| 3 |
Why Did the Buddhists Adopt Sanskrit?
|
|
|
|
In: Open Linguistics, Vol 3, Iss 1, Pp 308-326 (2017) (2017)
|
|
Abstract:
Western scholarship has long wondered about the reasons that led the Buddhists, or, to be more precise, specific sectarian components of the Indian Buddhist communities (most conspicuously the [Mūla]sarvāstivādins), to abandon the Middle Indic vernaculars as their scriptural, scholarly and probably vehicular language, to turn to Sanskrit, the celebrated and elitist language of Brahmanical scriptures (first and foremost the Veda), ritual, and culture. The fact is all the more intriguing that insistent Buddhist traditions traced to the Buddha himself, apparently a champion of regional languages, a prohibition to use Sanskrit or, at least, to emulate Brahmanical linguistic behavior. The present paper presents a partly new hypothesis concerning one aspect of this important sociolinguistic phenomenon by looking into the legitimations provided by these Buddhists for studying (Sanskrit) grammar
|
|
Keyword:
buddhism; buddhist sociolinguistic attitudes; debate; hieroglossy; indic grammar; P1-1091; Philology. Linguistics; proselytism; sanskrit; sarvāstivāda
|
|
URL: https://doaj.org/article/db761b4d072844a4a695630fe8741502
https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2017-0015
|
|
BASE
|
|
Hide details
|
|
|
|
|
