Pali · Pāli: pāli, 'text'

Pali is a language, not a teaching. Access to Insight describes the Tipitaka, the Pali canon, as “the collection of primary Pali language texts which form the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism”, and says of the language itself that it “is based on a dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan that was probably spoken in central India during the Buddha’s time”. The name is glossed there simply as “text”. When a page on this site cites a discourse as MN 10 or SN 56.11, it is quoting a Pali one.

The collection was not written down straight away. Access to Insight notes that the Tipitaka was “first fixed in writing, by Sri Lankan scribe-monks”; Theravada tradition places this in the first century BCE, so for a long stretch it was held and passed on by memory. How the three baskets are arranged is set out on our page on the Tipitaka.

Pali matters unevenly across traditions, and knowing that saves a lot of confusion. It is the canonical language of Theravada, which Access to Insight renders “the ‘Doctrine of the Elders’”, so Theravada writing uses Pali forms. The same terms also have Sanskrit counterparts, which the Access to Insight glossary gives in brackets: dhamma “[Skt. dharma]”, kamma “[Skt. karma]”, nibbāna “[Skt. nirvāna]”. The two are equivalents of one another. But meeting dhamma rather than dharma, or kamma rather than karma, usually tells you that the writer is working from the Pali sources, and that is a useful signal when you are trying to place a text or a teacher.