Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c37.s2: Language
Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c37.s2
- Language
- English
Language
v2.c37.s2.1
According to the Tibetan traditions, this school had its Piṭaka in the Paiśāci dialect. There is much value in this tradition. Grierson holds that Paiśāci had its home in the North-West (Kekaya and Gandhāra i.e. near Taxila) and that it gradually made its way to the western countries upto the Konkan coast.¹ Guṇādhya, who belonged to Ujjeni, it is said, wrote Bṛhatkathā in Paiśāci.² On philological ground Sten Konow localises Paiśāci around the Vindhya hills. He holds that Pāli is the literary form of Paiśāci. The traditions preserved in the Ceylonese chronicles also indicate that Pāli had its home somewhere in Avanti. So it is quite possible that the Tibetan tradition refers to Pāli as literary Paiśāci.
v2.c37.s2.2
¹ Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume, pp. 119-120. see also IRAS, 1921, pp. 244-5; 424-8
v2.c37.s2.3
² ZDMG., LXVI, (1910), pp 114 f.