INTRODUCTION KACHCHAYANA'S GRAMMAR 01 Mil PALI LAMiFAOK; WITH f A x i N r R o D u c T T o x. AIM* K x n i x, x o T E s, & liY JAMKS irALWIS, MtMHFP. <>F THK t I YJ.oN I'.KANc II <>I Till-: HoYAI. ASIATIC IOCI1 TY; TIIK AT'inoH UK AN INTK()l>l'(VrU)N TO SIMIAI.I SI <-!>AM.MAtt, TU t ( 1 T< ) sil'AJSANi.: AHA, ONTKlin I)NS OIMI.NiAl. J.l'i h l:A i 1 M-, mi; ATi'A.NAt. u.i VANSA, KTC., KTC. o 7. o M ii o. 1863. ^ < \\ 1LLIAMS AND NoR(jA PK, 1 -4, 11 L Mil I 1 I A i |{ ! J I . o\ I N I (j AKOLN AND 21), Sullll I'ULDLUKK 6lTU.Lr. lluiMii K(.ii. T< Sn: ('iiAin.r.s ,Ti si IN M.\< ('AKIHY, K r. Governor and Commander-in-Chief. &e., &c., &c., SIT?, THE practice of inscribing a literary work to the Ruler of the land is very ancient, and very general. In the East it has been almost and in while the Poets universal ; Ceylon, and Historians of old sought the patronage of the King, the translators and compilers of recent times have dedicated the result of their labours to the British Governor. In inscribing, however, the present work to you, I do not merely follow a time-honored rule, nor seek to do homage to a Power which stands in no need of any evidence of our loyalty and attachment. But, remembering that it was your kind patronage which chiefly enabled me to publish a previous work and that to are familiar with ; knowing you, who many of the questions discussed in the following pages, they will possess an interest which they do not possess to the general reader; I take the liberty of dedicating this work, as a token not only of my gratitude, but also of the high esteem which, in common with my countrymen, I entertain for your abilities as a Governor, and your attainments as a Scholar. I have the honor to be, SIR, Your Excellency's Most obedient and humble Servant, JAMES ALWIS. Hendala.^th August, 18G2. 5828 THE INTRODUCTION. I X T K01) I CT 1 N. Tm;i:r. is hardly a country on the lace oi' tlie d which presents greater facilities tor acquiring a knowled no tlic Pali, than Ccvlon; and. perhaps, nation po.*- greater advantages for its study than the Sinhalese;. Pali., like the Sanskrit and the Sinhalese, forms a necessary part of the course of education pursued by the natives.* Our Al- phabet is common to these several languages,! and the affinity which the Pali hears to the Sinhalese, both verbally and grammatically, renders its study far more easy to the people of this country than even to the Burmese. Although the Sinhalese, as a language, has been latterly neglected; the Pali, from its being the dialect in which the Buddhist scriptures are recorded, has always been the principal study of the largest portion of the Ceylonese, who are followers of Buddha. From the period when it became the sacred language of the land, kings and princes have encou- its nobles and statesmen have vied with each raged study ; to excel in its and in it and other composition ; laymen priests have produced some of our most elegant works. The names of Batuvantndave, Ilikkaduve, Lankagoda, Dodan- pahala, Valana, Bentota, Kahave, and Sumangala, amongst a host of others, are familiar to Pali scholars, as those of the learned who are even ??r/v able to produce compositions^: by no means inferior to those of a Buddhagosa or a Parak- krama, though, like the modern Sanskrit, certainly more artificial than some of the more ancient writings. Sec my Sitlatsnnpraru, p. 222. li vi t i t ^ t \fi lit.IK et t ]>. xi., si'<j. J For a >p<'<-iim>n, Sec- Appendix. 11 INTRODUCTION The number of books, too, in the Pali language, i< greater in Sinhalese those on tar than the ; and, though lleligion exceed those upon other subjects, it is, nevertheless, a fact, that the Pali literature of the Sinhalese is not deficient in works upon other branches of Oriental Science. It presents indeed a proud array of extensive volumes on Prosody, Rhetoric, Medicine, and History. On Grammar alone there are no less than forty Pali works;* whilst in the Sinhalese there is but one, the solitary Sidat-Sangarii. From the con- stant study of Pali in the Buddhist monasteries of this island, the books in that language are found to be comparatively free from errors: and it is a well known fact, that the Buddhist priests, unlike the Brahmans, are willing to give Pali scholars, whether Buddhist or Christian, free access to their libraries. Advantages like these, combined with others, enabled the Hon'ble George Tumour, late Colonial Secretary of Cey- lon, to attract the attention of Orientalists to the high claims of the Pali language as existing in Ceylon. In the prose- cution of his labours with such a praiseworthy object, he drew attention, in his elaborate Introduction to the Mahavanea, to some of the Pali works formerly extant in Ceylon, and, amongst them, to Kachchayana's Grammar, which he then regarded as extinct. This, in the very outset of my Pali studies, after many years' devotion to Sinhalese literature, I ascertained to be a mistake;f having added it to my library, in a purchase * state, of to which "The hi.irh cultivation die Pali language was carried. and the trrent attention that has been paid to it in Ccvlon. inav be inferred from the fact that u list of works in the possession of (lie Singhalese, that I found during my residence in lhat Island, includes thirtv-five works on Pali (irammar, some of them bcinu' of considerable extent." Rev. S. Hardy's Eutti'rn Monachixin, pp. 1!) 1-2. i 1 find that this is also extant in linrmah. The Pu-v. F. Mason of tin- Baptist Union says: 'The grammar reputed to have been written by Kaehchiyana, still exists. I had a copy made from the palm-leaK on small jiiarto paper, and the Pali text occupies between two and three hundred . while the Burmese interpretation cuvet^ more than two thousand. 1 Ill of Pali books which I had then (1855) recently made, from the collection of the late lamented F. L)' Levera, District Judge of Colomho. Shortly afterwards I commu- nicated the fact to some of my friends in Europe; and the repeated communications which I have received from them, especially from Dr. Host of Canterbury, urging upon me the necessity for the publication of a Pali Grammar, and expressing a curiosity to examine Kachchayana, have induced me to publish a Chapter from it, as an Introduction to a fuller translation. In laying this before the public, I propose to give a brief account of some of the Pali Grammars known in this country, including a notice of the age and author of the work here and also an on the relations of presented ; Essay the Pali to the Sanskrit. The terms Pali and MagadM are at the present day indifferently employed in Ceylon, Ava, Siam, and even China, to express the sacred language of the Buddhists; and, being confined to those countries, the term Pali is not met with in any of the Indian writings. Magadhi is the correct and original name for the Pali. It was not so called in consequence, as some suppose, of the mission of Asoka, the king of Magadha,to introduce Buddhism into Ceylon.* It hadreceived that name before the age of that monarch,f and was so called after the ancient name of Behar. It was the appellation for the ancient vernacular language of Magadha. It was the designation for the dialect of the Ma- gadhas. Magadhanan Ijhasa Magadlil.\ made a compendium of the whole Pali and English, a few years ago, on the model of European Grammars, which might be printed in one or two hun- dred pages, and convey all the information contained in the two or three thousand in manuscript.' Am. Or. Journal, iv. p. 107. * Professor Spiegel's Kammavacha, p. vii. f See Sanyut Saiigiya. % Prakrit Prahasa, p. 179. IV INTBODUCTION Pali is comparatively a modern name for the Magadhi. It the lias not originated from 'the region called Pallistan (sup- posed) land of the Pali, our Palestine.' It does not come i'roin Pulitur in Tyre the so-called 'Pali tower or Fort.' It has no historical connection with 'the Palatine hills of Koine.'* It was not called after the Pehlve, the dialect of " the JSessanian dynasty, nor is it derived from Palli a village, ' as wr e should now-a-days distinguish gunavari village,' 'boor- of Jsor it ish,' from Urdu, the language the Court. ''f does indeed mean "root" or "original.'^ Like all the word pali originally signified a 'line,' 'row,' ' ' range/ and was gradually extended to mean suttan/ from its being like a line;|| and to signify edicts,1F or the strings of rules in Buddha's discourses or doctrines, which are taken from the vSuttans.** From thence it became an appellation for the ft .if of the Buddhist Scriptures, as in the following passages; < the Friend, vi. p. 236. t Prinsep, Bengal As. J., vii. p. 282. Tumour's J Mahavansa, p. xxii., where he merely Drives the opinion of the Buddhists and this is no more correct ; than the Brahmanical opinion, that Prakrita means 'the derived.' Vide post, p.