Middle Indo-Aryan language of the 5th century BC in which the most essential documents of Theravada Buddhism are written.
Linguistically, Pali is a homogenization of the northern Middle Indo-Aryan dialects in which the Buddha 's teachings were orally recorded and transmitted. According to the tradition of Sri Lankan chronicles, the Theravada canon was first written down in the 1st century BC, though its oral transmission continued long afterward. No single script was ever developed for Pali; scribes used scripts of their own languages to copy canonical texts and commentaries (see Indic writing systems ), and most extant palm-leaf manuscripts of Pali are of relatively recent date.