A History of Indian Literature v2.c22.12

v2.c22.12

Phonetic peculiarities of the Māgadhī dialect in Pāli have already been indicated by *E. Kuhn*, Beiträge zur Pāli-Grammatik, Berlin, 1875, p. 9, *E. Müller*, Grammar of the Pali Language, London, 1884, and *R. Pischel*, SBA 1904, p. 807. *E. Windisch* (OC XIV, 1906, p. 252ff.) endeavoured to prove that Māgadhī forms the foundation of Pāli. *S. Lévi* (JA 1912, s. 10, t. XX, p. 495ff.) attempted to trace remnants of an earlier Māgadhī Canon. According to *Lüders* (Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen, p. 41) it would be more correct to speak of "Old Ardha-Māgadhī" as the foundation of Pāli. "This dialect agrees in essentials with the Māgadhī of the Aśoka Inscriptions, but in part it already represents a more advanced stage of development" (*Lüders* in SBA 1927, p. 123). The demonstration by *P. V. Bapat* (Ind. Hist. Qu. 4, 1928, 23ff.) that Pāli cannot be derived from Ardha-Māgadhī, as the last-named shows a later stage of development of Prākrit than Pāli, refers only to Jaina Ardha-Māgadhī. Paiśācī elements in Pāli have been pointed out by *Konow* (ZDMG 64, 1910, 114ff.), *Grierson* (Bhandarkar Comm. Vol., p. 117ff.) and *Nalinaksha Dutt* (Early History of the Spread of Buddhism, p. 249ff.). *Konow* localises Pāli and Paiśācī in the district of the Vindhya hills. This leads us to the district of Ujjein, where Pāli had already been localised by *Westergaard*, *E. Kuhn* and *R. O. Franke* (Pali und Sanskrit, Strassburg 1902, 127ff.). *Grierson* regards Paiśācī as the local dialect of Kekaya and Eastern Gandhāra. Kekaya, especially Takṣaśilā was at the time of the Buddha famous for learning. *Grierson* concludes from this that Pāli is the literary form of the Māgadhī language, which was in those days used in India as *Koiné*, and was in particular utilised in Takṣaśilā as the language of instruction. *Cf.* also *Eliot* I, 282ff.