Pali Literature and Language c5.6

c5.6

1. The language of the Gāthās, i.e., the metrical pieces. It is of a very heterogeneous character. On the one hand, it contains many archaic speech-forms which are distinguished from the Old-Indian forms only phonologically; on the other hand, there are also used in it in large numbers such new formations as are wholly characteristic of Pāli, and they are often crossed by the archaic forms which may occur side by side with them, not seldom even in one and the same verse. In some cases the exigencies of metre might have determined the choice of the forms to be used. Particularly in those cases where verses out of an older language were translated into a later one, the use of archaic forms was liberal, because it afforded a closer approximation to the original.