Introduction to Pali Prosody

Direct influence from Sanskrit.it seems pali prosody has been based from medieval period. Vuttodaya was written by sangharakkhita thera, kamandaki, and chandoviciti are pali works on mertres, subodhalankara is a work on rhetoric by sanghakhita thera. There are two good books on prosody , they are kavisarapakaranam and kavisaratikanissaya,

Gajja- prose, Pajja- verse

Pajja becomes famouse because it is like a poem or song that can touch our heart.

“ kavya-sastra-vinodeno kalo gacchat dhimatam

Vyasasena ca murkhanam nidraya kalahena va”

The time of the wise passes by entertainment with arts and sciences that of the foolish goes by troubles, sleep or quarrel.

Fate- daiva

Faith-saddha

A story of three sons of king, they are foolish... Vishnu Sharma taught them by stories..

In a literature, the Prsody plays very important role. Even in the vedas ( oldest form of religious texts) rich of such poetics features.

“Stepping out of her slippers, her hands raised before me, palm-to-palm over her heart she softly tenderly, in measured words spoke to me first. “ you are young recluse”

There are few well-known prosody works in Sanskrit.

“Vruttaratnakara by kedarabhattha, Kavyadarsa by Dandin, Kavyalankara by Vamana, Kavyaminamsa by Rakasekhara”

Following these two texts, two pali prosody texts were composed as follows..

Sbodhalankara and Vuttodaya, both composed by Ven. Sangharakkhita

There are  eight Ganas- Ma, Ya, Ra, Ta, Ja, Bha, Na and also long and short, long is called Garu and short is called Lagu. E, O, are long.

In the Theravàda countries a study of Pali prosody has nearly always been based on the Medieval work Vuttodaya, which describes the Classical prosody fairly well, but is no guide at all to the Canonical prosody, as there are meters in the Canon that are not found in that work on the one hand and on the other hand the ones that are described generally have different parameters.

Fashionable the Theravada Buddhism nations an analyses of Pali prosody accepts almost all of the time followed founded along the Medieval do work Vuttodaya, which depicts the definitive prosody clean easily, only comprises no more guide on in the least to the basic prosody, because in that respect is meters inwards the canyon i.e. not ascertained in this process the unmatchable reach; and then again the ones that is depicted normally give dissimilar parameters.

As with any verse text, of course, it is essential to understand the prosody that underlies the composition, otherwise the likelihood is that wrong readings will find their way into the text. This should not be understood as implying that every verse should be rigidly conformed to a standard meter. Indeed it is such unskillful editing that is one of the faults in the main editions available to us. To understand the prosody correctly, one must know not only what is its standard pattern, but also what amount of deviation is allowed from the norms that otherwise prevail. And to understand that we must let the texts themselves be our guide.

The prosody of these texts with some degree of accuracy However the difficulty the interested student faces at this point is that the studies that have been done are either too detailed for the beginner, or too narrow, being based on only one meter, or one type of meter.

Significantly, it appears that even writing about "Canonical pali prosody" may be slightly misleading, as the detailed studies tend to show that there was a development in the prosody even during the short period in which the material was being recited and collected; and that the various recitation (bhàõaka) traditions may have allowed slightly different parameters to the meters.

Pāli prosody

Lecturer: Dr.  Ven.Khemananda

Introduction to Pāli Prosody

Vamsapala

ID 5301201125

2^nd year, Second Semester

International Bachalar of Art English Programme, Mahachularlongkorn University, Wan noi, Ayutthaya

Submit date/ 3/3/2012

Posted in: daily learning