Pali language grammar.

This book is intended and serve as an introduction to the reading of Pali texts. For that purpose, it uses authentic readings especially compiled for the purpose drawn largely from Theravada canonical works, both prose and poetry. The reading are in Roman script, and carefully graded for difficulty, but they have also been selected so that each of them is a meaningful and complete reading in itself, so as to introduce some basic concepts and ways of thought of Theravada Buddhism. This book thus offers and opportunity to become acquainted with the ways in which the teachings of the Buddha are embodied in the language, a sense that it impossible to determine from English translations. The book contains 12 lessons. Each of them has three parts: (1) a set of basic readings and an accompanying glossary, (2) grammatical notes on the forms in the less, and (3) a set of further readings with its own glossary. The further readings introduce no new grammatical points, but reinforce ones already presented and give further practice in them. The work concludes, fittingly, with the Buddhaês first sermon, The Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta. A cumulative glossary and index to the grammar is also provided. The text has been used successfully in its preliminary form at several universities, but it may also be used for self-study.

This book is intended for modern students, inside or outside the classroom, as a work of reference rather than a ‘teach yourself’ textbook. It presents an introductory sketch of Pali using both European and South Asian grammatical categories. In English language works, Pali is standardly presented in the traditional terms of English grammar, derived from the classical tradition, with which many modern students are unfamiliar. This work discusses and reflects upon those categories, and has an appendix devoted to them. It also introduces the main categories of traditional Sanskrit and Pali grammar, drawing on, in particular, the medieval Pali text Saddaniti, by Aggavamsa. Each grammatical form is illustrated by examples taken from Pali texts, mostly canonical. Although some previous knowledge of Sanskrit would be helpful, the book can also be used by those without previous linguistic training. A bibliographical appendix refers to other, complementary resources.

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Pali Metre: A Contribution to the History of Indian Literature. The present work is a study of the problems presented by the metres in the Pali Canon, seen in their historical setting as representing the Early Middle Indian phase in the development of Indian metrics. During this phase, which is regarded as corresponding to a turning point in the linguistic transition from Old Indian (Vedic) to Late Middle Indian (Apabhramsa), a number of new metres appeared and an entirely new technique of versification was developed, differing in principle from the old Vedic technique. The new technique was adopted alike for the Sanskrit and Prakrit literature of the following centuries and its understanding should lead to a better appreciation of that phase of Indian poetry too. The attempt is made to collect and assess all previous contributions to the study of the ancient Indian metres and closely related subjects. The interrelations between these connected fields have been sought, leading to mutual elucidation of problems. The language of the Pali Canon presents many difficulties which have to be investigated before we can tackle the problems of scansion, whilst the linguistic and metrical trends constantly interacted. The most significant feature of the new metres was their close connection with music, the study of which has proved to be indispensable in our research on the history of Indian literature. Pali Text Society, Ancillary Works