No. 12. — 1860-1.] PALI AND PRAKRIT-MAG A DHL 



429 



THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PALI 

 AND THE PJRAKRIT-MAGADHI OF 

 VARARUCHL 



By Jambs D'Alwis, Esq., Assistant Secretary. 



Pali is the name given in Ceylon, and some countries 

 in western Asia, for the dialect of the Buddhist Scriptures, 

 which was cultivated in the kingdom of Mdgadha, or 

 modern Behar, about the 6th century before the Christian era. 

 The Sinhalese, like the Burmese, use both Pali and Mdgadhi 

 to express their sacred language ; whilst Indian Grammarians 

 designate one of the dramatic dialects, the Mdgadhi, and 

 also identify it with the language of Mdgadha.* Although, 

 therefore, the Pali and the Mdgadhi are names for one and 

 the same dialect ; yet the language denned by Prakrit 

 Grammarians as Mdgadhi is essentially different from the 

 Mdgadhi or Pall of Ceylon, which, from the time it was 

 banished from the country whence it derived its name, 

 remains fixed as a dead language in this Island, unaffected 

 by those changes which as a spoken language it has under- 

 gone in its migrations in India, — assuming at one time the 

 style (as in the Nepal Scriptures) of an "indescribable 

 milange in which incorrect Sanskrit bristles with forms of 

 which some are entirely Pali and others popular";! at 

 another, the form of the Pillar dialect of As oka's reign ; 

 and at last, the Mdgadhi of the Jains. 



These differences establish many important facts in the 

 history of Asiatic languages ; and moreover, unsettle the 



* See CowelFs Prakrit Prakasa, p. 179, et seq. 



1 L'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien, by M. Buniouf, p. 105. 



