[Buddha-l] Pali and Asoka

[L.S. Cousins]

Jayarava wrote:
> Hi Lance,
>
> Thanks! I have since read relevant parts of the Mahāvamsa which say that Asoka lived in Avanti for a time before becoming king, and Mahinda was born there to a local mother. Avanti is not quite as far afield as Girnar, but is westerly, and although it's purely supposition Mahinda might have had a western dialect as mother tongue. Mightn't he?
>   
He might have done, but that does not mean that he would have recited 
oral Buddhist texts in that dialect. That depends on where he was 
trained. Also, Mahinda belonged to a governing aristocracy who may not 
have spoken the local dialect at all.
> Also the last Mauryan king is said to have been assassinated by a general who went on to found the Shunga Dynasty - the Shungas seem to have been Brahmins and to have also come from Avanti. The Shungas could well have carried a Sanskritised prakrit, or indeed a western Prakrit, with them as a court language (and therefore the language of inscriptions). The range was not as great as Asoka of course, and India fragmented until the Guptas...
>   

This is fairly speculative and doesn't fit the inscriptional evidence 
which shows the change to a new form in territories outside any likely 
Sunga authority. (In fact, the Sungas are rather poorly attested in 
inscriptions and archaeology.)

> In the area we now call India, only one form of written language is 
> generally known.
>   
>
> Is Norman's discussion of this etc in his collected works?
>   

That is something I said, not Norman. I am not sure if he would agree 
with it or not. I have taught the Asokan Inscriptions as a course here 
in Oxford a couple of times of late. So I have in part formed my own 
opinions.

Norman discusses the question of the relationship between Pali and 
Girnar several times (if I remember correctly) in his Collected Works.
> The proper name of the Pali language is the Maagadha language... This is > a straightforward descendant of the written language of India mentioned 
> above.
>   
>
> Not according to Cardona and Jain who say that Pali is more like Girnar than Patna dialect: they quote a number of morphological features to make it seem plausible. I assume this is a moot point?

The Girnar inscription certainly resembles in some respects both the 
inscriptions from India in the second and first centuries A.D. and the 
manner in which we can reasonably suppose (but do not know) that Pali 
would have been written down around the first century B.C. or a little 
later. I do not have Cardona and Jain; so you will have to tell me what 
morphological features they refer to.

>  Would you explain both Girnar and contemporary Pali solely in terms of Sanskritisation of Maaghadhii and vagaries of the written language?
>   

The telling point for me is that in the same inscription the same scribe 
is found using spellings which are said to be 'western' and 'eastern'. 
This suggests to me that we are dealing with a written language with 
spelling that is not standardized. I would suppose that Pali was 
originally written down in just this way, but has been subjected to a 
certain amount of subsequent Sanskritization at various dates.

> I'm writing an essay on this for my blog - based mainly on Cardona and Jain - and would like to quote your opinion. Is it OK if I use what you've written here? 

Fine.


Lance Cousins