Language used to write source materials in ancient time ?

- November 26, 2021

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Pre-Historic Period-Question 16

Daily Online General Knowledge Quiz:Previous year paper gk questions with answers and explanation in English on Indian History of Pre-Historic Period.

16.The language used to write source materials in ancient time was?
A. Sanskrit
B. Pali
C. Kharosthi
D. Brahmi

Pali

Note: Pali is a middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian sub-continent.

🔑Key Points

✔Pali is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language(sacred language) native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the language of the Pali Canon or Tipiṭaka as well as the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism. In early time, it was written in Brahmi script.

✔A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.

✔The Pali Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pali language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.

✔Tamrashatiya was one of the early schools of Buddhism and a branch of the Vibhajyavada school based in Sri Lanka. It is thought that the Theravada tradition has its origins in this school.

✔The Tamrashatiya is also known as the Southern transmission or Mahaviharavasin tradition.

✔The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the Pali was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript.

✔There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Paḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which was located around modern-day Bihar.

✔Beginning in the Theravada commentaries, Pali was identified with 'Magahi', the language of the kingdom of Magadha, and this was taken to also be the language that the Buddha used during his life.

✔In the 19th century, some studies proves that geographical name of the Pali language was Magadhi Prakrit.

✔Paḷi means "line, row, series", the early Buddhists extended the meaning of the term to mean "a series of books", so paḷibhasa means "language of the texts".

✔Modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined and partially Sanskritized. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali.

✔In the modern era, it has been possible to compare Pali with inscriptions known to be in Magadhi Prakrit, as well as other texts and grammars of that language.

✔Paḷi, as a Middle Indo-Aryan language, is different from Classical Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin.

✔A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a direct continuation of Ṛigvedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, different from Ṛigvedic.

✔The Rigveda or Rig Veda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns .It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts known as the Vedas. The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text.

*This Question is a part of previous year paper gk questions on Pre-Historic Period of India.