A Conversation About Buddhism
Author: Anup Poudyal
Publisher: The Middle Way Publications
Edition: Authorised Machine-Accessible Edition
Section: Chapter 15
Chapter Title: Pāli Language
Pāli Title: Pāli Bhāsā
Copyright: © 2026 Anup Poudyal. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER TEXT

Chapter 15: Pāli Language Pāli Bhāsā

This chapter introduces Dependent Origination through its key terms and guiding questions rather than through a full exposition of the sequence. The aim here is orientation and clarification, not completion. What is established in this chapter is taken up and examined in detail in the following chapter.

In the early tradition, Dependent Origination is not treated as a teaching to be grasped in a single pass. It is returned to repeatedly, each time seen more clearly as understanding matures. For this reason, these chapters are best read without haste, allowing familiarity to develop alongside reflection. What matters at this stage is not immediate mastery, but careful attention to how the teaching is meant to function in experience.

Author’s Note 15.1

Dependent Origination occupies a unique place in the Buddha’s teaching.

It is subtle, central, and frequently misunderstood. What follows may differ from some familiar interpretations found in later commentaries and modern scholarship. This is not an act of opposition, but an attempt to return closer to how this teaching functions in lived experience.

The Buddha did not present Dependent Origination as an abstract theory or a metaphysical explanation, but as something immediate, observable, and directly liberating. When this immediacy is lost, the teaching can become complex without becoming clear. The intention here is not to introduce novelty, but to remove accumulated confusion and allow the structure of the teaching to reveal itself more plainly.

This requires care, honesty, and restraint. We proceed with respect for

the tradition, confidence in the early discourses, and a commitment to clarity over inheritance. With that orientation in mind, we now turn to Dependent Origination itself.

The Twelve Links (Pāli → Standard Modern English)

Saṁyutta Nikāya 12.1 Dependent Origination

1. Avijjā-paccayā saṅkhārā

With ignorance as a condition, volitional formations come to be.

2. Saṅkhāra-paccayā viññāṇaṃ

With volitional formations as a condition, consciousness comes to be.

3. Viññāṇa-paccayā nāma-rūpaṃ

With consciousness as a condition, name-and-form comes to be.

4. Nāma-rūpa-paccayā saḷāyatanaṃ

With name-and-form as condition, the six sense bases come to be.

5. Saḷāyatana-paccayā phasso

With the six sense bases as conditions, contact comes to be.

6. Phassa-paccayā vedanā

With contact as a condition, feeling comes to be.

7. Vedanā-paccayā taṇhā

With feeling as a condition, craving comes to be.

8. Taṇhā-paccayā upādānaṃ

With craving as a condition, clinging comes to be.

9. Upādāna-paccayā bhavo

With clinging as a condition, becoming comes to be.

10. Bhava-paccayā jāti

With becoming as a condition, birth comes to be.

11. Jāti-paccayā jarāmaraṇaṃ soka-parideva-dukkha-domanassa-upāyāsā sambhavanti.

With birth as a condition, ageing-and-death comes to be, together with sor-

row, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair.

Translation Difficulties

Translating the Pāli Canon into English is an extraordinarily difficult task. At times, no direct equivalent exists. At other times, a translation may be technically accurate, yet the English word carries associations that subtly distort the original meaning. In some cases, the spirit of a sutta is better conveyed through a descriptive phrase than through a single term.

The explanations that follow are detailed because each term is approached from multiple angles. This may feel demanding, especially if this

is your first sustained encounter with Dependent Origination. For readers already familiar with the topic, this section may invite an expansion or even a reconfiguration of how these ideas have been understood.

Question 1

I would like to explore a subtle issue that is rarely discussed: the grammatical structure of the Pāli used in many presentations of Dependent Origination. When I read the chain in the original language, something feels unusual. Many of the links appear grammatically incomplete to an English speaker. For example, avijjā-paccayā saṅkhārā translates very literally as “with ignorance as condition, formations.” A verb is often implied rather than explicitly stated.

This raises an interesting possibility. When these phrases are translated into languages that naturally prefer explicit verbs, does the meaning shift slightly? Instead of reading the relationship, the mind may automatically interpret it as “formations arise because of ignorance” or “ignorance causes formations.” While these interpretations may be valid within the broader teaching, they are already one step removed from the grammatical structure of the original expression.

I am not suggesting that the Pāli formula denies causation, nor that every presentation of Dependent Origination in the discourses uses this compressed structure. Rather, I am asking whether something important may be hidden in the brevity and openness of the original wording itself. Does the grammatical form encourage us to see conditionality differently from simple linear causation?

If so, which languages are most affected by the need to supply explicit verbs or causal constructions? Would English, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Burmese, Thai, or Sinhala naturally guide the reader toward a more rigid interpretation than the original Pāli intended? And finally, how should we address this issue

so that we preserve the spirit of the original formulation as closely as possible?

Answer

You are noticing something important. Many presentations of Dependent Origination in the early discourses use a remarkably compressed grammatical structure, and this compression may influence how the teaching is understood when translated into other languages.

The Pāli Expressions Are Not Complete Sentences

Each link of the chain, avijjā-paccayā saṅkhārā, saṅkhāra-paccayā viññāṇaṃ, and so on, is not presented as a full sentence. The construction is elliptical. A verb is deliberately left unstated. The literal structure is:

• X-paccayā Y — ‘With X as condition, Y ...’

What is missing is any explicit verb such as ‘arises,’ ‘comes to be,’ or ‘is produced.’ The phrase simply hangs. This is a recognised feature of Pāli analytical style, especially in teachings concerned with conditionality rather than narrative description.

What This Structure Emphasises

By omitting the verb, attention is drawn away from events and outcomes and placed directly on conditional dependence itself. The grammar does not describe something happening, moving, or being generated. It simply presents a relationship.

Whether intentional pedagogy or a natural consequence of the language, the effect aligns closely with the Buddha’s teaching. There is no agent, no substance travelling through the chain, and no implied entity being produced. What is foregrounded is conditionality without reification. In

this way, the structure itself discourages the mind from reading Dependent Origination as a process involving things or selves, and instead points toward a pattern of dependence.

What Happens in Translation

Most target languages cannot sustain this ellipsis. English, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Thai, Burmese, and Sinhala all tend to require explicit verbs to form a complete sentence. As a result, translators must supply something like:

• ‘Y arises because of X.’

• ‘With X as a condition, Y comes to be.’

While these renderings are not incorrect, they subtly shift emphasis. Once a verb is inserted, the reader’s attention moves toward arising, production, or causation as an event. The mind begins to imagine something happening, something being generated, or something progressing through time.

Over time, this linguistic shift can encourage interpretations that are not made explicit in the early discourses. This can lead readers to understand Dependent Origination in ways the early discourses do not require, such as:

- As a strictly linear chain where one link mechanically produces the next

- As a process that must unfold over long periods of time

- As a system meant only to explain rebirth across lifetimes

- As a sequence beginning with ignorance as the first cause

In the early texts, however, Dependent Origination is presented more sparingly, leaving open whether the pattern is observed moment to moment, across a single life, or across multiple lives. The emphasis is not on narrating a process in time, but on pointing to conditionality itself.

Which Languages Are Most Affected

Any language that requires explicit verbs will tend to introduce this distortion unless special care is taken. English is particularly prone to this. Sanskrit can accommodate elliptical constructions, but later philosophical Sanskrit often verbalised Dependent Origination more heavily. Tibetan and Chinese typically insert causal verbs to maintain grammatical clarity. Southeast Asian languages closer to Pāli still face similar translation pressures.

Pāli itself preserves the structure most directly. Other languages can convey it only with explanation, because their grammar naturally pushes toward verbal completion.

How to Handle This in the Book Keep the literal Pāli structure. Example:

• Avijjā-paccayā saṅkhārā — ‘With ignorance as condition, saṅkhārā ...’ This is academically honest and philosophically precise.

How to fix this issue in this book?

You already did it by explaining the grammar.

Question 2

Can we start with some specific terms that often create difficulty when trying to understand the full sequence of Dependent Origination. The first of these is saṅkhāra. Let us examine this term through the lens of three closely related languages: Nepali, Hindi and Sanskrit. We begin by identifying the closest equivalent in each language, and then checking whether their meanings remain consistent across these traditions. This comparison allows us to move closer to the most faithful sense of the word as it functioned in the Buddha’s time.

The Sanskrit cognate is especially significant here, as Sanskrit was still in active use during that period and often preserves semantic layers that help illuminate the Pāli usage. In this way, Sanskrit becomes a natural bridge between Pāli and the three living Indo-Aryan languages we rely on today.

The second step is to place that understanding beside the current English translation. What is the commonly accepted rendering of saṅkhāra in English? How accurate is it when evaluated against the meanings uncovered in the first step? And, more importantly, is there a better option? Should

we retain the Pāli term, or adopt a more precise phrase rather than forcing a single English word to carry the full weight of its meaning?

Answer

In Nepali, Hindi and Sanskrit, and saṅkhāra corresponds closely to saṃskāra or sanskār, words that carry the sense of forming, shaping, imprinting, and conditioning. In modern Hindi and Nepali, sanskār is often praised as ‘good upbringing,’ ‘values,’ or ‘culture.’ Yet when examined carefully, these meanings point not to deliberate choice, but to deeply embedded conditioning: habits, assumptions, emotional tendencies, and reflexive patterns impressed upon a person over time.

This is already significant. Much of what we call character or values is not consciously chosen at all. Families, schools, religious traditions, media, and wider social environments all shape perception and response long before reflective awareness develops. In Buddhist terms, these influences leave traces that condition how experience is interpreted and reacted to. Prejudices, loyalties, fears, and ideals are absorbed gradually and become part of the background structure through which the world is perceived.

At the same time, saṅkhāra in the early discourses is not limited to social conditioning. It also refers to moment-by-moment mental construc-

tion: the subtle tendencies that shape intention, attention, and reaction in the present. The Buddha analyses these processes in more technical terms as bodily, verbal, and mental formations (kāya-, vacī-, and citta-saṅkhāra). An important point is that many of these formations operate before deliberate intention. For example, when an unpleasant feeling arises, the tendency to contract, resist, or seek escape often appears immediately. Such reactions are not created in that moment. They express conditioning already in motion, shaped by experience and shaping what comes next.

Understood in this wider sense, saṅkhāra cannot be reduced to a single English term such as ‘volition’ or ‘habits.’ Those words capture only a narrow slice of its meaning. Saṅkhāra includes intentional action, but it also includes the pre-intentional tendencies that make certain intentions more likely than others. It refers to the entire conditioning process by which experience leaves imprints, and by which those imprints in turn structure consciousness, perception, and behaviour.

In this sense, saṅkhāra is both the mechanism by which suffering perpetuates and the very mechanism through which liberation becomes possible. The same process that binds can be understood, refined, and ultimately brought to cessation. Recognising this dual role is essential before moving further into Dependent Origination, because it clarifies that liberation is not imposed from outside, but unfolds through understanding the conditioning already at work.

For this reason, it is often more precise to retain the term saṅkhāra rather than force a single English equivalent to carry its full weight. Doing so preserves the sense that the Buddha was pointing not to a single mental act, but to the deep conditioning impressions and constructive tendencies that shape the flow of experience itself.

Question 3

Having clarified the depth of saṅkhāra and choosing to retain the original Pāli term, I would like to apply the same care to the ninth link in Dependent Origination: upādāna.

To begin simply, how is upādāna understood across closely related languages such as Sanskrit, Hindi and Nepali? What range of meanings does the term carry in ordinary and philosophical usage?

How does this broader linguistic field compare with the standard English translation, most often rendered as ‘clinging’? And how does the

Buddha use upādāna in the discourses?

Answer

Let us begin with the word itself. Pāli upādāna corresponds directly to Sanskrit upādāna and to the modern Indo-Aryan forms upādān in Hindi and Nepali. Across these languages, the term carries a remarkably consistent semantic range centred on taking up, holding, sustaining, and serving as material or fuel.

In Buddhist discourses, upādāna plays a closely related but more precise role. It refers to appropriating, taking up, or making something ‘mine.’ From this comes the familiar English rendering ‘clinging.’ The suttas identify four kinds of upādāna, appropriation of:

• Sensuality

• Views

- Rites and rituals

- Theories of self

In each case, the mind does not merely encounter experience. It actively takes it up, feeds on it, and treats it as a basis for identity and continuity.

Of the available English options, ‘appropriation’ comes closest to conveying what upādāna is doing, though no single English word fully captures its range.

Question 4

I will use ‘appropriation’ to render upādāna, as it appears to be the closest English equivalent.

The next word is jāti. It appears at the eleventh step in the Dependent Origination chain and is usually translated as ‘birth’. If we do not investigate it in depth, this translation can easily mislead us. This is one of those words that have everyday use and appear frequently in daily speech, so their familiarity can be deceptive in the specific context of Dependent Origination.

To Explore This Properly, I Would Like to Repeat Our Earlier Method:

1. Examine jāti across three related languages, Nepali, Hindi, and Sanskrit,

and consider its broader meanings beyond simply ‘birth’.

2. Check whether these broader meanings remain consistent across these traditions.

3. Compare these findings with the standard English translation, and assess whether the term ‘birth’ truly captures the meaning, or whether it distorts the original sense.

Within the Buddha’s analysis of experience, there is no permanent self to

be found in a human being. From this perspective, it becomes difficult to interpret jāti simply as a person’s birth in the ordinary sense. In Dependent Origination, what we conventionally call a ‘person’ has already been analysed into twelve interdependent processes. This raises a genuine question: if no solid individual is being posited at this level of analysis, in what sense can jāti be understood here? Does reading it straightforwardly as the birth of a fixed individual distort the teaching at this point?

Answer

When we examine jāti within Dependent Origination, it quickly becomes clear that the usual English translation ‘birth’ is both correct and incomplete. It is correct in ordinary usage, yet insufficient if taken as the whole meaning the Buddha intended.

In everyday Nepali, Hindi and Sanskrit, jāti does mean birth. At the same time, it also refers more broadly to kind, category, caste, species, social identity, or the status one is known by. Because the word is so familiar, it is easy to assume that jāti in Dependent Origination must refer straightforwardly to the physical birth of a person. When placed within the Buddha’s own analytical framework, however, this assumption becomes unstable.

In the discourses, the Buddha defines jāti as the arising of beings into various orders of existence. This clearly supports a multi-lifetime reading and accounts for rebirth across realms. At the same time, the Buddha insists that Dependent Origination is to be seen directly. He repeatedly instructs practitioners to observe conditionality ‘here and now,’ in lived experience. This does not negate the multi-lifetime dimension. Rather, it shows that the same pattern governing rebirth also governs the arising of identity and suffering within a life. What is born through conditions is not only a body, but a sense of being someone, located somewhere, and subject to loss.

This is where Dependent Origination begins to demand multi-level

understanding. Read narrowly, jāti becomes only a story about biological birth. Read too abstractly, it risks being reduced to a purely psychological event. The discourses support neither reduction. They present a single lawful pattern that operates across different scales: across lifetimes, within a life, and in the ongoing construction of identity.

A simple analogy may help. Heat conditions evaporation, and the same relationship can be observed at very different scales. We can watch a drop of water evaporate in moments, see the gradual loss of water from a lake over months or years, or observe evaporation continuously across the oceans of the entire planet. The scale and duration change, but the underlying conditional relationship does not. In the same way, Dependent Origination can describe conditioning unfolding moment by moment, shaping the course of a human life, and continuing through repeated birth and death. The timescale changes; the principle of conditional dependence remains the same.

Seen through this lens, jāti fits precisely where it appears in Dependent Origination. It marks the point at which conditioned existence becomes manifest, whether across lifetimes or directly in experience. The Buddha’s teaching does not force a choice between these readings. It asks that the pattern itself be understood clearly, wherever and however it is seen.

Author’s Note 15.2

This chapter clarified several key terms within Dependent Origination and showed how translation choices can obscure conditionality. With these terms established, the next chapter will walk through the sequence in full so that the links can be seen in their functional order and meaning.