P?LI, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN

The term P?li, used today in both Buddhist and Western cultures as a designation of a language, is a relatively modern coinage, not traceable before the seventeenth century. An earlier name given to this language in Buddhist literature is M?gadh?, the language of the province Magadha in Eastern India that roughly corresponds to the modern Indian state Bih?r. The only Buddhist school using this language is the Therav?da in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Therav?dins erroneously consider P?li to be the language spoken by the Buddha himself.

During the nineteenth century, Western scholarship discovered that P?li is not an eastern Middle Indic language and has little relationship to Magadh?, which is known from other sources. By comparing the languages used in the inscriptions of A?oka (third century b.c.e.), it is possible to demonstrate that P?li, while preserving some very old Eastern elements, is clearly based on a western Middle Indic language, one of the languages that developed out of Vedic Sanskrit, which was used in India roughly until the time of the Buddha (ca. fourth century b.c.e.). Although P?li is clearly younger than the time of the Buddha, it is the oldest surviving variety of Middle Indic.

The dialect used by the Buddha himself when instructing his disciples is unknown and irretrievably lost. It might have been some early variety of M?gadh?. The oldest Buddhist language, which can be traced by reconstruction, is Buddhist Middle Indic, a lingua franca that developed much later than the lifetime of the Buddha. Buddhist Middle Indic is the basis of P?li and the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit used by the Mah?s??ghika Lokottarav?dins.

Even though P?li, as an artificial language, was never actually a vernacular of any part of India, it was by no means a "dead" language. Changes in the phonetic shape of P?li, most likely introduced by Buddhist grammarians at various times, can be observed, although dating them is problematic. None of these changes were far-reaching, although they seem to have continued well into the sixteenth century, if not later.

The oldest literature preserved in P?li is the canon of the Therav?da Buddhists, the only Buddhist canon extant in its entirety in an Indian language. Consequently, it is linguistically the oldest form of Buddhist scriptures known. This, of course, does not mean that other scriptures in different younger languages or translations necessarily preserve only later developments of Buddhist thought and tradition. Though generally conservative, P?li literature probably developed over several centuries before it was committed to writing. According to the Therav?dins, this redaction happened during the first century b.c.e. in Sri Lanka, when various disasters decimated the number of Buddhist monks and threatened the oral tradition. Like the Vedic texts, early Buddhist literature was composed during a period of pure orality in India, before script was introduced during the reign of A?oka. This early oral tradition has left obvious traces in the written literature, particularly in the numerous formulas typical of oral composition, which were used to facilitate memorization.

The writing down of the Therav?da canon is related in Therav?da church history as preserved in two chronicles (va?sa) composed in P?li: the D?pava?sa (Chronicle of the Island, ca. 350 c.e.) and the later Mah?va?sa (Great Chronicle, late fifth century c.e.). Both give a legendary history of political and religious events in Sri Lanka; the latter, which was extended several times, ends with the British conquest in 1815.

Tipi?aka (Threefold Basket)

According to the Therav?da tradition, the texts committed to writing comprised the complete Tipi?aka (Sanskrit, Tripi?aka), the Threefold Basket—the designation for the canon in all Buddhist schools. Although a similar name is also used by the Jains for their holy scriptures, the choice of the term basket for a collection of texts cannot be explained. The Threefold Basket is, however, not the oldest division of the canonical texts. An earlier division into nine limbs (nava a?ga) was abandoned at a very early date, most likely when the collection of texts grew into a large corpus and had to be regrouped following different principles.

Vinayapi?aka (Basket of Discipline). Each of the Tipi?aka's three parts are made up of collections of texts concerning three different aspects of Buddhist community life and teaching. The first part of the Tipi?aka is the Vinayapi?aka (Basket of Discipline), which is further divided into three parts. At the beginning is the Suttavibha?ga (Explanation of the Sutta), an old commentary in which the sutta itself is embedded. Sutta here does not mean, as in later usage, a discourse of the Buddha, but a set of 227 rules (Pa?imokkha; Sanskrit, Pr?timok?a) regulating the life of each individual monk. Some of these rules are among the oldest Buddhist texts preserved, with parallels in the Vinaya or monastic codes of other schools. The meaning of the title P??imokkha is unclear. This text must be recited twice each month by monks in every monastery. In spite of its age, an early development of this text can be traced. Brief rules, such as "in drinking alcohol, there is an offense," eventually developed into much longer and legally complicated formulations. The original brevity reflects the original meaning of sutta (Sanskrit, s?tra), "[set of] brief rule(s)." The first four rules describe offenses entailing an expulsion from the order (p?r?jika, concerning a chasing away [of a monk from the community]). The offenses described in the following rules are increasingly less grave. The seventh and last groups of offenses contain rules for general civilized behavior, and an appendix enumerates methods to settle disputes. All the rules are embedded in frame stories, which describe the occasion that necessitates the creation of such a rule. The commentary explains single words of the rules and develops their legal applications.

The second part of the Vinayapi?aka, the Khan-dhaka (sections), contains rules governing the life of the community as a whole. The Khandhaka, which is divided into twelve parts, begins with the enlightenment of the Buddha and the founding of the Buddhist order (sa?gha) and ends with the reports on the first two councils at R?jag?ha and Vai??l?, respectively. The tenth part of the Khandhaka is devoted to the foundation of the order of nuns, to which the Buddha agreed only after much hesitation.

The third and much later part of the Vinayapi?aka is a handbook, the Pariv?ra (ca. first century c.e.). This handbook comprises a collection of texts containing brief summaries of the Vinaya, among them an interesting collection of difficult legal questions called Sedamocanakag?th? (Sweat Producing Verses).

Suttapi?aka (Basket of the Discourses). The second part of the Tipi?aka, the Suttapi?aka (Basket of the Discourses) is divided into four older parts, which are mentioned in the Vinayapi?aka's report of the first council, and a fifth later addition. The name Suttapi?aka, however, does not occur in the report on the council describing the formation of the canon. Single texts were called veyy?kara?a (explanation) or dhammapariy?ya (discourse on the teaching) before the name sutta(nta) was introduced at an uncertain date.

The first part of the Suttapi?aka is made up of twenty-four texts called the D?ghanik?ya (Group of Long Discourses). The D?ghanik?ya contains, among other things, discussions with the six heretics, and one of the most famous Buddhist texts, the Mah?parinibb?na-sutta (Sanskrit, Mah?parinirv??as?tra; Great Discourse on the Nirv??a), the longest text in the canon and the first lengthy literary composition in ancient India.

The second part of the Suttapi?aka, the Majjhimanik?ya (Group of Middle Length Discourses), comprises 152 texts in which different aspects of Buddhist teaching are explained in the form of dialogues. The last two groups (nik?ya), the Sa?yuttanik?ya (Connected Discourses) and the A?guttaranik?ya (Discourses Increasing by One), are structurally unique; the mostly short texts (according to the tradition about 7,500 in the Sa?yuttanik?ya and almost 10,000 in the A?guttaranik?ya) are the first attempts to present the teaching in a more systematic form. Topics in the A?guttaranik?ya are arranged by number: The first book contains items existing only once, the last one items existing eleven times. (The last two suttantas of the D?ghanik?ya follow a similar method for arranging texts.) The first part of the Sa?yuttanik?ya, the Sag?thavagga (Section Containing Verses), stands apart, containing some old views that are occasionally close to Vedic concepts.

The Khuddakanik?ya (Group of Small Texts), is an unsystematic collection of partly very old, partly very young texts. The Khuddakanik?ya's famous Dhammapada (Words of the Doctrine), a collection of 423 verses, is one of the most popular texts with Buddhist monks and laypersons. The Khuddakanik?ya also includes one of the oldest parts of the canon, the Suttanip?ta (Group of Discourses), a collection of small independent texts, mostly in verse. It seems likely that some titles quoted in an inscription of A?oka are in fact referring to texts of this collection. If correct, this is the oldest Indian epigraphical evidence for extant Buddhist texts.

Another collection mentioned in early inscriptions are the j?taka stories. Some of the 547 stories, which describe the former lives of the Buddha as Bodhisattva (P?li, Bodhisatta), are illustrated and provided with titles in the bas-reliefs of Bharhut in India. Only the j?taka verses are part of the Tipi?aka. The collection of prose stories, called J???akatthava??an? (Explanation of the Birth Stories), is regarded as a commentary and was composed in its present form about a millennium later than the verses, which, for the most part, are not specifically Buddhist. The best known is the 547th, the Vessantara j?taka (Sanskrit, Vi?vantara), which describes the last birth of the Bodhisattva, before he ascends to the Tu?ita heaven, from where he is reborn on earth to reach enlightenment.

Among the other collections in the Khuddakanik?ya are the Verses of the Elders (Thera-and Ther?g?th?), which are supposed to have been spoken by disciples of the Buddha. Those ascribed to "elder nuns" (Ther?g?th?) are the oldest literature known from ancient India supposed to have been composed by women. As such they are unique in Middle Indic as well as in Sanskrit literature. Some texts of the Khuddakanik?ya are early commentaries, with one text, the Pa?isambhid?magga (Path of Discrimination), which would fit better into the third part of the canon, the Abhidhammapi?aka.

Abhidhammapi?aka (Basket Concerning the Teaching). The title Abhidhamma is interpreted later by Buddhists as "Higher Teaching." The seven texts of this final part of the canon comprise the Kath?vatthu (Text Dealing with Disputes), where conflicting opinions on different points of the Buddhist teaching are discussed. According to tradition, this text was composed during the reign of A?oka by Moggalliputta Tissa. Therefore, this is the only text in the canon with an author and a date. The other texts of the Abhidhammapi?aka mostly contain enumerations of different dhammas elaborated by unfolding a summary (m?tik?), which appears at the beginning of the respective text. as the frame of an Abhidhamma text. Parts of the Vinayapi?aka, and particularly the S??yuttanik?ya, can be similarly condensed and are handed down as "skeleton texts" to be unfolded in recitation. The last Abhidhamma text, the Pa??h?na (Conditional Relations), can be expanded in such a way that it becomes infinite, as the commentary says.

Commentaries and subcommentaries

The Tipi?aka was the object of explanatory commentaries at an early date. According to tradition, both Tipi?aka and commentary, the A??hakath? (Explanation of the Meaning), were brought to Sri Lanka by Mahinda during the time of A?oka (third century c.e.). The commentary actually preserved is a revision of an earlier, now lost, explanation of the Tipi?aka composed in old Sinhalese Pr?krit.

During the fifth century c.e., Buddhaghosa composed his still valid handbook of Therav?da orthodoxy for the Mah?vih?ra in Anur?dhapura. This Visuddhimagga (Path to Purification) is the centerpiece of Buddhaghosa's commentaries on the first four nik?yas. As stated in the respective introductions, each of the four commentaries comprises a full explanation of the Buddha's teaching in combination with the Visuddhimagga. Contrary to the claims of the Therav?da tradition, Buddhaghosa wrote, or supervised the writing, only of these texts, huge in themselves. The commentaries on the Vinaya-pi?aka, on the Abhidhammapi?aka, and on part of the Khuddakanik?ya are anonymous.

A commentary of uncertain date (probably between 450 and 600 c.e.) on seven of the collections of the Khuddakanik?ya was composed by Dhammap?la (although Lance Cousins has recently suggested Jotip?la as the author of this commentary). It is important to note that Dhammap?la's sequence of Khuddakanik?ya texts deviates from the one common in the Mah?vih?ra, and that he used a different recension of two texts, suggesting that he was following traditions of South Indian P?li literature, which probably flourished through the first millennium c.e., but is now almost completely lost.

Subcommentaries constitute another layer of P?li literature. After older subcommentaries on the Abhidhammapi?aka (ascribed to ?nanda) and on Buddha-ghosa's commentaries (ascribed to Dhammap?la), the next subcommentaries were written during the reign of Parakkamab?hu I (r. 1153–1186), who reformed and unified the Buddhist order in Sri Lanka. Consequently, much weight was put on explaining the Vinayapi?aka. This task was entrusted by the king to S?riputta and his disciples.

P?li literature in Southeast Asia

With Therav?da also firmly established in Southeast-Asia (Burma [Myanmar], Thailand, and Cambodia), new branches of P?li literature developed. During a short period in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, P?li literature flourished in Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand). A chronicle of Buddhist teaching concentrating on developments in Southeast Asia, the Jinak?lam?lin? (Garland of the Epochs of the Conquerer) by Ratanapañña, and subcommentaries to the Vinayapi?aka and Abhidhammapi?aka by Ñ??akitti indicate a remarkable, but short-lived, literary activity. At the same time, cosmological texts such as the Cakkav??ad?pan? (Elucidation of the World Systems), composed in 1520 by Sirima?gala, brought new elements into P?li literature.

Another literary genre that flourished in this period (and that remains particularly popular in Thailand) is the j?taka. Numerous apocryphal j?takas were written in vernacular languages, as well as in P?li. The best known P?li collection is the Paññ?saj?taka (Fifty J?takas), which formally imitates the canonical collection. This was also the time when the oldest extant P?li manuscripts were copied in ancient L?n N? (Northern Thailand). Palm leaf manuscripts are also known from Sri Lanka and Burma, mostly copied during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A singular exception is a fragment of a P?li manuscript preserved in Kathmandu containing four folios from the Vinayapi?aka written during the eighth or ninth century in Northern India.

In Burma, a long and fruitful philological activity began with Aggav?msa's Saddan?ti composed in 1154. This grammatical treatise deeply influenced the whole later P?li tradition. Strong emphasis was also put on explaining the Abhidhammapi?aka and on writing handbooks on Abhidhamma matters.

Conclusion

It is striking that the older P?li literature is almost exclusively confined to the canon and its commentaries. Handbooks on the Vinayapi?aka or Abhidhammapi?aka, such as those written by Buddhadatta, a contemporary of Buddhaghosa, or on hermeneutics, such as the Pe?akopadesa (Instruction Concerning the Tipi?aka) and the Nettipakara?a (Guide to Interpretation), both predating Buddhaghosa, are rare exceptions, as are the chronicles. It is only after the twelfth century that P?li literature began to develop outside (and beside) the canon. However, these later literary activities, particularly the later literature from Southeast Asia, are comparatively little studied. When P?li studies began in Europe with the publication of a P?li grammar by Eugène Burnouf (1801–1852) and Christian Lassen (1800–1876) in 1826, emphasis was on research on older literature. The canon was first printed after T.W. Rhys Davids (1834–1922) founded the P?li Text Society in 1881; the society continues to publish translations and canonical and commentarial texts in P?li.

See also:Entries on specific countries; Commentarial Literature; Languages; Sinhala, Buddhist Literature in

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Oskar von HinÜber