Andy's Pali Page

The purpose of this web page is to help to make Pali a living language. As people in many countries become interested in Buddhism, it will become increasingly difficult for people to communicate accurately about this subject.

As anyone who has translated materials can tell you, it is always better if you can understand and use the original language. I hope to provide some online resources that will make it as easy as possible for people world-wide to learn Pali. Everyone, from beginners to Pali scholars, will find valuable resources here.

This web page is offered in the Buddhist spirit of dana (generosity). Everything is available without cost as a download. All my materials and web pages are copyrighted under the terms of a GNU license.

It doesn't matter what type of computer you are using. There are resources here for people using any computer system and any font.

If this is your first visit to this web page, you may find it easier to get an overview if you print out this web page. There is quite a lot of material here.

Here is a suggested strategy for beginners:
1. dowload the font "LeedsBit PaliTranslit"
2. dowload the textbook "An Elementary Pali Course" by Ven. Narada (textbook 1)
3. download the sound files (these are the 590 words in the textbook mini-dictionary)
4. download Input Easy
5. download the Input Easy learning file for Ven. Narada's textbook
6. download Paliwords (an electronic Pali dictionary with 48,000 words)
7. download Palitrans (the Pali word processing software).
8. join the Pali Translator Mailing List newsgroup
9. visit the dhammagiri CSCD web site (Pali Canon online)
10. visit the Access to Insight web site (many excellent translations).

General Information

Site Design Notes

How this web site is designed to be usable by people all over the world.

Pali Newgroups Online

Pali Translator Mailing List

This is an excellent group of "amateur" translators who are working systematically to translate the Pali Canon texts into English. You can join the group by clicking on the link on the left. Everyone welcome!

subscribe to pali-intro-l

This is an English speaking group of Pali students who are working together to improve their knowledge of Pali.

You can join the group by sending an email message with "subscribe pali-intro-l" (that's an "el" at the end) as the subject line and only line in the email message itself.

Fonts
Pali Word Processor
Pali Sound mp3
Pali Textbooks

Pali Fonts

Lots of material. Get usage tips, Pali fonts, printable font reference tables, font learning files, and more.

Useful Unicode information!

Get a free "transliteration to Pali font" conversion software. (txt2pali).

Palitrans word processor

Get a free Pali word processing software (palitrans) that allows you type type using the transliteration style and instantly see the correct Pali characters.

It also supports simple entry of French and German texts!

Spoken Pali Sound Files

There are about 587 Pali words in the Vocabulary section at the back of Ven. Narada's "An Elementary Pali Course" (see next link).

Ven. Mettavihari created 587 short sound files - one for each word.

They are in mp3 format, so they should be compatible with Windows, Macintosh and Unix computers.

Introductory Pali Textbook 1

This link takes you to the "Pali Language Sources and Resources" web site.

You can get Ven. Narada Thera's textbook "An Elementary Pali Course" as a free download, and the font you will need to read it. The textbook is a word processor file. There are other fine Pali resources on this site.

The textbook includes the Pali alphabet and a pronunciation guide for English speaking people.

Introductory Pali Textbook 2

This link takes you to the "Metta Net" web site.

You can download "A Practical Grammar of the Pali Language" by Charles Duroiselle - Third Edition 1997. The file is in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf). Both the book and the Adobe Acrobat Reader software are free.

The book is a bit hard to find on the web pages. On the first web page click on link "The Pali Tipitaka with Sinhala and English Translations". On that web page, click on the link "Dictionary and Grammar books" at the bottom of the page.

Tipitaka Online
(The Pali Canon)

dhammagiri cscd Tipitaka

This wonderful web site is down. At the same time, the link was "miraculously transformed" into a link to a Christian group. I apologize to anyone who ended up on their site. I'm sure that this Christian group was just as annoyed by the hack as any Buddhist.

Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project

Get the entire Pali Canon and the font you will need to read it as word processor files. Run by the Journal of Buddhist Ethics.

Vipassana Research Institute

Offers the Tipitaka in Pali on CD-ROM. Very handy software tools included. Often referred to as the "CSCD".

Access to Insight

Many excellent translations of the Pali Canon, plus many free books and commentaries.

Pali Dictionary

Pali Text Society Dictionary Online!

This is the most complete Pali-English dictionary in the world! 160,000 entries - now free on the Internet.

Pali Canon Lexicon

This website features a Pali-English and an English-Pali dictionary for browsing along with other resources.

Paliwords 4.0 software

This is a free Pali dictionary software for Windows 95 and above computers.

The dictionary is based on "A Concise Pali-English Dictionary" by Ven. Buddhadatta. It contains 20,000 Pali/English and 28,000 English/Pali entries.

The software is much easier to use, very powerful and very handy!

Other resources

The Pali Text Society

These are the publishers of the key dictionary, textbooks and translations of the Pali Canon used in the English language. You can order their books from this web site.

Input Easy Resource

Input Easy Software

A powerful drill and practice tool that also supports "paper and pencil" methods.

Input Easy has a special option you can activate to help you learn Pali. You can type in the transliteration style, and it will generate the Pali characters automatically.

Learning Files

Various Pali learning files. They require the free learning software "Input Easy".

Copyright issues

Notes about how to copyright learning materials you create.