Đà). Việc gọi Pali là tên của ngôn ngữ ghi lại lời dạy của đức Phật có thể đã được học giả người Pháp Simon de la Loubère sử dụng đầu tiên trong tác phẩm Du Royaume de Siam ấn hành năm 1691; tài liệu này đã được dịch sang tiếng Anh năm 1693 (Juo-Hsüeh Shih Bhikkhunī, Controversies over Buddhist Nuns, Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 2000, trang 3). Do sự ngộ nhận ban đầu đó, ngày nay nói đến từ Pali người ta liên tưởng đến ngôn ngữ Pali, mà hầu như không biết đến ý nghĩa ban đầu của nó.
Như vậy tùy theo ngữ cảnh, Pali có thể hiểu là:
- Các lời dạy nguyên thủy, chánh truyền, của đức Phật.
- Ngôn ngữ đã được sử dụng để ghi lại các lời dạy ấy.
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Didn't the Buddha speak Magadhi?
Question: Didn't the Buddha speak Magadhi?
Answer (L.S. Cousins):
--Well, no. We don't know what precise dialect the Buddha spoke. Any guess
would depend on what was the date when one thinks the Buddha lived and
whether the dialects spoken in Māgadha proper, Kosala and among the
Sakkas were exactly the same. And whether the Buddha spoke only one
dialect.
The standard epigraphical language used in the Gangetic plain and beyond
in the last centuries B.C. and a little after was a form of Middle
Indian rather close to Pali. We have no reason to believe that any other
written language existed in that area at that time. Like Pali it is
eclectic with word-forms originally from different dialectics and also
with no standardized spelling (as was probably originally the case for
Pali). So the first Buddhist texts written down in that area should have
been in that form. Since the enlarged kingdom of Magadha eventually
extended over nearly the whole Gangetic plain, that language was
probably called the language of Magadha, if it had a name. And that of
course is the correct name of the Pali language.
Pali is essentially a standardized and slightly Sanskritized version of
that language. Māgadhī is a language described by the Prakrit
grammarians and refers to a written dialect that developed later (early
centuries A.D. ?) from the spoken dialect in some part of 'Greater Magadha'.
In effect, then, Pali is the closest we can get to the language spoken
by the Buddha. And it cannot have been very different — we are talking
about dialect diferences here, not radically distinct languages.
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