Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar · Mazard'sVersionofMason'sPaliGrammar ExpandedandRevisedfromtheworkofFrancisMason,ca.1868, byEiselMazard,2005,firstdistributedin2015." "

https://books.google.com.mm/books?id=mdnvBQAAQBAJ

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar

Expandedand

Revisedfrom the

workof

Francis Mason, ca.1868,

byEiselMazard, 2005,

first distributedin 2015.

""

"Editor's

Introduction (2015) p.2.

Preface (1868) p.10.

Author's Introduction (1868) p.13.Ch. 1.

TheAlphabet, Remarks on the

Originand

Historyof the

Language, etc. p.22.

Ch. 2. Permutation. p.46

Ch. 3.Tables of Declension. p.58

Ch. 4. Declension of Nouns. p.111

Ch. 6. Declension of Pronouns. p.131

Ch. 7.Verbs. p.135

Ch. 8. Indeclinable Words. p.198

Ch. 9. Derivative Words. p.205

Ch. 10. CompoundWords. p.

217

Ch. 11.Syntax

andChrestomathy p.

225

AppendixA.

Woolneron

Ashokan. p.257

Appendix B.Who

was Francis Mason? p.260

Ch. 5.Declension

ofAdjectives (incl. numbers). p.

122

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar.

!

!

!

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar

Expandedand Revised

from the workof

Francis Mason,ca. 1868,

by EiselMazard,2005,

first distributedin 2015.

!

!

!

!

!

Table of Contents.

!

Editor's Introduction(2015)

p. 2.

Preface (1868)

Author's Introduction(1868)

Ch.1.The

Alphabet,History of

the Language, etc.

Ch. 2. Permutation.

Ch. 3. Tables of Declension.

Ch. 4. Declension of Nouns.

Ch.5. Declension of

Adjectives (incl. numbers).

Ch. 6. Declension of Pronouns.

Ch. 7.Verbs.

Ch. 8. Indeclinable Words.

Ch. 9. Derivative Words.

Ch.10.

Compound Words.

Ch.11.

Syntaxand

Chrestomathy

AppendixA.

Woolneron

Ashokan.

Appendix B.Whowas

Francis Mason?

!!

p.10.

p.13.

p.22.

p.46

p.58

p.111

p.122

p.131

p.135

p.198

p.205

p.217

p.225

p.257

p.260

1


AnIntroduction (for 2015)

byEisel Mazard (അେӨ)

!

For many years now, people have been downloading and using theversions

Icreated

of Pali

textbooks by(1) Narada Thera, (2) Lily

de Silva and(3)

Charles Duroiselle(all

made available,

originally,at

www.pali.pratyeka.org).No

special argument isreally

necessary, therefore, to offer a

fourth bookin

theseries as "Mazard's version of" yet

another Pali textbook, forthe

same small

audience. However,inmany ways, Mason's book

hasmore human interest than the other three:

it

givesus

a glimpse backat

alost

worldof

traditional Pali learning and Buddhist scholarship,as the

author struggledtomake that tradition accessible

toawestern

audience forthe

first time.

!

Mason shares with the reader his sense of excitement as the first translations of the edicts of Ashoka

became known,as the

first Pali-English dictionarieswere

produced, andas Europe

discovered(or

rediscovered) ancient Buddhist philosophy through theTheraváda

tradition (and foundit

tobe

strikingly differentfrom what had

formerlybeen

known through Chineseand

Tibetan sources).

Infused with the optimismof

theera,

and with scholarly anecdotes littered throughout, this is about

asdramatic

asa textbook

ongrammar

(inadead

language) could reasonably be.

!

There mightbe

some explanation required to explain why this textis

only becoming available now

(in2015)

and not ten yearsago (2005) when

mywork on

the manuscript was completed.The real

storyofhow this book

cameinto being,

and ofwhy I chose

toeducate myself

inthis peculiar way

(thatcreated

variousresources

for othersto use as

by-products) willbe

left for another occasion.

!

The technologyof the

fonts and the underlying encoding (i.e., Unicode) evolvedwhile

I was working

onthe manuscript. I was educating myself

as tothe

correctligatures, etc.,

atthe

sametime that I

was providing feedback to the programmer totry get the

Sinhalese,Burmese and

Ashokan Brahmi

scriptsto

allwork

properly(on what

wasthen a much more

crudeversion

ofthe

Macoperating

system). Computer encodings developed last-of-all for languages suchas

Sinhalese andBurmese

(thatwere not

profitable for corporationsto pursue);

then, within eachof

these languages, there were

combinationsof letters

that onlyoccurred in

the ancient language (neverin

the modern)that

needed

tobe

addressed --one by one-- to really make word-processingin

Pali possible.In

creating thisnew

book outof

Mason'sold

one, Iwas

a direct participant in this development, thanks to the effortsof

Ka'onohiKai,

a computational linguistand

font-developerwho

corresponded with me for many

years (andto whom

I reportedon

stone inscriptions, hand-written manuscripts, and printed

typographyfrom various

eras, along with the detailsofmy

ownexperience

instruggling

to getthe

softwareto work in

typing out thissame

book).

!

2

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar.Editor's Introduction(2015)

Theprimary source

that this bookwas created

fromis

the followingreprint of

the1868

original:

!

Francis Mason, D.D., Kachchayano's PaliGrammar with

Chrestomathy &Vocabulary,1984, Sri

Satguru Publications, Delhi, India.

!

The originaltext was of very great

quality, although riddled with errors --someof

them typographical

errors,some

of them inevitable mistakes for a pioneering workof

itsera.

More than just typing,

creating this new editionwas

aprocess of

error correction,and

constant comparisonof

conflicting

authorities.This

was, for myself,an

educational process that I valuedat the

time.

!In

Mason's Pali grammar wesee an

intermediatestage

of development, when Europeans directly

workedfrom

classical, Palisources (in

this case,Kaccáyana) to

produce a westernized accountof

the

language.Soon

enough, this western model became the default for howthe

languagewas

taught

and thought of everywhere --evenin

the most conservative monasteries.It is

difficultto

describe the

western modelas

"modern":19th

century Europeanshad

createdan

imitationof Latin

textbooksto

present Palito

a western audience (presumingwestern

studentsof

Pali to already havean

education

inLatin,

Greek, orboth).

Ifthis ever

hadbeen a good idea,

itwas evidently

lessand

lessuseful

as

the knowledgeof

Latinand

Greek declinedin

the20th

century. The teachingof

Pali has notyet

overcome this stageof

development: compare any21st

century Pali manualto

a21st

century

textbook usedto teach

French, German, etc., andit will

be obvious thatthe

Pali textbook is only a

few steps removedfrom

a19th

century Latin grammar. Ican

rememberdiscussing

the prospectof

creating a truly modern Pali textbookwith

thehead of

a Cambodian foundation,who seemed

startled atthe idea: why would language students need illustrations, exercises, questions, puzzles

and

such tolearn

Pali? The answeris:

for thesame reasons

that theyneed

them for any other language.

!

The European model for how Paliwas

taught, studiedand

thoughtof

(as a language)had

a profound

effect inAsia, but

thiseffect is

impossible to separatefrom the

declineof

traditional learning (and

traditional livelihoods) under many other headings,in

thesame era.

The disappearanceof scribal

employment (i.e., thecreation of

manuscripts, formerly offeringan

incometo

a considerable classof

people)and

the declineof

monastic education(as

a "ladder"of

upward social mobility)were

changes

that cameto

TheravádaAsia

many centurieslater

than theycame

to Europe, but when they finally

did arrive, theycame

suddenly, withgreat

implications.This is

a pattern thatcan be

observedin

Theraváda nations with very different languages, cultures,and

politicalhistories (Sri

Lankaasmuch

asCambodia, etc.).

!

The transition from locally-produced manuscriptsto

bound-and-printed volumes was,ipso

facto, a

transitionto

reliance upon centralized authorities. Formerly,each

tiny principality took pridein

producing manuscripts afterits

own fashion, with distinctive orthography, makinguse of local

3


dialect, etc., providing patronage for a diverse vernacular literature housed in thesame

monasteries

(including comedy, adventure-stories, romances, etc., not limitedto

Buddhist themes).The

local

monastery hadbeen

the centerof

a systemof

educationin local

dialects,but it

became, instead, the

lowest rung in a centralized system of education, that (naturally enough) served economic interests,

and pursued nationalistic goals, with very littleuse

for Pali.The

new mediaof

the newspaperand

theradio proceeded from

one office,in

a distant capital city, that and that far-offplace

was both the

centerof

prestigeand also

thelocus of

government control.It was

a newera of

government control

over language, educationand

religion: monksdid

writearticles in

newspapers, and did make

statements overthe

radio,but

they didso

onlyas

instrumentsof

a kindof

authority that had not


existed in the feudal, village system.

!In

the modernera,

the monastery-schoolbecame

a second-rate substitute for national education,

and subordinateto

it. Students too poorto

attend"a real

school"could

find foodand

shelteras

boy-monks (or, much more rarely, girl-monks)with

thevast

majorityof

themwearing

the robes only

toprepare

for secularcareer

thereafter.As

such, "monastic education" has cometo be

implicitly

understood byall parties to be an

attemptat

secular education within monastic walls, evenat

the

university level. Without suggesting a simple cause-and-effect explanationas

to why Buddhist

learning declined, I would merely observe that thesewere

thegeneral

conditions that accompanied

the decline.In the

shortterm,

the centralizationofBuddhism

createda new vitality

atthe center,

but thissoon had to

fade dueto the

declining vitality around the periphery.

!

Giventhe

diverse economicand

political transformations thatwe group

togetherwith

thisone word

modernization,in looking

back at last 200years,

it iscertainly

easy toignore the decline

ofPali

learningas

one relativelytrivial

featureof

this process. Whetherwe are

speakingof the

recent

historyof

Burma,Sri Lanka or

Cambodia,we

think firstof civil

wars, the rise and fallof European

colonialism, etc., long before any thought is givento

the statusof

classical languages, literature and

philosophyin

these countries. However, aroundthe world,

other countries were ableto

modernize

while maintaining patronage for classical learning (e.g., Greek, Latin, classical Chinese,perhaps

latelyIrish

Gaelic, etc.)--andso

the nameof

modernity itself doesnot

fully explain why the

Theraváda countries of Southeast Asia have failed to do so.

!

The Pali traditionof

teaching Paliin

Pali (i.e., using Pali grammatical conceptsto

explain Pali) has

now gone extinct. Imet one

senior monkin Sri

Lankawho had

been the pupilof

the last living

masterof

the indigenous system of grammar (i.e., theKaccáyana

system,that

the reader willlearn

aboutin

this volume)when he was

only 8years old;

hismaster had been

roughlyone

hundred years

oldat the

time, and diedsoon

after, leavingno successor to carry on

his teaching. I remember the

expressionon

the monk'sface as he made

the efforttoremember the few

rules ofKaccáyana's

4

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar.Editor's Introduction

(2015)

grammarhe

had memorizedas

a child,and

reflectedon

how cryptic they were (without extensive

commentarial explanation).

!In

North-Eastern Thailand, Ivisited

a temple thatwas partly

a shrineto the

memory of thelast

monk

therewho had

--allegedly-- learned the Pali language using theold

(Kaccáyana) system, still within

living memory.As

the knowledgeof

the languagehad

becomelocally

extinct, this one monk had,

reportedly, struggled to put together a complete manuscript of Kaccáyana's grammarrules from the

imperfect fragmentsstill

available (this partof

the story, certainly,is

believable). Therewas

a huge,

painted portraitof

the man hangingon

the wall, and lacquer boxes containing various aspectsof

his

legacy wereset out in

a sortof

museum. I wastold

by a professor that thelocal

peoplecalled the

monks who had followed him "the stone pillow school",as

the monks wereso

hard-working that

they took naps with their headson

stone between lessons.In

lookingat

the manuscript evidence

left behind by this school, Iwas

given the impression that, in fact, the attemptto

returnto

the roots

ofthe ancient language there

had failed(i.e., no such revival

ofancient learning

asthey'd

aspiredto

actually happened); however, that small chapterin

history(and

the shrine that was createdto

immortalizeits

memory) demonstrated that local people(in

those thevillages of Isan) were

keenly

aware thatin

thepast

monks had gained reading-comprehensionof

the ancient philosophyof the

Buddha (in Pali),whereas

the monksof more recent

times did not. Evenifthe whole story

ofthe

stone pillow school were fiction,itwould

bea story that problematized modern monastic education.

There was a cultural awareness that the old system of learning (i.e., Kaccáyana's grammar) was a

hallmark ofreal

abilityin

the language, whereas the new (central Thai)system

thatreplaced it

was

just a klugeof

mispronounced loan-words that allowed monkstomake

uphomilies,

butthat

definitely did not equipthem to read

the philosophyin

the ancient language,asmonks

haddone

in

ancient times.

!

The pedagogy surrounding the language has changed radicallyin

thelast

century.Not

even the

most conservative monk alive todaycan claim

that he learned toread

the Buddhist scriptures in the

sameway that monks

learned itjust

200years ago,

let alone 500 or 1,000 yearsago.

Ifanyone

were

sincerely interestedin

knowing "How did monks learn Pali priorto

European influence?", the

answer would have tobegin with

the grammarof

Kaccáyana, anditcould begin here, with a

casual

readingof

Mason's textbook.

!Asian

monksand Asian

academics alike have become dependent uponwestern

learning; itisnow

viawestern grammars,

westernpedagogy and western dictionaries that they

accesstheir own ancient

traditions. More often than not,the

translations(and

even untranslated Pali editions)are

dependent

uponwestern

sourcesalso

(andreaders

maynot

evenrealize

that theyare

lookingat

awestern

interpretation, if they encounterit after it has been

translated back into their own language).

!5


When I was in Laos,the

official textbookin use

forthe

monksat

the higher academy (i.e., the

monastic university, for lackof

a betterterm)

was written duringthe

French colonialperiod

by a

certainMr. Louis Finot. I

had theimpression

that most ofthe monks mistakenly assumed that the

Laotranslator (whose name was

moreprominent

onthe cover)

wasthe book's author. Finot

wasa

western author, workingfrom western

sources, defining Buddhism foran

audienceof

Buddhist

monks,who

would proceedto give

sermonson

this basis. Iwill

forever remember the expressionon


Richard Gombrich's facewhen

Ishared

this anecdotewith

him,years

later,in

England.

!

The patternis still

ongoing: when Iwas

livinginPhnom Penh, I was horrified to

seethat

Ian

Harris's2008 book on

Cambodian Buddhismhad been translated from

English into Khmer, and was

(apparently) beingused as

a textbook to teach Cambodian monks what their own religion was

supposed tobe

in the monastic universities. Years ago, I published a reviewof Harris's work

that

was perhaps too polite and toobrief in

complaining that the text wasfull of

absurderrors

that only a

charlatancould

make,in

(evidently) muddling through Frenchsources

with neither any knowledge

ofPali

norany comprehension

ofKhmer, nor any expertise

in TheravádaBuddhism. However,

as

shamefulas Ian Harris's

contributionto

the field may be,from

my perspective, there was nobody

who could scrutinize the qualityof his

workin the

employ of Cambodia's Buddhist Institutewhen

they receivedthe

Cambodian translationfrom

him. The expertiseof

Europeans arrivesin

a

complete package,with

the imprimaturof

some famous university stampedon

the cover,and

backed

up by research-grant-money beyond the wildestdreams of

third-world countries.In

this way, a book

that was intended for awestern

audiencecomes

tobe regarded as

definitive by thevery

peopleit

was attemptingto

describe; authors become teachers to thevery

people they should, instead,be

learning from. Wewill

have the patternof Louis

Finotall

over again,in the

absenceof

colonial

occupation.!

What theTheraváda

countries of Asia now have is a second-rate imitationof European

systemsof

education,and

the contentof

whatgets

taught about Buddhismis generally

a second-rate

recapitulationof

westernideas

about Buddhism.In

thecase of

Pali educationit is

a second-rate

imitationof

something thatwas

second-rateto begin with

(perhaps leavingus at

fourth-rate?). I do

not say thiswith

any intentto

glorify the irretrievablepast,

but the current situationis so dire

thatit

seemsabsurd

toeven

speak of"Pali education",

assuch a thing barely exists. When I was only a

beginnerin

Pali myself, I showed my hand-written Pali work(in

Sinhalese,Burmese and

other

scripts)to the

professors at SriLanka's greatest university department for such things,

andthe

assembled professors immediately explained that Iwas

already too advancedto enroll

in anyof

their

classes(they encouraged me

to instead enrollin some special program

ofindependent study, etc.).

It

took me quite a while to reallyaccept the

truthof

what theywere

telling me,as

this was supposedly

thelast

bastionof

Pali educationat an

advanced/elite level, but they werein fact

muddling through

with the western method,and not

doing much betterthan

the overt disastersof

Cambodian

6


academia,Thai academia,and so on.

Western education is marvelous for many things: Ido

not think

that the countries of Asia shouldbe

ashamed (e.g.)if

their modes of teaching dentistryor

electrical

engineeringare

imitationsof

western models. However, Paliis one area of research where

the

western world cannot (and should not) provide any such model for imitation;in

this case, thosewho

go fromwest

to eastshould

be theones

askingquestions,

notproviding

theanswers.

!

So,in

reading Mason's grammar, welook back to

a much more optimistic momentin the

historyof

Buddhist scholarship. FrancisMason

was a witnessto

the transformationof eastern

learning, and he

was himselfan

agent of that change.As

Idiscuss in the

appendix ("Who was Francis Mason?") he

was a Christian Missionary, and a despicable characterin

various ways, but his book glows with the

eagerness andoptimism

of an era whenwisdom

wasexpanding --rather

thancontracting-- in this field

of studies.

!

Themost

obvious improvement I have made to the originalhas been to

expandit to

provideall

Pali

text(and

tables)in parallel

Sinhalese andBurmese

scripts,and

alsoto

bring the system of

Romanization into conformity with modern expectations, suchas

the distinction between cand ch,

rendering the sound nyas ñ, and so on.

Direct reprintsof

theoriginal

would deter most beginners

for just thisreason

(nobody wantsto get

theirch

spellings mixed up --especiallynot when

they're

just startingon the

language, etc.).

!

The methodof

stating changes between wordsas an

equation(very

frequentin

chapters 2 &7) is

my

own additionto

the text.There are

substantial additionsof

both new tablesand

new explanations

here and there, normallywith

a sentence indicating that I'veadded

them (before or after they

appear);one

that will be immediately usefulto

beginnersis the

overviewof

grammatical terminology,

startingat §86.

!

The footnotesand

endnotesare all

myown

additions, and parenthetical notes (marked with my

initials, E.M.)warn the reader

about mostof

the other changes.In just

a fewcases

I omitted

examples provided by Mason entirely, where I thought they were misleading.The

addition of Pali

grammatical terminology in the headings (and in parentheses throughout the text)ismy

own work,

andis

often supplemented by end-notes elaboratingon

the relationship between the English terms,

Kaccáyana's terms,and

later Pali nomenclature,as

best I wasable

toresearch

the matters in that

earlier period ofmy life,

circa 2005.

!

From thesame era as

Mason'swork, and partly

based upon it,is M.E. Senart's

editionof

Kaccáyana.

Iwill

always remember Ole Pind's dismissive remarks about this edition;it is

famous, but, perhaps,

itsfame is not very

well-deserved.

7

!


M.E. Senart, Kaccâyanaet la

LittératureGrammaticale du

Pâli,1871,

L'Imprimerie Nationale,

Paris, France.

!

I suppose themost

widely available English translationof

Kaccāyanais still the 1901

edition by

Vidyabhusana, openedwith

a pugnacious "proem" by Dhammapala. This translation waspartly

derived from theearlier work

ofSenart,

justas

Senartmade use of

Mason before him.The

Paliis

entirely typesetin

Devanagari, reflecting Vidyabhusana's backgroundas

aSanskritist,

andalso

reflecting the Maha Bodhi Society's stated purposeof

leading a Buddhist revival on the Indian

mainland at the time:

!

Satis Chandra Acharyya Vidyabhusana,M.A.,

Kaccayana's PaliGrammar, 1901,

Maha Bodhi

Society, Calcutta, India.

!

Iwas

fortunate to obtain acopy of

DharmakirtiSri

Dharmarama's edition of Kaccāyanafrom 1904.

Thetext is

wholly typesetin

Sinhalese script, asidefrom

a single-page introductionin

English, and a

dedication to"His

Excellency"Sir

Henry Arthur Blake, then the colonial governorof

Ceylon:

!

Kaccayana Maha Thera, Sanghanandi Maha Thera, & DharmakirtiSri Dharmarama

(editor),

KaccāyanaVutti:

theStandard

Grammar of thePali Language,

1904,Frederick Perera Abayasinha

Appuhamyat

the Satyasamuccaya Press.

!

Piyaratana's editionof

some90 years later also

presents the Paliin

Sinhalese script,with the

addition of a vernacular Sinhalese translation. Thecopy

Iused was

kindlysent to

me by Bhante

Anandajoti of Chetiya GiriyaArañña,

Pallepola,Sri

Lanka, and I wouldhere

thank him for his

generosity. Neither the covernor

the publicationdata

withinisRomanized,

sothose who would

seek it outmust check for numerous

possiblespelling variations

intheir library catalogue:

!

වෑගම %යරතන*+,

ක-චායන ව1කරණය,2539

BuddhistEra (= 1995), එ4.

5ාඩෙ8සහ

ස;


variations tobe

foundwhen

comparing theroot text with

different expressionsof

the samerules in

later grammatical works (i.e.,works

paraphrasing Kaccáyana):

กจจายนมหาเถเรน วรจต, กจจายนผยากรณ, กรงเทพมหานคร, อภธรรมโชตกะวทยาลยมหาวทยาลยมหาจฬาลงกรณราชวทยาลย จดพมพเผยแพร ครงท ๑พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๐.

[Author statedas:]

Kaccāyanamahātherena Viracitaṃ, Kaccāyana-byākaraṇaṃ, Abhidhamma

Jotikavidyālaya Rājavidyālaya, Bangkok, [Thailand], First Edition, B.E.2540

≅1997.

!

The sources I consultedwere

relatively few; this is because I couldcarry

only a few books withme as

I migrated aroundAsia

during the compositionof

this text (my work commencedinHong Kong,

and

endedin

Vientiane, I believe, with relocations to Taiwanand

Thailand in-between). For many years, I

reallyhad

access onlyto the books

thatIcarried

along with me,from one

trainto

the next,from

Bangkokto

Vientiane.

!

!

—Eisel Mazard,Victoria, Canada, Dec. 2014

!

9


Kaccayano's PaliGrammar

With Chrestomathy & Vocabulary

!By

Francis Mason, D.D.(1868)

Expanded andCorrected

byE.

Mazard(2005)

!

!

Preface

The declensionsand

conjugationsin

Paliare

very simple and may be more readily acquiredthan

either theLatin or the

Greek.The

principle difficulty, in reading Pali,isfound

in thenumerous

changes thatare

madein

the roots,in

the formationofnew bases for declension

andconjugation,

in

adding many and variousparticles to

form derivative words,and in

the permutationof

wordswhen

combined into sentences.

!

The rootsconsist

of oneor

two consonants, but thesecond is

most frequently lostin

the changes

that occur, and occasionally the first also,so

that not avestige

of the originalroot

appears in the

derivative(see §246).

!

Take for instance the wordnigbán,

whichhas been

adopted into Burmese:နဗာန.

The root is vá,(ဝ),

වා) "togo,

toblow", and

ni(န,

E) isprefixed

inthe signification

of "out",the word thus signifying "to

goout",

asa fire

orlight.

Na(န,

න) isadded

toput it

inthe neuter

gender (see §90).

!

When ni(န, E) is

prefixed the following consonant,v, is

requiredto

be doubled(see §75), but

a

doublevv is

changed to a doublebb (§303).

Thus the neuter noun fromniand va

is နဗာန,EFාන

(nibbána).!

The Burmese write the second b(as)

p (i.e., confounding ဗ vs. ဗ --E.M.) pronouncethe

firstg, and

cut off thelast

syllablean,

thus making the word nigban.In

both the Pali and theBurmese word,

all

appearanceof the

original rootis lost,

butin Sanskrit,

when the vis

double,itremains unchanged,

and theSanskrit

preposition corresponding to theni in

Paliis nir, so the

Sanskritword

formedon

thesame

baseas

the Paliisिनरवान (nirvvána).1

!Ithas

beena prominent

object in thefollowing pages, to make these changes readily understood,

and thus facilitatethe

acquirement of the language. The changesto

which lettersare

subjectedare

Mason here follows theBangladeshi

convention, doubling thevin nirvana.

Thisis not

commonly found todayin either

Romanized

1or

DevanagariSanskrit, but

remainsthe norm in the classical Bengali

typeset (Sadhubasa)--arelatively

recent developmentin the

presses ofMason's

day(owed

to Sir CharlesWilkins).

10


recapitulatedat

the commencementof each

letterin

the Vocabulary, that the studentin

lookingup

a

word mayeasily

recognize readily theroot

from whichit is

formed.

!

The Vocabulary furnishes the definitions of many more words thanappear in

thelist,

because on the

pages to which referenceismade, many derivatives will

be oftenfound defined.

Andto make

it

useful topersons

imperfectly acquaintedwith

the grammar, uncommon formsare

sometimes

introduced withreference

towhere

explanationsof

them maybe

found. Manyverbs

have twoor

morebases (§210), and

while one only wouldbe

given in ordinary dictionaries,all will usually

be

foundin

this Vocabulary.

!

Thereis

agreat

need of a full andaccurate

Dictionaryof

the language, but that is in good hands.

Our present Chief Commissioner, Col. Fytch, announced thepreparation of

a Pali Dictionary several

years ago,and we

have thebest

authority for stating, thatso soon as

hecan

obtain leisure, he fully

intendsto

finish,and

publish the work.

!

Thisbook

will not be foundfree from

typographicaland

other errors, thoughit

is believedthere are

none of a veryserious

character. Whilecarrying

it throughthe

press,the

writer was teaching Bible

Exegesis toa large school,

withLand Surveying

and use ofinstruments

inthe field,

had to correct

KarenTrigonometrical calculations, and was writing a

work inBurmese

on MateriaMedica and

Pathology, was printingan

Arithmetic in twoKaren

dialects,and

writing and printingan

elementary

workin three

languages,besides

thecare

of seventyor

eighty churches, their schools, and teachers,

involving incessant applications,and

interruptions.It is not

remarkable then that oversights

occasionally occur, suchas on pages 119

and120 (of

the first edition)where

"declined"is read on

the

running title insteadof

"conjugated" (now corrected --E.M.).

!In

writing a similar bookin

Sanskrit, the assistanceof

a learned pundit could be obtained,to

relieve

the authorofmuch

ofthe labour involved, but from Tavoy

toTouugoo,

and from 1830 to 1868,not a

single native hasbeen

foundwhose assistance

in such a workcould be

of theleast

value. Manyof

the priestscan

repeatlarge

portionsof

Kaccayano's Grammar,and of

the principlesof

the grammar

theyseem

tobe

totally ignorant.

!Bishop

Bigandetsays:

"Phongyiesare

fondof

exhibiting their knowledge of the Pali language by

repeating from memory, and without stammeringor

stumbling, long formulas and sentences; but I

have convinced myselfthat very

few among them understood, even imperfectly, a small partof

what

they recited."

!

11


Itisan

interesting fact that the Pali, which hasthe

oldest alphabetin

India, hasbeen

printed by the

Karens,whose

own language is amongthe last

reducedto

writing. Someof

theearlier

forms show

their inexperience,but

thegeneral

characterof

the workhas been

commended.

!

The Deputy Commissionerin

his official reportto

the Government, dated23,

Oct.1867, wrote: "The

Printing department of the Institute I consider agreat

success. Dr.Mason has learned the

printer's

art,and taught

three Karens toprint.

ThePali Grammar, a

copy ofwhich I shall

sendyou with a

separateletter,

has beenprinted by

thesemen,

andI think reflects

greatcredit

onDr.

Mason andhis

pupils."!

Rev. E.B.Cross writes: "I

wrote you ahasty

noteon

Saturday, which did not fully answer my

purposes. I ought firstof

allto

have expressed my admirationof

your printingin all

the characters

and languages whichit

represents, forit is

certainlyvery

neatly and beautifully done."

!

!In

omnibusgratias

agite.

!David rex benedixit Domino coram universa multitudine et ait, Benedictus es Domine Deus Israel

patris nostri ab aeternoin aeternum.

!Tua

est Dominemagnificientia

etpotentia,

et gloria, atiquevictoria,

ettibi laus.

Cuncta enim quae in

celo sunt et in terra, tuasunt. Tuua Domine

regnum, et tu essuper

omnesprincipes.

!Tuae divitiae

et tuaest

gloria, tudominaris

omnium. In manu tua virtus et potentia, inmanu

tua

magnificareet

fortificare omnia. Nune igitur Deusnoster

confitemurtibi, et laudamus nomen tuum

inclytum.!

Quisego et quis

populusmeus ut

possimushaec tibi

universa promittere? Tua suntomnia, et que de

manutua

accepimus, dedimus tibi.

!Peregrini

enim sumus coram te etadvenae,

sicut omnespatres

nostri. Diesnostri quasi

umbra super

terram, et nulla est mora.

!Benedictus

Dominus Deus Israel, qui fecitmiabilia solus.

Et benedictu nomenmajestatis

ejus in

aeternum, et in seculum seculi, et replebiturmajestate ejus

omnis terra. Amen, atamen.

!

12


Introduction (by F. Mason, 1868).

!

"The Buddhist traditionsin

Ceylon,"wrote

Prof. Cowell,"all agree in

calling the authorof the

earliest Pali grammar Kaccayano, and although thisis said

to have perished...The

Hon'ble G.

Turnour,late

Colonial Secretaryof

Ceylon, drew attention tosome

of the Paliworks

formerly

extantin

Ceylon, and amongst them,to

Kaccayana's grammar, which he thenregarded as

extinct.The

Rev. F. Masonsays: "The

grammar reputedto

havebeen

written by Kaccayana still

exists. I had a copy madefrom the palm

leaf,on

small quarto paper, and the Pali text occupies

between two and three hundred pages, while theBurmese

interpretation coversmore

thantwo

thousand. I made a compendiumof the

whole, Pali and English, a fewyears

ago, on the model

ofEuropean grammars, which might

beprinted

in oneor two hundred pages,

andconvey

all

theinformation contained

inthe two or three thousand

inmanuscript."

[James d'Alwis,1863,An

Introduction to Kaccayano's Grammar,page

ii]

!

This "compendium" was submittedto

a committee of theBengal Asiatic

Society, and approved for

publicationin 1854, and

Mr. Alwis writes thathe

obtained a copyin

Ceylonin 1855.

The existence

thenof

Kaccayano'swork

was first broughtto

noticefrom

Burmah.

!

Manywill ask:

"Whowas

Kaccayano?"The

commentatorson

his grammar say hewas

oneof

Gaudama's disciples, selected byhim to

write a grammarof his

discourses; not a grammar of the

entire language, butof

thatpart

ofit used

by Gaudama, bearing thesame

relationto

the whole

language that Winer'sGreek

Grammar of theNew

Testament doesto

the wholeof

theGreek

language.!

FromSanskrit

sources welearn

that therewas

a Kaccayano, or Kakatayana, who composed a

Sanskritgrammar about the

age ofGaudama. Dr.

E.Buhler has shown

frommanuscripts recently

discovered,that

Pánini, "The fatherof Sanskrit

grammar," quotesfrom

Kaccayanoas

his

predecessor,and has

borrowed from him manyof

his grammatical terms.This

establisheshis

antiquity,and

Dr. Buhler adds:"I

believethat

Kakatayanawas

not a Brahman,and

shouldnot be at

allastonished

if itwere established by additional evidence that he

wasa follower of

Sakyamuni." [Journalof

the Asiatic Societyof

Bengal, No.II, 1864]

!

The name howeverisnot conclusive

asto the authorship, for there

areother

writers ofthe

same

name.There were

twoSanskrit

grammariansof the

name, and the Chinese pilgrim Hioun-thsang

whowas in

India A.D. 629-645, sojournedin

a monastery founded by Ashokain

which a Kaccayano

composed a theologicalwork

three hundred years afterthe

deathof

Gaudama. Still the fact that the

older grammarianwas

not a Brahmin,goes far to

sustain the Buddhist tradition.

!13

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar.Introduction(1868)

Mr.Alwis

says therecan

beno

doubt but this grammarwas

writtenin the

daysof

Kaccayano, but the

natives preferno

such claim. They sayit was

preserved by oral tradition for450

years afterthe

death

ofGaudama, when with the

sacredbooks it was committed

towriting

A.C. 93.(Both

thedate and

the natureof the

event it marksis

debated; the writingof

thecanon is

traditionally ascribed to the

fourth councilof

Buddhist monks, heldin

Matale,Sri Lanka, 515

years into the Buddhistera

--E.M.)

Indeed, there appearsto

havebeen no

booksin

India anywhere in the daysof

Gautama, thoughthe

people were acquaintedwith

letters.

!

After Alexander cameto

India, theGreeks

wrote that the Indianswere

illiterate, and though letters

were used for inscriptionson

mile stones, yet"Their

laws were unwritten, and that they

administered justicefrom

memory." [Ibid., No.II, 1859]

There is no good reason then to suppose

that the grammarwas

committed to writing beforeA.C. 93,

andifthe greatest

ofpoems, the Illiad,

has reached us byoral

tradition, forit is

now admitted that the Greeks hadno

lettersin

the daysof

Homer, there is nothing incrediblein

asmall

grammar being transmittedin

the same way.

!

The conditionof

the manuscriptaccords

with thelater

dateof

writing,but with

the earlieritwould

contain anachronisms.Book II, part 3rd,

Aphorism17,

contains the following example:

GගාHා

I Jං ෙදවානංLයMN

က ဂ)ေတာ သတေဒဝ)နပယ

တ6

kwagáto si tvang devánangpíya tissa?

"Tissa, belovedof

the Devas, whitherart

thougoing?"

Now "Tissa, beloved of the devas"was

the kingof

Ceylonwho was

contemporary with Ashoka,so

the

work could not havebeen

written much before the date assigned by tradition.

!

Kaccayano's grammarcarries

with it internal evidenceof

havingbeen

composed with special

referenceto being committed

tomemory.

It isfirst

written in briefaphorisms which contain the

kernel of the work, and though theyoccupy but

twenty pages of manuscript, they containall

the

grammatical principlesin the

book.These

aphorismsare

next writtenin

paraphrasetomake

them

more easily understood, filling fifty pages,and the

following stratum is a third consistingof of

examples,of

somewhere about one hundred pages, and outside of thisagain are

exceptions with

occasional annotations.Here

the commentator steps up with a paraphrase on Kaccayano'slast

remarks,tomake all things plain.

!In

fact Kaccayano built his grammarprecisely

like the edificeof

the Paris exhibition.He laid

down

thegerm

of hisidea in

the centre, and then described aroundit

several concentric circles,each

containingall

the thingsof

a kind,and

then struck outsome

seven hundred radii, crossing these

circles,from

the centreto

the circumference, oneach of

which maybe

found every varietyin

the

book, aphorism, paraphrase, example, exception or annotation,and

commentary. The followingis an

14

Introduction (1868) Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar:

example from B. 6, P4, A. 3. (the third verse of the fourth division of the Akhyātakappa

€6)508,665. 2222222228. variously numbered as book 3 or book 6), i.e., verse #486, cumulatively,

refer to the table of contents for Vol. II --E.M.)”

Aphorism.

£56083)o 8)) esco:3# 3. Ghaladinang od

"Sometimes of Ghata, el celera"

Paraphrase.

650)85)06)68)o 665oG(5)008))6)o 8& 6)) &Dööö) esco:3# coo?# 222s22s22s2# 3O S. O

GOOOCO C. occesco

#

Ghaladinang dhatunang asang)ogantanang wuddhi" hoti wa karite

"On account of a causal affix, when not ending in a compound consonant, the vowel of the root

ghata el celera is sometimes lengthened."

Examples.

65GOó) * 65)GOó) es2c23 - escacc:

650C53) *- 6500C56) escesc - esogesc3

650)Göö) -- 6500)GöGö) escozec: - ex-coac2c2

650)6(56) -- 6500)6(56) escocese: ye-> exococese:

Exceptions.

650)&Oöö) &@300 & 0665) esco#33 c32% 222s-3

Ghaladinamiti kimatthang kareti

"Why ghata, et celera?"--"He causes to go"

*The cumulative verse numbers I have added throughout the text will be found to be more useful in comparing quotations across

editions; most of Mason's quotations from Kaccāyana lack any citation in his original, but in this case he has indicated the source by

book, part, and aphorism --but this is not quite consistent across all editions. The verse number supplied in the format: /486) always

corresponds to the first of the two numbers stated to the right of the paliverse in Piyaratana's Sinhalese edition: 8):00 865625) &ö,

1995 (B.E. 2539), 3)66))(55) 8)75)3)Og)(5. In Piyaratana's text (and likewise in the Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project e-text) we instead find a

long i for £50)85)o 8)), esg:# 3. etc., in this verse.

"The word is also perhaps more frequently) found as 86), °3: the Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project e-text (see note above) has erroneously

dropped the aspiration on the second "d".

I5


Commentary.

bා ආච[යඝටාන+M පදං

^මcංආච[ෙයන

Ycං bාIN කාෙරM ඉM අTe උgහරෙණe

සM%කා[ෙත අසං>ාගෙXN

ධාVh ඝටාTනංඅභාවා

ඉ+නා eෙcනYZ න;ාM

ေဘာ အာစရယဃဋာနမတ

ပဒကမတ

အာစရေယနဝတ ေဘာ

သ6ဣေရတ

အတအာဒ

ဥဒ)ဟရေဏသသတပ ကာရေတ

အသေယာဂေ?6 ဓာတဟဃဋာဒန အဘာဝ)

ဣမနာ သေတန ဝဒ

နေဟာတ

"OTeacher! Why

wasthe aphorism 'Ghatádinang,

et cetera,'spoken by

theteacher?

"OPupil!

Ghata et cetera,though

ofroots

notending in compound consonants [lengthening

Introduction(1868)

the vowel] on account of a causative affix,yet

by this aphorismno

lengthening may take place."

"Hecauses to do,

et cetera, are alsoamong

theexamples."

!

The languageof

the commentary indicates a spoken rather than a written work,and

itisnote worthy

that while the grammaris

a unityas

a whole,itcontains

threesmall grammars, each complete

in

itself.

(1)The aphorisms (the Pali term beingec,

သတ--E.M.), whichare

sometimes written

togetheras

aseparate

volume,

(2)The

paraphrases (Yj,ဝတ),

which might be writtenout

alone,when

they would form a

grammar by themselves, independentof

the parts that precedeand

follow, and

(3)The

examples (ප>ාග,ပေယာဂ),

which written out consecutively, would form amass of

materialfrom

which all the grammatical principles mightbe

deducedin the

previous parts.4

Nothing couldbe

better adapted for a memoriter work than Kaccayano's grammar.5!

!

This exists, under the title klමc]පm,မကမတဒပန. Other

sources (e.g., G.P.Malalasekera,

ThePáli Literature of Ceylon,

1928 &4

reprinted by the BPS in1994, ch.

9)confirm

that theaforementioned

collectionof

the aphorisms alone can be found, but has been

preservedunder the same title as

the work entire.

"From memory"(Latin).5

16


But onthe other hand it may be said there

isinternal evidence that

the book wasoriginally written.

When two short vowels meet they are combined into one long vowel; and Kaccayano's language,

with the following exampleis:

තnඅයං

ත ↔

ත අ

ත අ

n↵

ත

..n

ත

..n

ත ↱n

တQတအယ

අයං တ

↔

အယ

අයං တ

အ

အယ

අයං တ

အ

အယ

Qတ↵

අයං တ

‐‐ အယ

Qတ

ආයං တ

‐‐ အာယ

Qတ

ආයං တ ↱ Qတ အာယ

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

(Thus, the solutionis: තnායං, တQတာယ.

E.M.)!

Tatra ayang, "There this."

6.

"Separate theconsonant from

its vowel."

"In the place of the consonant(tra)

put thevowel."

"Put theseparated

consonant (tra)below."

"Erase the first vowel."

"Lengthen the last vowel."

"Unite the consonant with the vowel."

To render the same matter in a brief formula, similar to

those I have added laterin

the book, wouldbe: තn

+අයං

= තnායං,တQတ

+ အယ = တQတာယ --

Infollowing out these instructions

inthe Kyoungs, the example

iswritten over

sixtimes,

asexhibited

stepby

stepabove

inthe Burmese character. Kaccayano's pupils must have used

thestylus,

but it

doesnot

necessarily follow that the whole grammar was written out.

!

Thework is also

divided into eight books treatingon

different subjects,as

below:

!

Book I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

The alphabet, permutation, and combination

Declension --nouns, adjectives, and pronouns.

Government

Compoundwords

Noun derivatives

Verbs

Verbal derivatives.

Verbal derivativesfrom unádi (උණාToා, ဥဏာဒ)

affixes

!

17


Eachbook

isdivided into

severalsections,

eachcontaining

fromtwenty to fifty aphorisms.

Thecopy

foundin

Ceylon by Mr.Alwis sets

down the wholeof

the aphorismsat 687,

but the copies inBurmah

say thereare 710.

!It

is probable thatwe

have substantially the work that was composed by Kaccayano, butifbooks

that

havebeen

watched over like the manuscriptsof the

New Testament have their alterations,and

interpolations,itwould

bemarvelous

ifKaccayano had come down

tous intact.

!

Thebook is said to

havebeen

brought toBurmah

A.D.387

by Buddhaghosa, and theBurmese

translationand

commentaryare

ascribed to him. Whoever the translator was, hewas

certainly a

Sanskritscholar, for Sanskrit sounds not

inPali

aresometimes represented. Thus:

"Hecrosses,"

in

the text isတရတ

(tarati) but

တရဣတ

(tara-iti)in

the commentary,from the

Sanskrit roottri.

!

A Pali grammar was publishedin

Ceylonin 1824

by the Rev. Benjamin Cloughof

the Wesleyan

Mission, but thewriter

sketched out thepresent work

before he knewof its

existence, and did not

seeka copy till

heobtained the loan

of one whilein London through the kind efforts

ofDr. Hoyle,

Secretary ofthe Wesleyan Missionary

Society;which

was in 1854, afterhis manuscript had

been

approved for publication by the Bengal Asiatic Society.

!Itappeared however on examination that Mr. Clough's grammar

was notKaccayano's, but a

translationof

Moggalláno's, a writerwho

lived A.D. 1153-1186 [Alwis, pg. xii]. Stillitcontains

the

6substanceof

Kaccayano,and

Mr. Clough's was accompanied with a large vocabulary bythe

same

author. Mr. Clough's book is very accurate,and its

valueisproven by a new edition

ofhis Vocabulary,

with inconsiderable alterations, being printed in Ceylonin 1865

withall

his English definitions, but

without one wordof

creditto

Mr. Clough!

!

As Clough'sgrammar

wasbased

onDhammakiti, not

Moggálana, thiscomment

ofMason's

is off themark;

Malalasekera(op.

cit.,cf.

6discussion in the

notes above) describes Moggállanaas rather an incisive critic of

Kaccayana, attempting "tostart

anew

schoolof

Pali

Grammarin

Ceylon" withvarious

significant divergences fromboth

Kaccayanaand the

Abhidhamma tradition(in

terminology,in

theory,and

evenin

fundamentalssuch as the meanings assigned to the cases). It is true that, in

generalrecognition of Moggálana and

Kaccáyanaas the leaders of "two

schools"of

grammar,many of the later

grammarians havethe name of

one masteror the

otherin

theirdedicatory verses, sometimes

identifying theiraffiliation

in the verytitles

of theirtexts (thus, Sílavangsa's book

istitled

Kaccáyanadhátumañjusá,naming

Kaccáyana (rather than the author) in homage).Secondly, we should

note thatthe Pali

Thesaurus

called the අpධානප]%කා,အဘဓာနပဒပကာ (Abhidhánapadípiká) to which

Mason apparently refersas

"a verylarge vocabulary by

the

sameauthor" is not

bythe same Moggállana who authored the

aforementioned grammar,but

byanother author of the same

name(see

Malalasekera,pg.

187-8);as

I havenot seen Clough's

1824 edition,it could be that the vocabulary Mason

refersto is also

derivedfrom

the Bálávatára, or from one of the Sinhalese interlinear vocabularies attached to it.

18


In 1863 therewas published

"AnIntroduction

toKaccayano's Grammar --by James d'Alwis."

This is

anexhaustive

workon the subject,

and isindispensible

toevery Pali scholar.

Itcontains

alsoa literal

translationof

Kaccayano'sBook on

verbs.

!

Thiswork

differs essentiallyfrom

bothof

those named.

(1.) Ittakes the facts of Kaccayano's grammar,

andre-arranges them

inthe

order of European

grammars, incorporating such additionsfrom

the author's Pali readingsas seem

apposite.

Kaccayano's grammaris

hereinwritten

likeAshoka's

rock-cut document:

ᄀက"ᄀ瀀ᄂ退%&'ᄁᄀက"ᄂ䀀ᄁ䀀ᄂ䀀ᄃ瀀ᄁᄀက",-'ᄁ

අqඑව සංrෙතනඅqමඣෙමනඅqtuෙතන

အသဧဝသခေတနအသ မဈေမန အသ

ဝသေတန

"Byepitome, by amplitude,

andby a middle course."

(2.)The differences

andresemblances between Pali

andSanskrit

areindicated, which

willbe

appreciated byan

increasingclass

of readers.

(3.)To make the

work as easy aspossible for students, the introduction

ofnew grammatical terms,

whichso

often encumber Sanskrit grammars,has been

carefully avoided.

(4.)To make the

bookintelligible to

Europeanscholars,

itis printed

in theRoman

character

throughout.

(5.)To facilitate the study

ofthe language in Burmah,

thePali

iswritten

alsoin the

Burmese

alphabet.(The

expansionof

the textto

include parallel textin

Sinhalesescript is

newto

this edition

of 2005--E.M.)

!In

Burmah, Paliisinterwoven with

thevernacular much more than Latin

is inEnglish.

Inthe

Kyoungs a boyhas to learn

the multiplication tablein

Pali,and his

first reading lessonsare half

Pali

and half Burmese. Dr. Judson studiously avoided theuse of

Pali words, unless absolutely necessary,

yet were the Pali wordsin

[his]Burmese Bible

printedin colored

letters, everypage

wouldbe

a piece

of mosaic.

!

On opening theBible at

random, there were counted in the first paragraphread (I

Cor.13:

1-8)

nineteen Pali wordsin

eight verses. Someof

theseare

repetitions, but thereare ten

different words.

To exhibit thisto

the eye, thepassage is here

reprintedin

Englishwith

the words that are, wholeor

in part,Pali

inthe Burmese Bible printed

in[Bold]:

!

"Though Ispeak

with the tonguesof men and of

angels, and havenot

charity, Iam

becomeas

sounding brass,or

a tinkling cymbal.And

though I have thegift of

prophecy,and

understand

allmysteries,

and allknowledge:

andthough I have

allfaith,

sothat I could remove mountains,

19


and havenot

charity, Iam

nothing.And

though I bestowall me

goodsto feed

the poor,and

though I give my body tobe burned and

have not charity,it

profiteth me nothing. Charity

suffereth long, andis

kind: charity envieth not; charity vauntethnot

itself, is not puffedup,

dothnot

behaveitself

unseemly: seeketh nother

own,isnot

easilyprovoked; thinketh

noevil;

rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoicethin

the truth;bareth all

things, believethall

things,

hopethall

things, endurethall

things. Charity never faileth; but whether therebe

prophecies,

theyshall

fail, whether therebe

tongues, theyshall cease;

whether therebe

knowledge, itshall

vanish away."

!

To those thenwho ask "Cui

Boni"? We reply:it is

hoped that,

(1.)The

workwill

beuseful in the study

of Burmesebooks. A gentleman recently

called on the

author with a chapterof

inextricable difficulties in oneof

the booksused in

passing examination,

and nearly all arose from unexplained Pali words and phrases.

(2.) Itwill

beuseful in translating Burmese books.

Burmesebooks have

beentranslated into

English by competent Burmese scholars,but

whichare

inaccuratein the

Pali extracts.See

for

example[§296]

and Gaudama's sermon[in the

Chrestomathyof

thepresent

volume].

(3.) Itwill

beuseful in translating English

booksinto Burmese.

TheBurmans

areyet to have a

European literature,and

those who furnish it must know howto

use theBurmese

language with its

admixtureof

Pali accurately.

(4.) Itwill

beuseful to

all who wish toknow

whatthe founder of Buddhism actually taught. The

religious booksof

more than three hundred millionsof

people, a thirdof the

human race, writtenin

a highly finished language rivaling Latin and Greek, cannotbe

a matterof

indifferenceto

us, andto

understand them, a Pali grammar is a necessity.

!It can scarcely

be said thereis no

Pali literaturein the face of the

king of Burmah's Pali Bibleat

Mandalay, writtenon both sides of 729 marble

slabs, containing,it is said,

131,220 lines,and

15,090,300letters. Moreover, the

king of Burmah hasonly about half the Betegat,

as itexists in

Ceylon,where it

is estimates to contain29,368,000

letters,or

aboutten

timesasmany

as are inthe

English Bible. And thisis

only a single book!

!Nor is

a knowledgeof

Sanskrit sufficient. Take asmall

specimen, for instance,from

Ashoka's Pali

inscriptions:

ᄂ　ᄀ�'ᄁᄂ䀀ᄂ�2334ᄀ　6789ᄂ ;


Wholly misunderstanding its purport,the most

distinguished Sanskrit scholarof

hisage rendered

the clause:

"I desirethem to

be regarded asthe precepts of the law

and that asmany

asthere may be,

male

and female mendicants may hearand

observe them."

!

And finally, a Burmese scholar of repute writes the author:"I feel

extremely obliged to you for the

portionof

your invaluable Pali grammar. Irrespectivelyof creed

or persuasion,when

thework

has

been published, you will have no doubt conferred a greatboon

uponall

that wouldenter

thearena

with the Buddhists."

!

21


PALI GRAMMAR

!

ChapterI.

The Alphabet.

!

When Europeans first cameto

India, they noticed several remarkable stone pillars,scattered

in

differentparts of

the countrywith

inscriptions cuton

them.In

some instances, inscriptionswere

foundin

three various characters.In the

processof

time, the languages of two were discovered,but

the most ancient characters defied every attempt to decipher them.

!

Five centuries ago, a Mahometan sovereign assembled a numberof learned

Brahmins to decipher

the inscriptionon

the pillarat

Delhi,but

their effortswere

fruitless; and a native historianwrote

of

it: "Roundithave

beenengraved

literalcharacters which the most intelligent

of allreligions have

been unableto

explain."

!Early

ignorant European travellersreported the

pillarat Delhi to

havebeen

erected by Alexander

theGreat,

and the writingon it

tobe

Greek.

!

From the daysof

Sir William Jones, the eyesof

all antiquariansin

Indiahad been directed to

these

inscriptions, but they were directedin

vain.As late as 1833,

one savantwrote

of the characters:

"They may beof

a numericalor

astronomical character,as

hidden toour

knowledge,as are

the

Egyptian hieroglyphics, for the square, triangle, circle,and Mercury are to

be frequently met."

!

The first attemptto

renderany part of these

inscriptionswas

made by a Bombay scholar, who,in

1834, translated the first thirteen letters:

BCDEᄂ倀Eᄂ倀ᄁ퀀HIJᄂLᄀကM

"Inthe two ways

(of wisdom and works?) with all speed doI approach

theresplendent

receptacleof

the ever-moving luminous radiance."

[Sourcesfor the above section: Journal

of theAsiatic Society

of Bengal,July

1837;

Supplement1864;

October1834; March 1838]

!In 1837,

James Prinsep walked up to the inscriptions,and read

them off to a wondering world,with

asmuch apparent

ease as Daniel did"Mene, Mene,Tekel, Upharsin," to the bewildered Babylonian

monarch. Then welearned,

thatthe

first fifteen letters,so

sublimely rendered above, read: "Thus

said KingDevanampiya Piyadasi."

!

!

22

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar:

Prinsep deciphered the alphabet as followed:

+ 2 /\U D &S) 6) (5) 65 60 O'D 3) ( ) (>) C EE G T a S.

d d5 8 H TH 6) & 8 &) & e so e Q so H E GT H 5T

C OF d, I C & 6) 6.0 g) gg & © Sto a 25 S R UT

A G) # D || & Öe 6) & coco e < * H 2. ~ 2. H

U lo D. T 8 6 & 6) 6) () C (9 C CO © UT UE a QT IT

J. J & A. (5 O & 8) 65 es ecs o os zT T =T a TT

U b' ö) & O C2S # 7 &

+ +

8) & Gö) Gö)

o: o: GOO GOOD

# TT f { * * * *

In his remarks on the alphabet, he says: "There is a primitive simplicity in the form of the letter,

which stamps it at once as the original type whereon the more complicated structure of the Sanskrit

has been founded. If carefully analyzed, each member of the alphabet will be found to contain the

elements of the corresponding member, not only of the Devanāgāri, but of the Canouj, the Pāli, the

Tibetan, the Hala Canara, and of all the derivatives from the Sanskrit stock." And he says what has

never been controverted, "I consider it the primeval alphabet of the Indian languages." [Ibid, June

1837

Origin of the Pali Alphabet.

All the ancient alphabets west of the Indus have been satisfactorily traced to the Phoenician, and all

east of the Indus, as show by Prinsep above, have been derived from the Pali. The Phoenician

characters were originally hieroglyphics, and were probably formed on an Egyptian basis. The origin

of the Pali is not so clear Prinsep says, that all the consonant characters may be reduced to the

following elements:

+ d C r" | U 8 J & U

The question next arises, whence did these elements originate? If we turn to the Rosella stone, we

find every one of these characters in the Enchorial, or Demolic portion of the inscription.

23

!


Thereare

twentyeight

lines in the Enchorial character,and

a careful examinationof

a facsimilehas

shown, thatthe

Pali charactersare

foundin

the different linesas

noted. (Mason's originalhere

provides a tableof reference to

which lines contain which characters, but we have omitted it,as

scholarshipon

the edictshas

much advancedin

a century,and it

would now beof

no use to Pali

students --E.M.)

!

The charactersare not

alwayserect on

the stone,as in

this Pali alphabet,and

they may have

representeddifferent sounds, for

whennew alphabets

areformed

fromold materials, a

newpower

is

oftengiven to an

old character.The

Pali ᄁ쀀furnishesan

example, forin the

Talaing [i.e., Mon]7

alphabetit is used

for"b", and when the Red Karen

language was reducedto

writing,itwas

madeto

represent "v"; as inEtruscan, a sound not found

inBurmese,Talaing, or the written

Karen. There

arepoints of resemblance between this alphabet

andthe Bactrian, but the forms represent different

sounds. Thus ᄁ　"j" is read "n"; and

ᄀ"g" isread "j";

and"-rt" of

the[Etruscan]

alphabet,has

almost

the identical formof

"-kt"in

a Pali inscription foundin

the Malayan Peninsula. [Compare Journalof

theAsiatic

Societyof

Bengal, July1848, Plate

IV,with

Journalof

the Royal Asiatic Society,Vol.XX,

Plate IV]

!

Thefact

seems improbable, butit is not so

improbableas it at

first appears.It is no

more

improbable that one portionof

the Pali speaking people should usean

alphabetderived from

Egypt,

thanthat

anotherpart

shoulduse one derived from

Phoenicia; butthe

nineteenth century has

disinterredan

abundanceofmonuments

andcoins, which prove that the inhabitants of

Bactria and

the Cabul valley wrote Palianterior

to theChristian era, in an

alphabet formedon

a Phoenician

basis.!

Under the nameof "The cave character",

Dr.Wilson writes of Ashoka's alphabet: "We nowsee

clearlythat the

greattrouble taken with the adjustment of the cave character would have

been

unnecessary,if we

had noticed sufficientlyearly

its correspondencewith

the Phoenician andGreek

alphabets, from a combinationof

whichit is

manifestly derived."

!

Theterm

"Talaing"is considered

derogatoryby the people it

describes,and the reason

for thisis well explained by

Robert Halliday's7

1917book,

which neverthelesshas the same

wordfor its

title,The

Talaings(Orchid Press reprint,

1999,pg.

3-4):

Another explanation of the term, given by theTalaings themselves,

is that in thedays

of the persecution…

mothers used to say leng ran kon

ai,'[We]

areundone,

my child', and that theBurmese,

hearing theword

leng frequently repeated,nicknamed

the peopleTalaing

(taleng).

Leng, "Tobe undone", is pronouncedjust as the

Talaingspronounce the second part of the name given them by the

Burmese.There seems

no trace of this name in theTalaing writings.

'Mon' is the term used throughout,even

when others are thespeakers.

Sotoo, "Mon"

is theterm most

often used todescribe

this language andthis

"nationless people" of Burmaand Thailand today; I

also

notice thatsome sources

will simply indicate the language bythe name

of theMons'

former capital ofPegu,

thus"Peguan".

24


An Egyptian race issupposed

tohave

hadrule

inNineveh

ata period anterior

toauthentic history.

Mr.Thomas, the distinguished archaeologist, wroteof

certainAssyrian

inscriptions:"These

inscriptions affordat

any rate monumental evidenceof

the contactof an

Egyptianized race,far

beyond the confinesof the

mother-country, with foreign nations,whose

habitat lay,in

onecase

certainly, eastward. --We have nowto

notewhat

werethe

people who,as

Sir Gardner Wilkinson says,

'atavery

remote period' occupied Indiain

connectionwith

the ancient inhabitantsof

the Nile

valley."!

ThatEgypt was not

unknown to India, evenin

the daysof Ashoka,

we have from his inscriptions

containingthe name of

Ptolomy kingof

Egypt,and

Magnus, son-in-lawof

Ptolomy Soter:

kᄂ怀lmᄁကᄂ䀀nᄁက (Vරමා>ා චමගා ච, တရမာေယာစ မဂ)စ)

!

The Simplicityof

the Pali Alphabet.

!

The Pali alphabetisperhaps

thesimplest

of allknown alphabets, ancient

ormodern. Professor

Williams gives[a list of

the graphical comprising the Devanágari script], in his Grammar, "the

elementsof

the Devanágari character,"and

writes down forty.All

the Pali charactersare

formed

from astraight

lineᄂ怀,A triangle ᄀ瀀,A rectangle

ᄂ ,A

circle ᄁ瀀,and a dotᄀ�(which may be

regarded asa

smallcircle), or some

combinationof

their parts.

!

Thuswe

have formed ofright

lines:

ᄂ怀 ᄀ倀 ᄀ怀 ᄀ쀀 ᄁ� ᄁ倀 ᄂ ᄀ瀀 ᄀ ᄁ뀀 ᄁ耀 ᄁ䀀 ᄁ倀 ᄂ　 ᄁ퀀 ᄁ

r u ú k ng n b e g t djh

ñ bh d n

Andall the

vowelswhen

following consonants.

From the circle,great

and small,there are

made:

ᄁ瀀 ᄁ쀀 ᄁ怀 ᄂ䀀 ᄁ　 ᄀ　 ᄀ�

th th t m j i and a final n or m.

A right line with a circle,or

its parts, forms:

ᄂ退 ᄁက ᄁ ᄁ ᄀက

v c ch dh a

A perpendicularwith

acurve

furnishes:

ᄀ퀀 ᄂ� ᄂ倀 ᄂ퀀 ᄀ

khp y s

gh

The same figure with the terminationcapped

by a horizontal line,or

a curve, affords:

ᄂ瀀 ᄂ ᄂက

l hph

25

!


More than forty alphabets maybe seen,

placed for comparisonon

a single sheet,all

taken from the

ancient inscriptions;and if the

inventor of the Pali alphabet were acquaintedwith the

whole, he

must havebeen

agiant in

intellect compared with his forty predecessors,ifthey did precede him,

to

formfrom

such a chaos of material, asystem of

suchorder and

symmetry,as

the Pali alphabet

develops.!

Butthe skill

ofthe inventor

is seen less inthe forms adopted than

inthe

systemthat prevails

throughout the alphabet.

!

The letterswere

manifestly formedwith regard

to theorgans

that enunciated them.Hence

the

cerebalsand dentals appear to have

beenmade to correspond

with eachother.

Thus:

ᄁ瀀thwas the cerebal, ᄁ쀀th the dental,

ᄁ耀 d,… ᄁ퀀d,…

ᄁ退dh, ᄁdh,

ᄁꀀn, ᄁn

The nasal n is varied from the common form thus:

Thegutteral was ᄁ�ng, the palatal ᄁ倀

ny,

The cerebal ᄁꀀn,the dental ᄁn.

Prinsepremarked:

"There isaremarkable

analogyof

formin

the semivowels r,l,y

(ᄂ怀ᄂ瀀ᄂ倀)which tends

to prove their havingbeen

formedon

a consistent principle. The h(ᄂ)

is but the l(ᄂ瀀)

reversed." [Journalof

theAsiatic

Societyof

Bengal, June,1857] He

observes again, that theaspirates

and the smooth mutes havebeen

mainly formedfrom each

other; andit is

worthyof

remark that the

aspirate, when formedfrom

the unaspirated letter, always takean

addition, thus:

ᄁကc takes and additional half circle to form ᄁ ch.

So also ᄁ怀t takes and additional half circle to form ᄁ瀀th.

Andᄂ�p

takes a turnat its

extremity to make ᄂကph.

The modeof

denoting vowels,when

following consonants,was

incomparablymore

simple and

definite, than the mode adoptedin

anyof

the Western alphabets. A consonant [written] alone

[without any additional markings to the alphabet explained above], had ashort

a understood

[implicitly]. To make a longá,

a linewas drawn to the

right,as: ᄀ퀀ᄃ khá, ᄁ怀ᄃ

tá. Tomarke,

the linewas

drawn to the left,as: ᄀᄃ瀀ge, ᄁ怀ᄃ瀀

te. Bothlines

were usedto

denoteo:p gho, m yo. A perpendicular line

was drawn on the topof

the letter to makeshort i, and

two for longí, as: ᄂ䀀ᄃ　ᄁ　ᄃ　ᄂ怀ᄃ䀀ᄂ退ᄃ䀀,

mi, ji, rí, ví.Uand

ú were formedin

a similar manner by lines drawnat

the bottomof

the letter,as: ᄂ�ᄃ倀ᄂ ᄃ倀,pu, bu.

26


Occasionally, uwas

made by drawing the line horizontally, instead of perpendicularly; and both

modes may be sometimesseen

in thesame

line,as: ᄁ뀀ᄃ倀

ᄁ퀀ᄃ倀,tu,du.

!The Age

of the Alphabet.

Nothingisknown

ofthe time when the alphabet

wasinvented, but

it is certain from alltradition that

it was in usebefore the days

ofGaudama.

Onthe other hand,

itappears probable that

itwas formed

after letterswere in use in Assyria,

for the inventorseems

to have been acquainted with a square or

rectangular alphabetthat has been called the

"Nimroud Enchorial",of

which Mr.Thomas published

aninscription [Journal

ofthe

AsiaticSociety

ofBengal, January

1850];for the

generalappearance

of

the characterismuch

morelike Pali, than any other anterior to Ashoka's edicts.

Thefollowing

specimensare

identical:

ᄂ怀ᄂ ᄁ뀀ᄁ�ᄀ쀀ᄃ ᄁꀀᄂ怀ᄃ ᄁꀀᄃ

Butother forms show a decided affinity with the cuneiform character,

sothe Pali alphabet must have

originatedafter

the formationof

the cuneiform character,but not later

than the sixth century before

the Christian era.

!

TheModern

Alphabet.

Like the Phoenician, the Pali lettersseem to

havebeen

soon subjectedto

change;but

the changes

arefew

of themimprovements.

Prinsep hasgiven

aninstructive plate, showing the changes that

had

been madein

the characterat

different periods,from

the alphabetof

Ashoka's edict, to the modern

Sanskrit,and square Pali

ofBurmah. [Journal of the Asiatic

Societyof

Bengal,March

1838, Plate

XIII]!

Theoldest

formof

the alphabet that has been foundon

theeastern

sideof the

Bayof

Bengalis an

inscriptionon

arock at

the mouthof

the riverat

Singapore, butit is so

illegible that nothingcan

be

8made outof it

beyond a few letters,and

that the lettersare

not more modern than the formsin use

inthe

secondcentury of the

Christian era.

!

Theoldest

legible inscriptions were found byCol. Law:

onein the

northernpart of

Province

Wellesley,and

the other southof

this,east of

Penang. [Ibid, July1848,

plateIV]

Prinsepwrote: "The

style ofthe letter

is nearlythat

ofthe Allahabad No.

2." [Ibid,July

1843] Itseems to

be ofthe

same

The commonlytold

storyof the fate of this stone is that it

was destroyed by aBritish

surveyorin in the course of

constructing a road

8in

1843.According to

PeterSchoppert

(Directorof the Singapore

UniversityPress), it was

intentionally destroyedto make room for

the construction of the Harbourmaster's new house, and, thereafter, its remnants were removed to the veranda of the Governor's

Mansion. These remnants werefurther

degradedinto

rubble, withthe latter then used to

pavethe

Governor's driveway. A few

reconstituted shards can be seen inSingapore's

National Museum, butSchoppert states

that one additionalfragment

is in the

collection of the CalcuttaMuseum --although

it hasnever been displayed

publicly andmay

be"lost"

within theconfines

of the

museum's storage.(The source for this is an

undatedarticle published by

Schopperton

hispersonal, internet

website;itwas

available

as such in2004.) The

originaldimensions of

theunbroken stone exceeded

six feet in width.

27


age asthat of the Amravati inscription.

[Ibid,March

1837,plate

XI]Both

arecharacterized by a small

curve overthe

letter, whichappears to

havebeen

soon changed into a straight line,as in the

Allahabad No. 2.

!

This maybe regarded as

the character in which the Buddhist literaturewas

introduced to the

Eastern coast;and

isthe

origin of thepresent

Burmese andTalaing alphabets.

It was inuse,

accordingto

Prinsep, in the fifth century, anterior to a new form which prevailedin

the seventh

century;and

which wascarried

with Buddhism into Tibet.

!

Buddhaghosa, accordingto Burmese

authorities, brought the Pali booksto

Peguin the

fifth century,

at thetime this alphabet was used

inIndia, and having

beenfound

onfound actually engraven

on

rocks near the borders of southern Burmah, the evidence harmonizes.

!

The formsof

theBurman and

Talaing characters afford further testimonyto the fact,

for theyare

more easilytraced

to the alphabet of thatage

thanto

any other.At

the time the Amravati inscription

was made, theshort i, when

following a consonant, hadbeen

changedfrom

a straight line to acircle;

and the long i was designated by acircle

with a dotin

it;both of

which havebeen

retainedin

the

Burmeseand Talaing

tothe

presentday, while they

ceased tobe

used inthe Sanskrit before the

seventh century.In

like manner, thee,the

á,and the

o, werechanged

to curvesdown the side

ofthe

letter; the way theyare

now written inall the

alphabetson the Eastern

coast.

!In

the modern Sanskrit,an

obliquestraight

lineis drawn

under a consonant to indicatethat

the

inherent vowelis

destroyedand the

consonantis

final [e.g., क]. At

the time the Amravati inscription

was made, thesame

thingwas

denoted by a slightly curved stroke above the letter, turning to the

right;and

thisis

preciselythe

presentBurmese

modeof

thating,or

killing the [inherent] vowelof

a

final consonant [e.g., က].So also

the symbols representing rand

ywhen

combinedwith

a preceding

consonant,were

nearly thesame in

Amravatithat

theyare

now inBurman

[e.g.,Qက

, က:].

!In

the Amravati,the

long arms of severalof

the letters werecut

offso as to bring them very

near the

corresponding Burmese character. Thus :

[Thelower part

of]ᄀbecame ဃ,ᄂ�became ပ,ᄂ倀became ယ,ᄂ退became ဝ

Several other Burman lettersare

merelythe

roundedor

otherwise slightlyvaried

forms of Ashoka's

characters, as:

ᄀ ᄁ� ᄁ ᄁ　 ᄁ退 ᄁ퀀 ᄁ ᄂ ᄂ怀 ᄂ퀀

ဂ

င

ဆ

ဇ

ဎ

ဒ

ဓ

ဗ

ရ

သ

28


Itmay

beaffirmed then without

fear ofcontradiction

thatthere is no modern alphabet which

approaches the old Pali characterso

nearlyas the

Burmese, and that thereis

therefore no character

inwhich Pali is now written

so wellentitled

tobe

calledthe Pali character,

asthe square Pali

of

Burmah.9

!

Theage of

the Amravati inscription hasnot been

ascertained, but the lettersbear

a strong

resemblanceto

the characteron

the copper plate grantsdated at

theclose of

A.D.400.

Prof. Dowson

onthese grants, and Mr.Thomas

onthe coins

ofKrauander, have both shown that different forms

of

writing existed contemporaneously, but since thisdate

synchronizes nearlywith

thedate

of the

introductionofBuddhism into Burmah, they confirm

eachother. [Journal

ofthe Royal Asiatic

Society, N.S Vol.I,page

247&

447]

!

!

In as much asPali

pertains to the historyof

South-East Asia,we

should assign its"original"

script toaperiod considerably

laterthan

9the Mauryan

dynasty:the Pyu script (of ancient Burma) and

the earliest Khomscripts (of

Khmer/Cambodia)are

demonstrably

descendedfrom Gupta script

and Pallavascript, but their

relationshipto the Ashokan "Brahmi" script (of the Mauryan dynasty) is at

best indirect.We may

be certain from the evidence of inscriptionsthat Pallava

script was one medium inwhich Pali

and Sanskritwere

conveyedfrom India to South-East Asia;

however,in case

myreader is misled by Mason's

enthusiasm,the

Ashokanscript was

never

directly themedium

used inexporting Pali

to the east.The

collectionsdisplayed

in the inscription galleries of theNational Museums

inBangkok

andSukhothai demonstrate

the cleardescent

ofancient Khmer

script("Khom")

from the adaptation ofPallava

(and this is

widely accepted as fact). Asmaterials

on Pyu script (and its relation to Gupta andmodern Burmese, etc.)

arescarce, will mention

the

followingbook,

which was sharedwith

my bythe

linguist Jason Glavy: Thiripyanchi UTha Myant,

PyuReader,

1963, U Hla Din,

National PrintingWorks,

Rangoon, Burma.Iwill

further comment,contrary to Mason, that the

few examplesof Burmese square

Pali

thatI have

seen(e.g.,

the inscription left byBurmese monks

visiting BodhiGaya

in1296-1298:

lithograph reproduced inSOAS

Bulletin

of Burmese Research,Vol. 1,

#2,2003)

show nostronger resemblance

toAshokan

Brahmi than any other ancient script from the region

(indeed, less resemblancethan

Pyu, and less thansome

ancient Dravidianscripts).

Beginnersshould

bewarned, also,

that the

decorativeuse of square

Pali continuesup to the

present day, i.e.,unrounded

figuresdo

notnecessarily indicate

amore ancient script

in Burma.

29


ThePali Language.

Accordingtosome

ofthe Pali books, the Maghada language

isthe language spoken by the people

of

[the cityof]

Sáketa (සාෙකට, သာေကဋ),or Oude,

defined by native interpretersas

Sanskrit,while

Pali

isnot the language of any tribe

ofmen but the language of the Buddhas.

!As

thelast

Buddha was a nativeof

Magadha, Paliand

Magadhaare usually regarded as

thesame

language, and itis

often called Pali-Magadha(පා„මගධ, ပ)လမဂဓ),

butsome

of the books make avery

marked distinction, representing Palias

the original language of the Gods,or

Buddhas, and Magadha

asthe original language

ofmen.10

!In

one book, Gaudama goes back to theorigin of

the universe before the first Buddhahad

appeared,

and he representsthe

creatoras

a female, who, aftershe

had created animals,and

appointed them

their several abodes, gave them names.Nine

of those namesare

given, whichare all

Pali,and it is

added that this language, without givingitany name,

wasthe first language spoken and when

Buddhas subsequently appeared, they everyone in succession preached in it.

!

After animalswere

created, this divine personage, or Goddess, created three human beings, a male, a

female, and a neuter. The neuterwas

neglected, andit killed its

brother, the male, through envy,but

three childrenwere left

Documents

Mazard's Version of Mason's Pali Grammar · Mazard'sVersionofMason'sPaliGrammar ExpandedandRevisedfromtheworkofFrancisMason,ca.1868, byEiselMazard,2005,firstdistributedin2015." "