Māgadhī Prakrit

1). The exact Spoken cum Written Language used dated back during the Buddha's time was Māgadhī or Māgadhān Prakrit Language. It was used by Commoners in the society or i put it widely used. Then the Buddha taught people his Teachings by using Prakrit Language. Sanskrit or Sanskritam was only allowed to be used by Royal Family, Politicians, High-Ranking Authorities, Hindu Priests at Temples and Schools. 2). Do we know or have a good idea what Language the historical Buddha(Siddhārtha Gautama) spoken. I've just assumed it is Pāli but a moment's thought tells me this is probably wrong since the Pāli canon was written hundreds of years after the Buddha death. If we know what Language the Buddha had spoken, do we know if this language had a wide geographical area and if it is likely that he would have preached in this language or would he have used one more associated with religious practice. 3). Which is older ?? Prakrit or Sanskrit ?? Conclusions : Sanskrit is older than Prakrit Language. However, both are Indo-Aryan languages that co-existed for several centuries. Sanskrit is not the refinement of Prakrit Language as mistakenly believed by some. It is the refined and codified version of Archaic Vedic language. 4). Māgadhī Prakrit was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan Language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit in parts of the Indian subcontinents. It was spoken in present day Assam, Odisha, Bengal, Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and used in some dramas to represent vernacular dialogue in Prakrit dramas. 5). Modern scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi, summarizing the current state of scholarship, states that the language is "Closely related to the language or more likely, the various regional dialects that the Buddha himself spoke." He goes on to write : Scholars regard this language as a hybrid showing features of several Prakrit dialects used around the third century BCE, subjected to a partial process of Sanskritization. While the language is not identical to what Buddha himself would have spoken, it belongs to the same broad language family as those he might have used and originates from the same conceptual matrix. This language thus reflects the thought-world that the Buddha inherited from the wider Indian culture into which he was born, so that its words capture the subtle nuances of that thought-world. ~ Bhikkhu Bodhi ~ 6). According to A. K. Warder, the Pāli language is a Prakrit language used in a region of Western India. Warder associates Pāli with the Indian realm(Janapada) of Avanti, where the Sthavira Nikāya was centered. Following the initial split in the Buddhist community, the Sthavira Nikāya became influential in Western and South India while the Mahāsāṃghika branch became influential in Central and East India. Akira Hirakawa and Paul Groner also associate Pāli with Western India and the Sthavira Nikāya, citing the Saurashtran inscriptions, which are linguistically closest to the Pali language. 7). Pāli Today Pāli died out as a literary language in mainland India in the fourteenth century but survived elsewhere until the eighteenth. Today Pāli is studied mainly to gain access to Buddhist scriptures and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. The secular literature of Pāli historical chronicles, medical texts and inscriptions is also of great historical importance. The great centers of Pāli learning remain in the Theravada nations of Southeast Asia : Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of Pāli studies in India have promoted awareness of the language and its literature, including the Maha Bodhi Society founded by Anagarika Dhammapala. 8). In Europe, the Pāli Text Society has been a major force in promoting the study of Pāli by Western scholars since its founding in 1881. Based in the United Kingdom, the society publishes romanized Pāli editions, along with many English translations of these sources. In 1869, the first Pāli Dictionary was published using the research of Robert Caesar Childers, one of the founding members of the Pāli Text Society. It was the first Pāli translated text in English and was published in 1872. Childers' dictionary later received the Volney Prize in 1876. 9). The Pāli Text Society was founded in part to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to Indology in late 19th century England and the rest of the UK ; incongruously, the citizens of the UK were not nearly so robust in Sanskrit and Prakrit language studies as Germany, Russia, and even Denmark. Even without the inspiration of colonial holdings such as the former British occupation of Sri Lanka and Burma, institutions such as the Danish Royal Library have built up major collections of Pāli manuscripts, and major traditions of Pāli studies. 10). Rulers Two notable rulers of Magadha were Bimbisara(also known as Shrenika) and his son Ajatashatru(also known as Kunika), who are mentioned in Buddhist and Jain literature as contemporaries of the Buddha and Mahavira. Later, the throne of Magadha was usurped by Mahapadma Nanda, the founder of the Nanda Dynasty(c. 345–321 BCE), which conquered much of north India. The Nanda Dynasty was overthrown by Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire (321–180 BCE). There is much uncertainty about the succession of kings and the precise chronology of Magadha prior to Mahapadma Nanda ; the accounts of various ancient texts(all of which were written many centuries later than the era in question) contradict each other on many points. Furthermore, there is a Long Chronology and a contrasting Short Chronology preferred by some scholars, an issue that is inextricably linked to the uncertain chronology of the Buddha and Mahavira. *Today Pāli phrase is Romanized(Roman) in Buddhist texts. The original alphabets may still existing in some States of India.