A Dictionary of the Pali Language by Robert Caesar Childers is

A Dictionary of Pāli the Tipitaka

D.C. Wijeratna, BScEng, MEng

Abstract: PED is a dictionary of Pali Language. PED cannot be used to understand the meaning of a single
word of Bhagavata Dhammo--the Dhammo of Bhagava Buddho. Dhammo is the words attributed to
Bhagava Buddho in the Pāli Tipitaka. Childers' dictionary gives the meaning of Pāli words. These
meanings are based on the traditional Theravadin interpretation of Pāli. This paper proposes the use of
methods in the Childers’ dictionary to derive the meaning of words attributed to Bhagava buddho in the
tipitaka.

In the paper entitled “Pali-English Dictionary of Pali Text Society Is Beyond Revision!”, I found
that Pali-English dictionary (PED) published by the Pali Text Society is in fact a provisional
dictionary that uses Sanskrit roots for Pali roots. My experience is that it is possible to use the
PED to find out the meaning of some simple Pali words. However, it cannot be used to find the
meaning of a single Dhamma-word.1 A good example is the word Ariyo which is usually
translated as noble; it occurs as the first word in Ariyo Atthangiko Maggo (noble eightfold path).
The word Ariyo is not found in the PED. It has an entry Ariya. But there is no such word in either
the Sutta Pitaka or Vinaya Pitaka. Hence the need to look for another dictionary for
understanding the Theravada canonical literature. Such a dictionary should have at least the
essential features of the Lexico, which is used here as the model dictionary. 2 The feature, I
consider as essential is that the dictionary should give the actual words as they occur in the
texts and not constructed or imaginary words. In this paper, I evaluate “A Dictionary of the Pali
Language by Robert Caesar Childers”.

Dictionary Publishing Data

1
Dhamma: Bhagavata Dhammo
2
https://www.lexico.com/en#
I give below full details of “A Dictionary of the Pali Language by Robert Caesar Childers”as there
is no online version of the dictionary:

Name: A Dictionary of the Pali Language

Author: Robert Caesar Childers

Publisher: Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, Chennai

Year of Publication: 2003

ISBN: 81=206-0343-5

First Published: London 1875

Publisher: Trubner & Company, London

Pali Language

The cover page gives the name of the Childers’ dictionary as a dictionary of Pali language.
Lexico defines Pali language as follows:

Pali

NOUN

mass noun

An Indic language, closely related to Sanskrit, in which the sacred texts of Theravada Buddhism are
written. Pali developed in northern India in the 5th–2nd centuries BC.

ADJECTIVE

Origin

From Pali pāli(-bhāsā) ‘canonical texts’.

Lexico uses the term Pāli for Pali as the name of the language of the Theravada Buddhism texts.
Henceforth, all occurrences of Pali will be changed to Pāli.

Robert Caesar Childers

The author of the dictionary is Robert Caesar Childers. His qualifications are as follows:
 Late of the Ceylon Civil Service; Professor of Pali and Buddhist Literature at University College, London,
Honorary Member of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Childers was the Professor of Pāli and Buddhist Literature at University College, London.

Qualifications and Experience

A brief biography of Childers is given in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 6. It is quoted

CHILDERS, ROBERT CAESAR (1838-1876), English Oriental scholar, son of the Rev. Charles Childers, English
chaplain at Nice, was born in 1838. In 1860 he received an appointment in the civil service of Ceylon,
which he retained until 1864, when he was compelled to return to England owing to ill-health. He had
studied Pāli during his residence in Ceylon, under Yátrámullé Unnánsé, a learned Buddhist for whom he
cherished a life-long respect, and he had gained an insight into the Sinhalese character and ways of
thought. In 1869 he published the first Pāli text ever printed in England, and began to prepare a Pāli
dictionary, the first volume of which was published in 1872, and the second and concluding volume in
1875. In the following year it was awarded the Volney prize by the Institute of France, as being the most
important philological work of the year. He was a frequent contributor to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, in which he published the Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta, the Pāli text giving the account of the last
days of Buddha’s life. In 1872 he was appointed sub-librarian at the India Office, and in the following year
he became the first professor of Pāli and Buddhist literature at University College, London. He died in
London on the 25th of July 1876.3

Childers had studied Pāli during his residence in Ceylon. For Childers Pali is the anglicized form
of Pāli. The article says: Childers was the author of first Pāli text ever printed in England; first
Pāli dictionary; and first rendering of Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta; he was the first professor of Pāli
and Buddhist literature at University College, London. His dictionary was acclaimed: awarded
the Volney prize by the Institute of France, as being the most important philological work of the
year. He certainly was a genius: He seemed to have mastered Pāli language in less than four
years.4 Above article does not tell about his early education. Wikipedia gives that information as
follows:

3
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Childers,_Robert_Caesar
4
His teacher Yátrámullé Unnánsé must have been a great teacher and a master of Theravada Buddhism.
 He was born in Nice, Piedmont-Sardinia, the son of Canon Charles Childers, chaplain to the English colony
in Nice. In 1857, at the age of nineteen, he began the study of Hebrew at Wadham College, Oxford,
graduating in 1861.5

Childers was a graduate of Oxford University. He had studied Hebrew language. Hebrew was:

Spoken in ancient times in Palestine, the language continued to be used as a liturgical and literary
language, however. It was revived as a spoken language in the 19th and 20th centuries and is the official
language of Israel.6

Study of Hebrew makes him eminently suitable to study Pāli, another dead language. More
biographical details about Childers are given in Rhys Davids: Childers, Robert Cæsar by Thomas
William Rhys Davids Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 10, Wikisource. The
reference, I think, is valuable as it is written by Rhys Davids. I quote it fully below:

CHILDERS, ROBERT CÆSAR (1838–1876), oriental scholar, born in 1838, was a son of the Rev. Charles
Childers, English chaplain at Nice. He was appointed a writer in the Ceylon civil service at the end of 1860,
and for three years acted as private secretary to the then governor, Sir Charles McCarthy. He then
became office assistant to the government agent in Kandy; but shortly afterwards, in March 1864, his
health broke down, and he was compelled to return home. While in the service he had taken great pains
to understand the modes of thought and feeling of the Sinhalese, and had given up one of his vacations to
acquire a more thorough knowledge of the native language and literature than was required by the rules
of the service. Those who can realise how precious are the few holidays and leisure hours of a hard-
worked official in the East will know how to appreciate such an act. It was in this vacation, spent at the
Bentota Resthouse, that he began the study of Pali under the guidance of Yátrámullé Unnénsé, a
Buddhist. scholar of great learning, and of peculiar dignity and modesty, for whom his distinguished pupil
retained to the last a deep personal regard. After his return home ill-health and other causes prevented
him for some time from carrying on his studies in the sacred language of the Buddhists. It was not till
November of 1869 that he published his first contribution to the literature of the subject. This was the Pali
text of the ‘Khuddaka Pat11a,' with English translations and notes, printed in the ‘Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society.’ It. was the first Pali text printed in England, and, with one exception, the only portion of
the Buddhist sacred books till then printed in Europe. There was at that time neither dictionary nor
grammar of the language in any European tongue. Without these it was impossible that the rich stores of
historical and ethical works hidden away in the Pali manuscripts could be made available for comparative
history. These wants Childers set himself energetically to work to supply, though the task was one from

5
The Registers of Wadham College, Oxford ...: From 1719 to 1871, Part 2
6
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew-language
which any scholar less enterprising and less self-sacrificing would have shrunk. To the preparation of the
Pali dictionary he devoted the greater part of his time during the rest of his life; the work gradually rising
in aim and scope under his hand. The first volume was published in 1872. In the autumn of that year he
was appointed sub-librarian at the India Office, and early in the next year he accepted the appointment of
professor of Pali and Buddhist literature at University College, London, the first instance of a professor
being appointed specially for this subject. In the same year he contributed a paper on Buddhist
metaphysics to Prof. Cowell's edition of Colebrooke's ‘Essays,’ and from time to time he published various
papers on Pali and Sinhalese in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ The most important of these
papers was his edition in 1874 of the Pali text of the ‘Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta’ (‘Book of the Great
Decease’), being that part of the Buddhist scriptures which gives in detail the events of the last few days
of the Buddha's life. Sinhalese had been generally considered to be a Dravidian language. In his two
papers on the subject (1873 and 1875) he conclusively showed, for the first time, how thoroughly Aryan
were both its grammar and its vocabulary. In 1871 he had discussed, in a paper on the well-known
‘Dhammapada,’ some of its verses which bore more especially on the subject of the Buddhist ideal state,
Nirvāna or Arahatship. But during all these years Childers was sedulously engaged in completing the
second volume of his Pali dictionary, which, much larger and fuller than the first part, was published only
in the autumn of 1875. This great and important work did for Pali what Wilson's dictionary had done for
Sanskrit. It was not only the most valuable contribution that had yet been made to the study of the
language, but was the indispensable means by which further progress could be made. Like Wilson's it was
sure to be superseded; for it made possible that rapid advance in the publication of Pali texts which has
been the most marked feature in oriental studies since its appearance. It was the foundation of all that
subsequent work by the various editors engaged on the Pali Text Society which has rendered it
inadequate. Its great value was immediately recognised throughout Europe; and a few months after its
appearance it was awarded by the Institute of France the Volney prize of 1876 for the best philological
work of the year. After the completion of the dictionary Childers with unwearied zeal looked forward to
renewed activity. He had announced his intention of publishing a complete translation of the Buddhist
Játaka book, the most ancient and the most extensive collection of folklore extant, and his name
appeared as the promised contributor of translations of various parts of the Buddhist scriptures to the
Oxford series of translations from the sacred books of the East. But his continual labours had told upon a
constitution already enfeebled and consumptive, a cold contracted in the early part of the year developed
into a rapid consumption, and he died on 25 July 1876 at Weybridge at the early age of thirty-eight. To an
unusually powerful memory and indomitable energy Childers united an enthusiasm in the cause of
research, a passionate patience, rare even in new and promising fields.

[Ceylon Civil Service Guides, 1861–4; University College Calendar, 1874; Journals of the Royal Asiatic
Society, 1869–75; personal knowledge.]
 T. W. R. D.7

Above article confirms everything that is known about R.C. Childers and about his work. Rhys
Davids says with regard to Childers’ dictionary:

This great and important work did for Pali what Wilson's dictionary had done for Sanskrit. It was not only
the most valuable contribution that had yet been made to the study of the language, but was the
indispensable means by which further progress could be made…. It was the foundation of all that
subsequent work by the various editors engaged on the Pali Text Society.

The dictionary was used by PTS ‘editors’ for almost 50 years. It was the foundation of all that
subsequent work by the various editors engaged on the Pali Text Society. During this period,
almost all canonical texts have been translated by PTS.

Heinz Bechert says:

The difficulties which scholars had to face in Europe without the help of learned priests and pandits in the
Buddhist countries to whom the father of modern Pāli lexicography, Robert Caesar Childers, was so much
indebted, are clearly seen.8

Following observations of Bechert are extremely important and worthy of note:

Robert Caesar Childers is the father of modern Pāli lexicography.

Robert Caesar Childers was so much indebted to learned priests and pandits in the
Buddhist countries. Factually Childers was indebted to the Buddhists monks and pandits
of Sri Lanka whose vernacular was Sinhala language.

I wish to add that no one, absolutely no one, in the Western world can read and understand
Pāli texts without the help of these erudite scholars learned monks and pandits in Sri Lanka.

It was noted earlier that Childers’ dictionary has been used well-over 50 years to translate the
Theravada canon by PTS. Hence the PTS translations are essentially based on Childers’
dictionary.

Childers’ Dictionary
7
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Childers,_Robert_C%C3%A6sar_(DNB00)
8
Berchert Heinz, Some Side-lights on the Early History of Paali Lexicography, Anjali, Papers on Indology
and Buddhism, The felicitation Volume Editorial Committee, University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, 1970.
Childers’ dictionary is a dictionary of Pāli language. It is not a dictionary of Pali language. The
dictionary is preceded by an introductory section comprising the following subsections:

Preface

Key to Technical Terms and Proper Names (I omit terms which are identical in Sanskrit
and Pali)

Key to Subjects

Abbreviations

Authorities Quoted

The Pali Alphabet

A Dictionary of the Pali Language

Addenda: New Words; Additional Matter

Corrigenda: Misprints

Errors

My Critics

Preface

I shall read the preface from the beginning sequentially and shall quote the passages which I
consider are relevant.9

Pāli language

The Pali language is one of the Prakrits, or Aryan vernaculars of ancient India. [Footnote 1] It was spoken
in the sixth century before Christ and has therefore been a dead language for considerably over two
thousand years. I see no reason to reject the Buddhist tradition that Pali was the dialect of Magadha, it
was the language in which Gautama Buddha preached. [Footnote 1]. 10

Childers says that ‘Gautama Buddha preached’. Lexicon defines preach as follows:
9
I have hand-copied the quotes from the printed text. There could be many typographical errors.
10
Preface, p vii
 Deliver a sermon or religious address to an assembled group of people, typically in church .

It is obvious that Gautama Buddha could not have preached. All one can say is that Gautama
Buddha spoke in the sixth century before Christ.

Footnote 1

The true or geographical name of the Pali language is Māgadhī, or Magadhabhāsā, ‘language of the
Maghadha people’. The word Pāli in Sanskrit means ‘line, row, series’ and by the South Buddhists is
extended to mean the series of books which form the text of Buddhist Scriptures. Thence, it comes to
mean the text of scriptures as opposed to the commentaries, and at last any text, or even portion of a
text, or even a portion of a text, of either scriptures or commentaries. Pālibhāsā therefore means
‘language of the texts’ which of course is equivalent to saying Māgadhī language. The term Pāli in the
sense of sacred text is ancient enough, but the expression Pālibhāsā is of modern introduction. And
Māgadhī is the only name used in the old South Buddhist texts for the sacred language of Buddhism. The
English use of the word Pāli is derived from the Sinhalese, who use it exactly as we do it.

Above paragraph gives the meaning of the evolution of the meaning of Pāli. The word Pāli in
Sanskrit means ‘line, row, series’ and by the South Buddhists is extended to mean the series of
books which form the text of Buddhist Scriptures. The term Buddhist Scriptures in the above
passage is a reference to the Theravada Canon. The names of the books of the Theravada
Canon end with the suffix Pāli. The latest version of the Theravada Canon is described as
follows:

In the modern era, a notable Buddhist council was the sixth, which convened in Yangôn (Rangoon) from
May 1954 to May 1956 to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary (according to Theravāda chronology) of
the death of Gautama Buddha. The entire text of the Pāli Theravāda canon was reviewed and recited by
the assembly of monks from Myanmar (Burma), India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and
Pakistan.11

Pāli is a name for the Theravada canon.

From Footnote 2

Following is an excerpt from Footnote 2:

11
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhist-council
 One of the much-despised Buddhist traditions is that Ceylon was colonised from a district of Magadha
called Laala, which evidently meant to be an outlying district, or at least not that in which Gautama
preached. If then Pali and Sinhalese are both dialects of Magadha, we whould expect them to resemble
each other closely, while at the same time presenting dialectic differences. That this is actually the case I
have shown in ‘Note on the Sinhalese Language,’ in the Journal of the Royal a Asiatic Society for 1874.

Childers says: Sinhalese and Pali resemble each other closely. That this is actually the case I
have shown in ‘Note on the Sinhalese Language,’ in the Journal of the Royal a Asiatic Society for
1874. I agree with the above remarks of Childers as I am a Sinhala speaker from Sri Lanka.
Moreover, There is a body of literature in Sinhala explaining the life of Gotama Buddha and his
teachings.

A Language Is What Its Literature Makes It

The second sentence of the Preface is quoted below.

Originally a mere provincial idiom, the Magadhese tongue was raised by the genius of a great reformer to
the dignity of a classic language and is regarded by Buddhists with the same feeling of veneration with
which a Jew of the present day looks upon the language of the Pentateuch. A language is what its
literature makes it. Had Gotama never preached, it unlikely that the Maghadhese would have been
distinguished from the many other vernaculars of Hindustan, except perhaps by an inherent grace and
strength which make it a sort of Tuscan among Prakrits.

The above quote essentially says that ‘a language is what its literature makes it. The literature
of Pāli is the Theravada Canon. As is well-known now, Theravada canon is one of the recensions
of the speech of the Buddha.

Classification of Existing Pali Literature

The existing Pali literature is of great extent and importance; it is valuable alike to the philologist, the
historian, the student of folklore, and the student of comparative religion. A considerable portion of it is
known to us in outline, but only the merest fraction has as yet been published textually. It may broadly be
classed under three heads: first the Buddhist Scriptures, which are the oldest Buddhist writings extant;
secondly the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, which date only from the fifth century A.D., but are based
upon records of great antiquity; and thirdly, historical, grammatical and other works, varying from the
second or third century to the present day.
Theravada canon is the oldest Buddhist writings extant. The rest are commentaries etc. of the
canon. Childers state: A considerable portion of it is known to us in outline, but only the merest
fraction has as yet been published textually. What is most important here is to note that
Theravada canon was not translated to Sinhalese until 1956 from the time it was written down
in Sinhala characters. This translation is modelled on PTS Tripitaka.

Tripitaka

The Tripiṭaka (Pali Tipiṭaka) is defined as follows:

The Buddhist Scriptures are called Tripiṭaka, “The Three Baskets or Treasuries,” and are divided into
Vinaya, Sutra and Abhidharma.

The equivalents of the terms Abhidharma, Sutra, are given in the ‘Key to Technical Terms and
Proper Names’. They are Abhidhammo and Suttam. The dictionary has an article on Vinayo.

Origin of the Theravada Canon

Upon the important question of the origin of the Buddhist Canon much has been written, and the most
conflicting opinions have been expressed…The Tipitaka…The Tripitaka bears every mark of recension, and
according to the Buddhist historians this recension dates from the 3 rd General Council of Buddhism, held
under the emperor Asoka in the year 300 before Christ. But even this is said to be a mere revival of the
first recension which was made in B.C., just after Gautama’s death, when his words were fresh in the
hearts and memories of his apostles. But even this is said to be a mere revival of the first recension which
was in B.C. 543, just after Gautama’s death, when his words were fresh in the hearts and memories of his
apostles.

According to the above passage, ‘The Tipitaka…The Tripitaka bears every mark of recension,
and according to the Buddhist historians this recension dates from the 3rd General Council of
Buddhism, held under the emperor Asoka in the year 300 before Christ. The words of Gautama
Buddha are contained in the Sutta and Vinaya Pitakas.

Commentaries of Buddhaghosa

Next in importance to the Tripitaka books are the Commentaries of Buddhaghosa, the history of which is a
singular one. When the great missionary Mahendra went to Ceylon in B.C. 307, he carried with him not
 only the Tripitaka but the Arthakatha or Commentaries—a whole literature, exegetical and historical,
which had grown up around the Tripitaka during the two centuries and an half that had elapsed since
Gautama Buddha’s death. After accomplishing his mission of converting the islang to Buddhism, he
proceeded to translate these commentaries from Pali into Sinhalese version continued to exist in Ceylon
for many centuries, while the Pali version disappeared. In the fifth century Mahendra’s Sinhalese
commentaries were re-translated into Pali by the famous divine Buddhaghosa, one of the most
extraordinary men that Buddhism has produced, and this third version is the one we now possess, the
Sinhalese original in its turn disappeared.

The third version of the commentaries we now possess was produced 1000 years after the
Gautama Buddha by Buddhaghosa.12

Remaining Pali Literature

The remaining Pali literature is of varying interest. The mere titles of the books ancient and modern which
it embraces would fill many pates, and it will be sufficient here to mention a dew of the more noteworthy.
First in importance are the two famous histories Dipawamasa and Mahawansa, the discovery of which
made the name of Turnour illustrious, and which are almost our only authentic sources for the history of
India previous to the Christian era.

Theravada Canon

The Pali or southern version of the Buddhist Scriptures is the only genuine and original one. A
footnote is attached at the end of this sentence, --Footnote 3.

In an interesting preface to his Pali Grammar, Minayeff says (Fr. Ed., p. xlii) that early Buddhist literature,
orally handed down, must have become modified according to the language of each country.” He
supports this view by quoting “the word of Buddha is to be understood by everyone in his own dialect.
Unfortunately the words thus translated have an exactly opposite meaning. This passage is a very
important one, and Mr. Minayeff deserves the credit of having first brought it to light, see his Pratimoksha
Sutra, p xlii.

Above passage makes a reference to Pratimoksha Sutra, p xlii. Following passage occurs in the
Cullavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka.

12
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Buddhaghosa
 285. Tena kho pana samayena yameḷutekulā nāma, bhikkhū dve bhātikā honti brāhmaṇajātikā
kalyāṇavācā kalyāṇavākkaraṇā. Te yena bhagavā tenupasaṅkamiṃsu, upasaṅkamitvā bhagavantaṃ
abhivādetvā ekamantaṃ nisīdiṃsu. Ekamantaṃ nisinnā kho te bhikkhū bhagavantaṃ etadavocuṃ –
‘‘etarahi, bhante, bhikkhū nānānāmā nānāgottā nānājaccā nānākulā pabbajitā. Te sakāya niruttiyā
buddhavacanaṃ dūsenti. Handa mayaṃ, bhante, buddhavacanaṃ chandaso āropemā’’ti. Vigarahi buddho
bhagavā…pe… ‘‘kathañhi nāma tumhe, moghapurisā, evaṃ vakkhatha – ‘handa mayaṃ, bhante,
buddhavacanaṃ chandaso āropemā’ti. Netaṃ, moghapurisā, appasannānaṃ vā pasādāya…pe…
vigarahitvā…pe… dhammiṃ kathaṃ katvā bhikkhū āmantesi – ‘‘na, bhikkhave, buddhavacanaṃ chandaso
āropetabbaṃ. Yo āropeyya, āpatti dukkaṭassa. Anujānāmi, bhikkhave, sakāya niruttiyā buddhavacanaṃ
pariyāpuṇitu’’nti.13

The text underlined is a Vinaya rule (anujānāmi, bhikkhave, sakāya niruttiyā buddhavacanaṃ
pariyāpuṇitu’’nti) for the Bhikkhus. The rule prohibits Bhikkhus from changing the spoken
words of Bhagavā (na, bhikkhave, buddhavacanaṃ chandaso āropetabbaṃ). Theravadins did
not change the spoken words of the Buddha (Buddhavacana) until 1956. They gave their own
interpretation.

Pali Scholarship

Childers observes:

Pali scholarship is a science of comparatively recent origin, and is the joint creation of two illustrious
scholars, a Frenchmen and a Dane.

Comparison of Pāli with Classical Sanskrit

In the following passage Childers compares Pāli with

If we compare Pali with classical Sanskrit, we find that about two-fifths of the vocabulary consist of words
identical in form with their Sanskrit equivalent, as naaga, Buddha and nidaana. Nearly all the remaining
words present a more or less late or corrupted form. The change is in some instances slight, as when sutra
becomes sutta or Prajapati; but there are extreme cases in which the change is so great that the identity
is not at first sight apparent. Words of the above two classes nearly exhaust the Pali vocabulary; but there
remains a small though important residuum of forms distinctly older than classical Sanskrit, and found
only in the oldest known Sanskrit, that of the Vedas. Nay, I do not feel sure that Pali does not retain a few

13
V 2.139
 precious relics older than the most ancient Sanskrit, and only to be explained through the allied Indo-
Germanic languages.

Pali Cannot Be Derived from Sanskrit

Following passage follows the above quote:

It result from all this that Pali cannot be derived from Sanskrit; both, though mot intimately connected
being independent corruptions of the lost Aryan speech which is their common parent; but that Pali is on
the whole in a decidedly later stage than Sanskrit, and, to adopt a metaphor popularized by Max Muller,
stands to it in the relation of younger sister. If the proud boast that the Maghadhese is the one primeval
language fades in the light of comparative philology, Buddhists may console themselves with the thought
that the teaching of Gautama confers upon it a greater lustre than it can derive from any fancied
antiquity.

The most significant statement in the above passage is: It result from all this that Pali cannot be
derived from Sanskrit.14

No Foreign Element in Pāli

To the above brief sketch I have only to add that, with the exception of a very few imported Dravidian
nouns like chati and chumbata, there is no foreign element in Pāli. It is on the whole in the same
inflectional stage as Sanskrit, and everything in its vocabulary, grammar and syntax can be explained from
the older tongue. But at the same time it exhibits a remarkable elasticity , a power of enriching itself
throwing out new forms; we may perhaps even detect in its adumbration of a tendency to pass into a
later phonetic stage. What Pali would have become had it run on unchecked in its course of decay and
regeneration may be seen the modern Sinhalese, which springs from an idiom closely allied to Pāli, and
has long passed into the analytical state. To a great extent Sinhalese may for practical purposes be viewed
as a lineal descendent of Pāli, and it has worked out a whole legion of grammatical forms the germs of
which make it a rich, though as yet almost unexplored, philological mine

Contributions From three Sinhalese Buddhists

From three Sinhalese Buddhists I have received valuable contributions in the shape of letters replying to
questions on points of scholarship and interpretation. They are, first the priest Dhammarama of
Yatramulle , whose premature death in January, 1872, deprived the Buddhist Church of one on its
brightest ornaments; next the priest Subuthi of Vaskaduve, well known European Palists as the able
editor of Abhidhanpadipika; and lastly the Mudliar L. Corneille Vijesinghe, a scholar of much learning and
14
PED may be considered an interpretation of Sanskrit Buddhism.
 originality. During the progress of this work I have received from all communities in Ceylon proofs od
sympathy and appreciation, but from none more than the Buddhist clergy, a generous and enlightened
body of men, towards whom I I am under many and deep obligations.

Ariyo

I mentioned that word Ariyo is not found in the PED. Childers gives two entries for Ariyo:

Ariyo (adj.), Honourable, respectable, venerable; noble, excellent; eminent; holy;

Ariyo: A venerable or holy man, a saint, one who has entered on the Four Paths, a
converted man, one who has attained final sanctification an Araha; …

Ariyo is the word that actually occurs in Pāli. It is used as an adjective and a noun. The two
definitions indicate clearly the difference: Ariyo (noun) is a human being; Ariyo (adj.) is a
quality. Childers gives many combinations of words where Ariyo is used as an adjective. Here
are examples:

Ariyadhanam

Ariyamaggo

Ariyapuggalo

Ariyasaccam

Ariyasavako

Ariyavamso

Ariyavaso

Ariyavoharo

I give below the entry Ariyasaccam in Childers:

Ariyasaccaṃ, Sublime truth. The Cattari Ariyasaccani, or “four great truths,” are four theses upon which
the whole doctrine of Buddha is based; they are: dukkhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ, dukkhasamudayaṃ ariyasaccaṃ,
dukkhanirodhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ, dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā ariyasaccaṃ.
PED gives the following interpretation to Ariyasacca:

Ariyasacca, a standard truth, an established fact,

This is a complete misinterpretation of the of the Pāli word ariyasaccaṃ and therefore the
Dhammavinayo of the Lord Buddha. All the words in the Childers’ dictionary are Pāli words and
they are clearly defined; it has not created words like the PED. There is absolutely no doubt that
Childers’ dictionary can serve as a model dictionary.

Childers dictionary however is based on the traditional interpretation of the Theravada canon.
Thus, it is not a dictionary of the Dhammavinayo. But its methods can be used to develop a
dictionary of Dhammavinayo of Bhagava Araham Sammasambuddho.

Conclusions

PED is A DICTIONARY OF PALI LANGUAGE

CHILDERS’ is A DICTIONARY OF PĀLI the TIPITAKA

D. C. Wijeratna

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Colombo