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Pali,
Buddhism and Christianity
Buddhism,
one of the ancient religions, flourished in India in about fifth
century B.C.
About 2000 years back
Pali, the language, gained popularity. In fact, Pali had
a big role in the spread of this religion. Most of the Buddha's
teachings as we know were through Pali. Pali
is a Middle Indo-Aryan language of North Indian origin. It is also
known as Magadhi, although it was spoken, or at least well understood,
in almost the whole of Northern India in the Buddha's time. Pali
language is called "the language of mankind's philosophy".
This is because it has the most voluminous literature on religion
and philosophy in the entire world. Pali is a written language,
but it has no special script. Although trade-links were developed
first, Buddhist monks and Kings' emissaries throughout the region
developed its use. It was the "Lingua Franca" of the Buddhist
countries of south and south-east Asia for well over a thousand
years.
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Each country subsequently developed its own Pali literature and
chronicles. It is
sonorous, rhythmic, mellifluous and pleasing to hear, especially when
chanted properly by monks and is kept alive by Buddhist scholars, monks
and devotees of Buddhism. As we know
from historic records that a huge collection of Pali literature, mainly
Buddha's invaluable teachings, were kept in the library of the ancient
Nalanda University in Bihar India. Legends say that a fire destroyed all
those precious scripts and thus, Pali literary works received a very big
setback in the middle ages. However, much Later, a version of these
valuable works were retrieved from Ceylon, all written in Sinhalese script
and these works were then translated and rewritten in Roman script, thus
restoring an invaluable wealth of knowledge.
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Pali was so
popular, that it was also spoken in Tibet, an adjoining country of India.
In fact, many historic events of that time have been recorded in Pali
language. One such interesting finding was made by the Russian doctor
Nicolas Notovich, in1887 when he came across a rare written record in Pali
language, the Himis manuscripts, which revealed that Jesus had been to
India. These ancient documents were viewed later by Nicholas Roerih and
Swami Abhedananda, a disciple of Shri Ramakrishna. As the Bible
has no accountability of the whereabouts of Jesus after he was crucified,
this evidence revealed significant information on the lost years of Jesus.
It is widely speculated that Jesus during this period had been to Srinagar
in the happy valley of Kashmir in India and had been living there in one
of the Tibetan monasteries. Some say that the reminiscence of this
"Healer" still persists there in the form of "Isaih-e-malam" i.e. a pain
balm.
Pali is one of
the richest languages which records social evolution in India and also
other parts of the world. This language can thus unravel a wealth of
historic information so far unknown to us. Considering the varied
applicability of this ancient language, Pali certainly merits more
attention.
Contributing Author: On an over-the-tea chat with
Shri Ashim Kumar Mukherjee, who has been teaching Pali language for more
than 37 years. His keen interest in nature led him to scale great heights
of the Himalayas. His passion for mountaineering led to the establishment
of The Himalayan association in 1960 in Kolkata. Later on in 1968 this
association formed the Council of Himalayan Exploration and Research and
conducted many important Himalayan expeditions unveiling a wealth of rich
information.
Presently, the eighty year old retired teacher is residing at his house at
central kolkata.
Email:
drsumimukhopadhyay@yahoo.co.in
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