Mason & Dixon
by Francis Mason, Eisel Mazard
Category: Foreign Language Study

A grammatical textbook for the Pali language with Burmese and Sinhalese script (alongside the Romanization), this edition offers a combination of the new (2015) and the old (1868), with some eccentric digressions into the Ashokan inscriptions, theories of the history and origins of the language, and anecdotes from an era when European archaeology and scholarship were (re-)discovering Theravada Buddhist philosophy. Mason's approach to the language is based in the ancient grammar of Kaccāyana, and reflects the first (pioneering) attempts of Europeans to explain the language to a western audience (often making comparisons to Latin, Greek and Sanskrit). This can be used in conjunction with the three other (free!) PDF textbooks for the Pali language available for download (at www.pali.pratyeka.org).