Is learning pali really helpful?

[Sam Vara]

Another way of putting this is that defilements are a far greater barrier to understanding than lack of facility in different languages.

[passel]

Knowing a little Pali is fun and it's not too hard, really. Lots of free resources online. You don't need to retranslate the canon, but it will help you understand other people's translations if you know a little, like why they might have made translation choices they did, and what might have been excluded. Translation is not a 1:1 thing, it's an extended conversation, and if you understand some Pali, you can at least follow the conversation a little better. Good use of time if you have it, develops the paramis imo.

[tiltbillings]

Hello,

I've been toying with the idea of learning pali, but according to an earlier exchange of this forum, it seems that even people well-versed in pali do not always agree on the meaning of certain terms.
So I'm wondering what kind of advantage learning pali gives us, if at the end of the day we understand the small not-so-important words in the sentences, but not the keywords themselves whose meaning is debated?
In other words, does an intermediate level in Pali (ie. reasonable knowledge of grammar and vocab, but no deep knowledge of etymology and diachronic evolution of Indian languages) really help better understand the suttas, in comparison with just reading the English translations?

Thanks, and apologies if a similar discussion has already been started (I have not found it).

You might find this book of interest: https://mudpiebooks.com/buddhism-and-pali/

[DooDoot]

You might find this book of interest: https://mudpiebooks.com/buddhism-and-pali/

Hi. This appears to be the Gombrich that says Dependent Origination is formulated as a response to earlier Vedic teachings and the Brahma realm in DN 13 is Nibbana. Regards

[Padipa]

The answer to your question is: it depends. More specifically, it depends upon you and the mind set you bring--like virtually everything in life language is just a tool (Da! no kidding) but striving for mastery of the tool, not the tool itself, is what it's about. Whenever I learn a new language (currently it is Pali) I gain profound insight into my own language as well as other languages. The more proficient I become with my own language, the more proficient I become with other languages. A new language does amazing things for brain development, including putting you in the place of (can we say empathy?) others around you who are struggling to learn yours--this deepens ability to feel compassion, makes you more fully human. It also forces the mind to struggle: "bhikkhu cittam pagganhati"--a monk uplifts the mind (sorry, just a regular keypad here @ the library).

Scholars claim the Buddha probably spoke @ least 5 dialects. Does anyone here doubt it made him a better teacher or, for that matter, a better student? One can not truly teach without learning--they are 2 sides of the same coin.

An old proverb says:

"Think you can, then you can,
think you can't, then you can not.......either way, you decide!"

[Sam Vara]

You might find this book of interest: https://mudpiebooks.com/buddhism-and-pali/

Hi. This appears to be the Gombrich that says Dependent Origination is formulated as a response to earlier Vedic teachings and the Brahma realm in DN 13 is Nibbana. Regards

For those of us who are "glass half full" people, he was also President of the Pali Text Society, founder of the Oxford University Centre for Buddhist Studies, and Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford.