LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:4 April 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Bilingualism in the Brahmajālasutta, Indo-Aryan & Indigenous

Bryan G. Levman, PhD

Abstract

The first part of the Brahmajālasutta -- the Cūḷa-, Majjhima- and Mahāsila sections -- contain almost 200 words of non-Indo Aryan (non-IA) derivation in the root transmission (mūla) and commentary. Many of these are lists of indigenous items, like vegetation and various cultural practices in their Aryanized form; others are glosses of a Dravidian or indigenous term in Middle Indic, or vice-versa. All these terms occur in the context of practices which monks are to avoid, suggesting that many of them were specific to the Dravidian culture. It is also possible that the plethora of desi (autochthonous) terminology indicates a translation of these sections from an underlying Dravidian work. At the very least it indicates the presence of extensive bilingualism at the time these sections were transmitted, and supports an old hypothesis of a prominent Dravidian substrate underlying Middle-Indo Aryan languages and Pāli, manifested in both structural features and lexical borrowing.

Keywords: Brahmajālasutta, Pāli, Middle Indic, Middle Indo-Aryan, Dravidian languages, bilingualism, Indian linguistic area, Sprachbund, substrate.

Introduction

Most Buddhist suttas are composed in a language which is almost 100% pure Middle Indic (MI), except for proper names like toponyms which often preserve their indigenous heritage; so when there is a sudden change in word etymology, as occurs at the beginning of the Brahmajālasutta, one must try to understand the significance of that spike. Here the number of non-IA words goes from only four in the first nine sections of the work to nine in section ten, and, especially in the commentary, goes as high as twenty-four in section twelve and fifteen in section fourteen, before gradually declining back to its normal, near zero non-IA content at the start of section twenty-eight (Pubbantakappikā).

Altogether there are approx. 180 words of non-IA etymology that are found here. Although the Cūḷa- section does not begin until section ten, it is pre-figured in section nine by a long list of prohibitions which introduce a significant number (nine) of words of non-IA derivation, which are then repeated and commented on in the following Cūḷa-Majjhima- and Mahā-sila sections.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Bryan G. Levman, PhD.
University of Toronto
91 Ardwold Gate
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA, M5R 2W1
bryan.levman@utoronto.ca
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