0: Introduction

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Part of “A Beginner (Non-Linguist) Guide to Learning Pali”

Motivation

Why write my own book when there are so many excellent textbooks already on Pāḷi?

The first, and best, answer is that I don’t learn something until I can explain it to someone else, even if that someone else is an imaginary reader. There is nothing more conducive to solidifying knowledge than to have to distil it and explain it in language a “golden retriever can understand” (to paraphrase a line from the film Margin Call).

Secondly, I find other Pāḷi textbooks, particularly the ones written by English (or European) linguists, confusing and somewhat frustrating. They analyse Pāḷi grammar from a European linguistic perspective and use grammatical terms derived from Latin grammar. Indian grammar, and in particular Pāḷi, is quite different. Some grammatical explanations in these books can often be overcomplicated and abstruse. I am not saying every book is like this; there are many examples of books that appear to be clearly written. Perhaps the one who is obtuse is me.

I find I learn a language best “natively”, i.e. on its own terms and gradually “bootstrapping” myself until I achieve a minimum viable level of competency to start reading text. This is how we learn a language as children: by osmosis from hearing others, until we are confident enough to form our own words. We then improve by reading, which broadens our knowledge and proficiency further.

There are no native speakers of Pāḷi, but fortunately there are books describing the Pāḷi language written by ancient Pāḷi speakers. The earliest, and probably the best known, is the Kaccāyana Pāḷi Vyākaraṇam. This was probably written in the 5th–6th century CE in India, and it has been ascribed to the Arahant Mahākaccāyana (though this is disputed).

There are, of course, other Classical Pāḷi grammars, including those written by Moggallāna (12th century CE), and the Saddanīti by Aggavaṁsa (circa 1157 CE). The Rūpasiddhi (13th century CE) updated and reorganised the content of Kaccāyana. However, to avoid confusion from multiple sources, I have decided to primarily derive my textbook from my own translations of Kaccāyana, Buddhappiya’s Padarūpasiddhi and Dhammakitti’s Bālāvatāra on my website kaccayana.github.io.

In authoring this textbook, I have decided to avoid using linguistic technical terms as much as possible (such as conjugation, declension and nominative) but to use “ordinary” English words to describe elements of the Pāḷi language. I will use Pāḷi terminology to describe aspects of the Pāḷi language as much as I can, and resort to English only to explain what the terms mean.

So you will find my textbook does not use the same terms as you will find in other Pāḷi textbooks and grammar books. I apologise in advance if this leads to confusion and frustration. I will attempt to point out the equivalent terms used in other textbooks whenever possible, to help readers draw comparisons if they wish.

Again, I do so because I feel strongly that it is best to learn Pāḷi on its own terms, and not to impose an external linguistic framework on it.

Goal and Structure

The aim of this textbook is to get the reader to a level where they can tackle the texts in the Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets of the Buddhist canon) as quickly as possible. Less emphasis is placed on the ability to listen, speak or write.

Most Pāḷi textbooks gently introduce the various features of the language over a number of chapters, so significant progress needs to be made before a reader is able to understand moderately complex sentences, let alone entire suttas from the Tipiṭaka. For example, A.K. Warder’s “Introduction to Pāḷi” covers the basics of Pāḷi grammar over 16 lessons. Assuming a reader will cover 1–2 lessons per week, this means the reader is not ready to read the Tipiṭaka until 2–4 months later.

By contrast, this textbook gives an overview of all the essential features of the Pāḷi language in the first chapter, so the reader in theory should have the key knowledge to read the Tipiṭaka in days or weeks rather than months or years.

I am speaking from experience. I started studying Pāḷi in late June 2023, and by mid-July I was already starting to read my first sutta.

How is this achieved? All the complex production rules with regard to sandhi and word endings are moved to appendices. The goal is to enable the reader to be able to read Pāḷi, not necessarily to be able to write or speak it. So the reader can study the production rules based on their own needs and priorities rather than being forced to apply them from the beginning.

Also, unlike other textbooks, this textbook does not focus on teaching vocabulary, nor does it require the reader to memorise long lists of words. Vocabulary is introduced only when necessary, and just before it is required. The reader is encouraged to develop their own vocabulary based on the material they choose to read, and therefore they only need to learn the words that are important to them.

So the book has a simple shape. Chapter 1 is the overview: it covers every key feature of the Pāḷi language, and a reader who has worked through it can start reading suttas. The chapters after it are optional, and deepen what chapter 1 introduces. They alternate between grammar and texts. Each grammar chapter takes one part of the language, the nouns and their endings, what an ending says a noun is doing in a sentence, compounds, verbs, words derived from other words, with the information taken from my translation of Kaccāyana; every rule number in braces, {104}, links to the rule itself on kaccayana.github.io. After each grammar chapter comes an interlinear translation, a text read word by word with its analysis beneath every sentence, that uses what the chapter taught: the Buddha’s own account of his awakening, then the first three discourses, on setting the wheel of the Dhamma in motion, on not-self, and on burning, which made the first arahants. The examples and exercises in the grammar chapters are taken from these interlinear translations and link back to the sentence they come from, so the reader can move between the grammar and the texts in either direction, and need not follow the book linearly. The book ends with a bonus chapter, an interlinear translation of the core teachings in the selection of short passages from Rune Johansson’s Pali Buddhist Texts: my earliest translation effort, made before the rest of the book and since updated to my latest understanding; and with reference appendices that table all of Kaccāyana’s rules.

Prerequisites

This textbook does not require prior familiarity with either the Pāḷi language or the Buddhist Pāḷi canon. It does, however, require the reader to have a strong interest in both and to be willing to focus their efforts on learning.

Knowledge of multiple languages (including computer languages) and prior experience in learning a foreign language can be advantageous, but are not required.

This textbook takes advantage of modern technology. It is not printed on paper but is available as hyperlinked pages on a website. It also assumes the reader has access to and is familiar with Pāḷi online dictionaries so the reader can easily look up any word they encounter for the first time:

• the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary (DPD)
• the online version of The Pāḷi Text Society’s Pāḷi-English Dictionary
• A Dictionary of Pāḷi by Margaret Cone

I have created my own Pāḷi dictionary, based on the DPD, which uses the symbols in this textbook to annotate the grammatical analysis of words. It is available from https://github.com/ChristineTham/pali_grammar.

Finally, the textbook also assumes the reader is familiar with electronic editions of the Tipiṭaka, including:

The World Tipiṭaka Edition : The World Tipiṭaka Edition is a complete 40-volume Roman-script edition of the 25-century-old teaching of the Buddhist Theravāda tradition in the Pāḷi language from the B.E. 2500 (1957) Great International Buddhist Council. It is derived from the Chaṭṭhasaṅgīti Council Edition, the Pāḷi-language text in Burmese Script, the result of the Great International Tipiṭaka Council convened in B.E. 2500 (1957) at Yangon by 2,500 erudite Theravāda Buddhist monks from all over the world. The Roman Edition is the result of the work of The World Tipiṭaka Project B.E. 2542–2554 (1999–2011), by the M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund under the Patronage of His Holiness Somdet Phra Ñāṇasaṁvara, the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand. The website version of The World Tipiṭaka Edition was created by me in 2025: I converted an archive of the original website, which has sadly been decommissioned, into a modern website.

SuttaCentral : SuttaCentral contains early Buddhist texts, known as the Tipiṭaka or “Three Baskets”. This is a large collection of teachings attributed to the Buddha or his earliest disciples, who were teaching in India around 2500 years ago. They are regarded as sacred canon in all schools of Buddhism.

Pāḷi Tipitaka : This web site is based on the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana CD published by the Vipassana Research Institute. Based at Dhamma Giri, Igatpuri, near Mumbai, India, the Vipassana Research Institute also publishes literature & disseminates information related to Vipassana Meditation Technique as taught by S.N.Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin.

Tipitaka.app : Tipitaka.app is a free software built and distributed as a Dhamma donation. It will always be free and a property of the Buddhist World.

Digital Pāḷi Reader : The Digital Pāḷi Reader provides a database of the Tipiṭaka in romanised script with a search facility and the inbuilt dictionaries allow for instant lookup of any word.

Tipiṭaka Pāḷi Projector : TPP is a software program to help one navigate the vast amounts of Pāḷi texts. It includes, 21 English Ebooks that can be displayed side by side with the Pāḷi texts. The Dictionaries and Search functions are where TPP separates itself from the other Pāḷi readers. It is very fast and totally off-line. It works on Windows as an installable Exe or MacOS DMG file too. The project can also run on any operating system that supports FireFox Web Browser. This application was created at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery in Maymyo. The FireFox version supports Sinhala, Myanmar, Thai and Devanagiri Scripts.

Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project : The Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project is a public domain electronic version of the Pāḷi Canon.

Note

Every writer’s style is influenced by their background and personal interests. My interests in music and photography have influenced my approach to structuring this textbook. In particular, I think of constructing Pāḷi word endings as similar to music composition, applying the rules of harmony, and I refer to the noun genders as “major” and “minor”. I also have a tendency to shift viewpoints and zoom in and out of specific topics much like a photographer would. I do apologise if you are not used to my way of thinking.

Familiarity with software development and even a cursory knowledge of computer languages will also be advantageous. I believe computer literacy should be regarded as a fundamental aspect of basic literacy, and the ability to “program” or “code” is as important as reading, writing, and ’rithmetic.

Having said that, even prior exposure to writing web pages or the most basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is probably enough of an advantage. I use a notation similar to functional programming to label word endings, and sometimes illustrate a sentence’s meaning using pseudo-UML diagrams. Even if the reader has no prior experience of either, hopefully the notation should be self-evident.

So, without further ado, let’s begin!