Pāli is a language spoken in North East India at the time of the Buddha and thought to be used by the Buddha in his teaching. The original teaching of the Buddha was initially transmitted orally, then first preserved in written form in the Pāli language, several hundred years after the Buddha’s death, as the Tipiṭaka (V: Tam Tạng, The Three Baskets) that consists of three sections (piṭaka): Vinaya (V: Luật, Discipline), Sutta (V: Kinh, Discourses of the Buddha), and Abhidhamma (V: Luận, Commentaries). Pāli is currently used as the theological language by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos. The Pāli Text Society, founded in England in the late 19th century, has romanticized the writing of the Pāli language and promoted its used to western scholars.
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