The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Sylvester
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by Sylvester »

danieLion wrote:What standard or authority can we refer to determine if Pali's better than Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, or other languages of early Buddhist discourse?
http://suttacentral.net/

Daniel

This is not such an easy issue to address.

It is true that many Chinese translations are able to have a consistent use of formal, prepositional and syntactic techniques to render the highly inflected Indic very faithfully. Even if transliteration mistakes are made, scholars such as Ven Analayo are able to identify these and point to a different Indic word as the source. Sometimes, the Pali sutta and its Chinese parallel look almost like carbon-copies, eg DN 15 and its Dharmaguptaka parallel in the Taisho's Dirgha, so there's hardly a basis to say which is better than the other.

Yet, it clear that sometimes the Chinese can furnish better readings. Missing passages from the Pali can be found in the Chinese parallels, sometimes fitting in so neatly that it can be made to fit into a putative ola leaf that was lost. Critical editing of Pali variant readings are many times resolved on the basis of Agama parallels. At the same time, we can see that Chinese parallels are translated according to Abhidharmic terminology to which a translator may ascribe to. Some critical work is needed to try to identify the original Indic, and in such cases, the Pali is unfiltered.

However, at this point in time, when scholarship is just beginning to dive into the mass of early Buddhist literatures, it will be sometime before your question can be answered definitively, if at all.
danieLion
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by danieLion »

Thanks Sylvester.
FWIW: I just read in Amaro's/Pasanno's The Island that Pali does not require the subject-predicate form--which makes me warm up to Pali even more because it avoids the common "is of identity" and other Aristotelian linguistic trappings.
Kindly,
Daniel
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tiltbillings
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

Note name change of thread from "The Problem With Pali: to "The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali" per original poster's request.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Sylvester
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Sylvester »

danieLion wrote:Thanks Sylvester.
FWIW: I just read in Amaro's/Pasanno's The Island that Pali does not require the subject-predicate form--which makes me warm up to Pali even more because it avoids the common "is of identity" and other Aristotelian linguistic trappings.
Kindly,
Daniel

Shriek!!! Have I been misled all this time about nouns and modifiers? Could you pls direct me to the page of an online edition where this was uttered?
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mikenz66
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by mikenz66 »

I think Daniel is referring to what I quoted here:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11448
Due to the different nature of the English and Pali languages, there are
difficulties in translation that may obscure crucial aspects of the Dhamma. If we
translate the stream-entry vision literally from Pali, we have something like ‘what-
ever arising-dhamma cessation-dhamma.’ This is terrible English but beautiful
insight. English grammar requires subject and verb. Thus ‘something’ arises and
ceases. Hence ‘dhamma’ comes across as a thing, or an attribute of things. A thing
has existence in time, so whatever thing arises, or is subject to arising, subsequent-
ly ceases. This is not really news to the reflective mind. However if we consider
stream-entry as something profound, it would be useful to consider the experience
to be one in which the very process that brings ‘things’ to awareness is seen into.
That is, the mind is experiencing an ‘event-stream’ dynamic of arising and ceasing
that rules out substantiality.

Page 294 of this PDF: http://forestsanghapublications.org/ass ... Island.pdf

:anjali:
Mike
Sylvester
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Sylvester »

Much obliged, Mike.

I seem to recall having said something about that before. It's a bit silly to interpret the yaṃ kiñci samudayadhammaṃ sabbantaṃ nirodhadhamman in the way that it has been done. In Pali (at least the strata unaffected by Paninian grammar), there is a silent copula hoti (is) implied in many sentences. So the verb is there, it's simply unarticulated.
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Kare
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Kare »

Sylvester wrote:Much obliged, Mike.

I seem to recall having said something about that before. It's a bit silly to interpret the yaṃ kiñci samudayadhammaṃ sabbantaṃ nirodhadhamman in the way that it has been done. In Pali (at least the strata unaffected by Paninian grammar), there is a silent copula hoti (is) implied in many sentences. So the verb is there, it's simply unarticulated.
You are right. This is simply what is called a nominal sentence. Nothing special. Nothing to build fancy interpretations on.

Sigh ... there are so many fundamental misunderstandings about Pali articulated in this thread that I just give up.
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Sylvester
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Sylvester »

Thanks Kare.

Being the linguist that I am not, I had to check out what a nominal sentence denoted. I agree, and now I know that both Chinese and Pali use zero copula nominal sentences. Not a common feature in English, except perhaps in Singlish...

BTW, does zero copula feature in Scandivanian languages?

If there is one drawback I see, not in Pali, but in the European scholarship on Pali, is that the diverse linguistic backgrounds of the scholars lead to the recognition of linguistic traits shared by Pali and their vernacular but not recognising the traits found in the other language. It seems that there are 3 great schools of Western Pali scholarship - the English, the Scandinavian and the German. Do you think there is a possibility that one day Pali grammar scholarship would be able to transcend the vernacular limitations of the scholars and be described in some meta-linguistics that aims to describe all languages?

Wijesekera attempted such an approach by marrying grammar, logic and psychology. Since I am not a linguist, I wonder if the dream has been realised.
danieLion
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by danieLion »

Kare,
Please don't give up. I'm trying to learn from you.

Kare, Sylvester:
Could you please re-word the posts you made since my last in plain laymen's terms? They're way over my head. To start with: so, Pasanno's wrong; and is subject-predicate the same as subject-verb?
Kindly
dL
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tiltbillings
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

danieLion wrote:Kare,
Please don't give up. I'm trying to learn from you.
Agreed. Please, Kare, do continue contribute in this thread.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Kare
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Kare »

danieLion wrote:Kare,
Please don't give up. I'm trying to learn from you.
Thank you. I am honored. :bow:

But trying to learn from me or from other postings on a forum is not the best way of learning. The bits of information one can collect that way will of necessity be rather fragmented and unconnected, so it will be very difficult to get an understanding of the fundamental structures of the language. A structured course under a good teacher would be the best way. If that is not possible, get a good tutor (book) and work your way patiently and methodically through it. In my opinion Warder, Introduction to Pali is the best. Other books can be helpful as a supplement to Warder (it may sometimes be useful to see how others treat some tricky point), but Warder should be the basis.

BTW, I see that Warder explains nominal sentences at page 9.
Last edited by Kare on Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mettāya,
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Kare
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Kare »

Sylvester wrote:
BTW, does zero copula feature in Scandivanian languages?
No. The Scandinavian languages have a grammar very similar to English (recently some linguists have put forward the theory that English is so strongly influence by the language of the Vikings that it ought to classified as a Scandinavian language as well - but that is another story). It can be found in Russian, however, and in classical Greek and Latin.
If there is one drawback I see, not in Pali, but in the European scholarship on Pali, is that the diverse linguistic backgrounds of the scholars lead to the recognition of linguistic traits shared by Pali and their vernacular but not recognising the traits found in the other language. It seems that there are 3 great schools of Western Pali scholarship - the English, the Scandinavian and the German. Do you think there is a possibility that one day Pali grammar scholarship would be able to transcend the vernacular limitations of the scholars and be described in some meta-linguistics that aims to describe all languages?
I am not able to see any markedly different schools of Western Pali scholarship. I may of course be wrong, but as far as I can see, good tutors and grammars in English and German say the same. There are of course individual differences among scholars on some points, but that is just natural. It's the way it should be. And I also doubt that scholars are limited by their own vernaculars. If they were to produce spoken or written Pali themselves, such vernacular peculiarities would probably appear. But as for reading and understanding the classical text, once you have studied and understood the grammar, I do not think the results will be much influenced by the home region or vernacular of the scholar.
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danieLion
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by danieLion »

Kare,
You're welcome. I'll start with Warder.
Kindly
dL
danieLion
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by danieLion »

Kare, Sylvester,
I was an English Lit. major (and close to a BA) before I switched to psychology. I was an "A" student except for the one four-hundred level required grammar course. I got a "C" and that's only because I wrote a great research paper (about tag questions). But the sentence diagramming and sentence type identification was very difficult for me to grasp. Basic grammar was even hard at firs, but I eventually overcame that (and two years of college Spanish probably helped). I'm nervous I'll face similar issues with Pali grammar. Do you have any advice for dealing with such obstacles?
Kindly,
dL
PS. I started with Bodhi's online course and he said if you're new to Pali De Sylva's Primer should be used but ATI says it starts falling short around ch. 11? Would it be a good idea to do the exercises in De Sylva up to that point and read Warder simultaneous or just stick with Warder? Also, what do you think of Bodhi's online course?
Sylvester
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Re: The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Post by Sylvester »

Daniel

I'll second Kare's recommendation of Warder. It's true that if you use da Silva's Primer, you will reach the point of diminishing returns quite rapidly. It's useful for a broad survey of the cases and conjugations, which is something that Warder's 1st 16 lessons were also designed to achieve. What's superior in Warder is his in-depth treatment of syntax that is unmatched. Pali syntax and grammatical constructions are sometimes obscured by enclitics or even words in a construction being distributed far apart in a clause/sentence. You won't find such structural analyses in other Pali textbooks.

Just bear in mind that Warder envisaged his Intro to be used as part of a 3 semester course in a formal setting. Since I've stopped my Pali classes, I guess I will have to distribute Warder over many more years of self-study before it becomes 2nd nature. I guess some formal background in Linguistics will give you an advantage, so that you won't have to check up on things like nominal, pronominal, adverbial etc etc. The ability to translate sentences only come after Lesson 27, when most of the hard work has been done on syntax.

So, while you grit your teeth in frustration before Lesson 27, you will still be able to easily understand how words are related to one another within a small turf of text. In fact, with the 1st 16 lessons, you will have learnt enough about compounds to audit how translators parse these annoying creatures and decide if a translation is legitimate.

Welcome to the Dark Side :jedi:
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