By P.K.Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, October 27: Earlier in October, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Buddhist language Pali is being officially designated as one of India’s “classical languages.” With this, it is hoped that the decline in the study of this ancient Indian language will be arrested in India, and followers and students of Buddhism in India will be able to savour Buddha’s sayings in his own language, Pali.
At the function where he declared the designation of Pali as an Indian classical language, Modi said that to understand the essence of the Dhamma, it is necessary to have a knowledge of the Pali language. He emphasized that the teachings of the Buddha are crucial for addressing global challenges, especially in promoting peace and sustainability. He further said that the teachings of the Buddha are the roadmap for India’s development.
Reflecting on India’s historical relationship with Buddhism, Modi highlighted the efforts being made to revitalize Buddha’s heritage in India. These include development projects in significant Buddhist sites like Kushinagara in India and Lumbini in Nepal.
The inclusion of Pali in the list of India’s classical languages is very significant step since it was used by the Buddha to spread his message in North India. Pali was one of the “prakrits” or popular native Indian languages in ancient North and Central India and Nepal and the Buddha preferred to use it rather than Sanskrit which was associated with the elite in the caste heirarchy, particularly the Brahmins.
Although the Buddha might have spoken in Ardhamagadhi and other dialects, the Buddhist texts were written in the more advanced Pali. In fact, “Pali” denotes “text”. It became the language of Buddhist communication in Theravada Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
But, sadly, by the 12th. Century or as some say by the 14 th. Century Pali had disappeared in India, while it survived without an issue in other countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. Its decline in India coincided with the decline of Buddhism in the Indian sub-continent due to a variety of religious, economic and political factors.
However, 500 years later, in the closing years of the 19 th.,Century, Western orientalists developed a fascination for Eastern religions including Buddhism. Archaeological excavations played a pioneering role in reviving interest in Buddhism in India among both Europeans and Indians.
Theosophists like Col. Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907) and administrators-turned scholars like Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843-1922), Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) and Robert Chalmers (1858-1938) studied Buddhism deeply and internationalized Buddhist thought. Rhys Davids set up the Pali Text Society (PTS) in London which compiled and brought out numerous Pali texts and commentaries. PTS is active till date.
Incidentally, Rhys Davids, Edwin Arnold and Robert Chalmers were all in government civil service in Ceylon. Chalmers was the Governor of Ceylon from 1913 to 1915. When Chalmers was sacked for mishandling the Sinhala-Buddhist riots in 1915, he happily went back to Buddhist and Pali studies in London and continued to translate Pali works into English.
Pali Studies in India
In a very small way, Pali became a subject of study in some Indian Universities at the end of the 19 th.Century and early 20 th., Century. At Calcutta University, Pali became a subject at the post graduate level in 1906. Rhys Davids was the paper setter and examiner. In 1925, a Professorship was created and Dr.Beni Madhab Barua became the first Professor of Pali.
The University of Mumbai’s Pali department was set up by the Pali and leftist scholar Dharmanand Kosambi in 1912. The department now places emphasis on learning Pali as taught by the Buddha in the traditional way through reading, listening, discussing. The aim is to develop one’s own wisdom through these exercises. Mumbai University has reprinted Pali works like Mahavamsa, Milindapanha and Nidanakatha and Therigatha.
Pali and Buddhist Studies began at the Banaras Hindu University in 1940 in the Department of Sanskrit at the instance of Bhikku Jagdish Kashyap, a pioneer of the revival of Buddhism in India. In 1952, Acharya Narendra Dev, a well-known scholar of Buddhism, became BHU’s Vice Chancellor and took a personal interest in developing Buddhist and Pali studies. The importance of BHU’s Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies stems also from the fact that it is established in the proximity of Sarnath, where the Buddha delivered his first sermon.
The conversion of the iconic leader of the Indian depressed classes Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to Buddhism in 1956, with 800,000 of his followers, and the Nehru government’s organizing the Buddha Jayanti festival in the same year on an international scale, boosted interest in both Buddhism and Pali in India. Several universities started Buddhism and Pali studies in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, the home state of Dr.Ambedkar.
Things to be Done
Prof. Siddharth Singh of Banaras Hindu University is of the opinion, that much more needs to be done to popularize Pali studies in India. He regrets that, still, many Indian scholars who research or write on Buddhism go by English translations of Pali works instead of learning Pali and going straight to the original sources. Singh and a number of others have argued that one cannot get the true meaning of what the Buddha said without going to the original Pali version.
Getting the right English words for Pali words is often a difficult thing. And Translations also turn out to be interpretations, which could be distortions. The Buddha is said to have taught the Dhamma with “right meaning and right phrasing”. To get the right meaning and right phrasing, one has to read the Pali original and not a translation.
Three Hurdles
Prof.Siddharth Singh points out to other hurdles to the learning of Pali in India: The first is an ideological inclination of Indian scholars, who are mostly upper caste Hindus, to view Buddhism as a part of Hinduism and not as a separate ideology. They look for similarities between Buddhism and Hinduism and try to show Buddhism as reformed Hinduism or an another version of Hinduism. In fact, they have already incorporated Buddhism into Hinduism by portraying the Buddha as the ninth incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu.
The Second is that Indian scholars also have a preference for Mahayana Buddhism which shares some feature of Hinduism like idol worship, elaborate ritualism, and the use of Sanskrit rather than Pali to convey its ideas. But Theravada Buddhism, the original Buddhism, is distinct from Hinduism and uses Pali.
Ambedkar Factor
In modern India, Theravada Buddhism is associated with Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who stressed the equalitarian and anti-caste thoughts in Buddhism to the exclusion of discourses related to the spiritual and other-worldly aspects of Buddhism like rebirth and Nibbana.
He did not want his followers to be entangled in these ideas. They should concentrate on the equalitarian social doctrines of the Buddhism, he felt.
Civil Service Exam
Prof. Siddharth Singh points to the damage done to Buddhist and Pali studies in India by the government’s decision in 2013 to take off Pali from the list of optional subjects in the All India and State Civil Services examinations. The explanation given for the removal was that Pali was not listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution as an Indian language. No steps were taken to amend the constitution to correct this grievous omission.
Prof.Siddharth Singh pointed to the incongruity between India’s policy of disregarding the Pali language and the policy of cultivating links Buddhist countries on the basis of the claim that India has a very strong Buddhist legacy. India has been projecting its links with Buddhism right from 1956. And Prime Minister Modi has been vigorously promoting Vadnagar in Gujarat as a Buddhist centre.
If Pali is re-included as an optional subject in the civil service exams, Buddhist and Pali studies would grow in Indian universities. And graduates in these could would get jobs in the government. A time might come when Pali would even be taught at the high school level.
Many civil service candidates had chosen Pali as a subject when it was listed as a subject. In 2011-2012, there were 351 candidates taking the Pali exam. The numbers for other languages were less: Sanskrit (109), English (30), Tamil (129), Telugu (118). Other Indian languages had less takers.
Now that Pali has been recognized as a classical language of India it is time that language was included in the Civil Service exam syllabus.
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