This is why you should wear a helmet.

[Bluesofa]

11 minutes ago, JamesR said:

Maybe they chant in both depending on the area, I have an Indian friend who know Sanskrit and she can understand what they are chanting and told me it was Sanskrit unless Pali is another local name for Sanskrit. 

But my main point was I was replying to the fact it was claimed in a point most Buddhist follow the teachings , my point is a lot of what is being said is not understood by most Thais by the monks when they chant. 

No way is Pali another name for Sanskrit.
Pali and Sanskrit are two completely different languages. Sanskrit has it's own script, Pali doesn't. As far as I know it  uses in the script of the country where it's being spoken.

A lot of Thai words originate from Sanskrit, but not Pali. The Thai word sawasdee was only introduced in around the 1930s, originating from the Sanskrit word 'svasti' - 'well being'.

[JamesR]

55 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

No way is Pali another name for Sanskrit.
Pali and Sanskrit are two completely different languages. Sanskrit has it's own script, Pali doesn't. As far as I know it  uses in the script of the country where it's being spoken.

A lot of Thai words originate from Sanskrit, but not Pali. The Thai word sawasdee was only introduced in around the 1930s, originating from the Sanskrit word 'svasti' - 'well being'.

Read up on it, as a lot of language scholars would disagree with you, there are varying opinions,  but my main point was that monks use a chanting language which most Thais do not understand, as simple as that.

[JamesR]

1 hour ago, Faraday said:

w

You are right, that is even a better name for you "Far Away (W) anchor".

[JamesE]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

Maybe they chant in both depending on the area, I have an Indian friend who know Sanskrit and she can understand what they are chanting and told me it was Sanskrit unless Pali is another local name for Sanskrit. 

But my main point was I was replying to the fact it was claimed in a point most Buddhist follow the teachings , my point is a lot of what is being said is not understood by most Thais by the monks when they chant. 

"Wait, wait... You're both right. It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!"

Sanskrit is the language of the original cosmology beginning with the Ramayana and Pali is the language of the sacred texts of Buddhism. Thai script is based on Pali so you can read the sacred texts even if you don't understand Pali.

[JamesR]

2 minutes ago, JamesE said:

"Wait, wait... You're both right. It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!"

Sanskrit is the language of the original cosmology beginning with the Ramayana and Pali is the language of the sacred texts of Buddhism. Thai script is based on Pali so you can read the sacred texts even if you don't understand Pali.

Buddhism did start in India as we all know and they still chant in Sanskrit in Buddhist temples in India. So it does seem like they are linked as you have said and I said earlier.

The big difference which make me laugh is Buddhist monks in India do not eat meat, they do not drink and they do not queue up at a 7/11 (as I have seen) to buy cigarettes,

[JamesE]

27 minutes ago, JamesR said:

Buddhism did start in India as we all know and they still chant in Sanskrit in Buddhist temples in India. So it does seem like they are linked as you have said and I said earlier.

The big difference which make me laugh is Buddhist monks in India do not eat meat, they do not drink and they do not queue up at a 7/11 (as I have seen) to buy cigarettes,

I was at an ancestor ceremony in Nakhon Ratchasima a few years ago with my SO's family. Everybody's holding the spirit string, chanting away, and one of the monks' cell phone starts ringing. But, he couldn't let go of the string so he had to let it time out. Chanting resumed and then it happened again. Same story, different monk. When it was over my MIL (the clan matriarch) gave the abbot what for. Needless to say it never happened again.

[JamesR]

7 minutes ago, JamesE said:

I was at an ancestor ceremony in Nakhon Ratchasima a few years ago with my SO's family. Everybody's holding the spirit string, chanting away, and one of the monks' cell phone starts ringing. But, he couldn't let go of the string so he had to let it time out. Chanting resumed and then it happened again. Same story, different monk. When it was over my MIL (the clan matriarch) gave the abbot what for. Needless to say it never happened again.

Funny.

Yes I can imagine, Buddhism as practised on a day to day basis in Thailand is not the deep spiritual and overly deep belief a lot of Westerners who have never been to Thailand see it, it is different for every Thai on a personal level, some see it as something they have to do or else, some are spiritual and do study, some do mediate while chanting over a period of time and some just see it as a social thing where there go and meet other Thais at temples especially older women.

Plus many other variations in between. 

[JamesR]

18 hours ago, gummy said:

This is the wrong thread to discuss delusional religious traits

Since when did you become the person to decide what can and can not be said on this blog?

[gummy]

5 hours ago, JamesR said:

Since when did you become the person to decide what can and can not be said on this blog?

Since when when you unable to read the topic of the thread ?

[Bluesofa]

11 hours ago, JamesE said:

"Wait, wait... You're both right. It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!"

Sanskrit is the language of the original cosmology beginning with the Ramayana and Pali is the language of the sacred texts of Buddhism. Thai script is based on Pali so you can read the sacred texts even if you don't understand Pali.

Ha ha! I like your humour on the first line.

I'm interested when you say that Thai script is based on Pali. As there's no written Pali I assume you mean sounds the from the spoken Pali language perhaps?
I always read Thai is was derived from the Khymer script, although just having looked it up again, Wiki reckons Khymer itself comes from the Pallava alphabet of southern India.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything, but when I've looked at etymology of Thai words, a lot of them seems to be derived from Sanskrit, I can't really remember Pali being mentioned though.

Again, quoting Wiki, it says the 'Pali writing system' uses 'Brāhmī, Kharosthi, Khmer, Burmese, Thai, Sinhala and transliteration to the Latin alphabet'.
This would mean the reason Thais can read the Pali Canons is because it's written in Thai script.

[JamesE]

10 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

This would mean the reason Thais can read the Pali Canons is because it's written in Thai script

I think this is almost the case. Thai script, when invented, was poached from Khmer, and related to the others you mention so the letter forms were already there. Thai then added some letters that were Thai specific. (I don't know which ones). So I'm guessing the pre-Thai texts were written in a script that was similar enough to Thai (minus the "new" letters) to be readable. I think your Sanskrit observation is a good one. It would be interesting to see if those words used only the "old" Khmer-based letters.

[Bluesofa]

43 minutes ago, JamesE said:

I think this is almost the case. Thai script, when invented, was poached from Khmer, and related to the others you mention so the letter forms were already there. Thai then added some letters that were Thai specific. (I don't know which ones). So I'm guessing the pre-Thai texts were written in a script that was similar enough to Thai (minus the "new" letters) to be readable. I think your Sanskrit observation is a good one. It would be interesting to see if those words used only the "old" Khmer-based letters.

Yes, it would be interesting to know about any written Pali canons between the introduction of buddhism to the region (around the first or second century CE) and the invention of Thai script in the thirteenth century.

Talking about the Thai alphabet having Sanskrit and Pali influence, there's a couple of paragraphs on wiki about orthography (paras 2 &3) in the link below confirming that, including this:
"Thai borrowed a large number of words from Sanskrit and Pali, and the Thai alphabet was created so that the original spelling of these words could be preserved as much as possible."

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_script#Orthography  

[JamesR]

14 hours ago, gummy said:

Since when when you unable to read the topic of the thread ?

For how long have you not been able to see a thread can divide into many subthreads, this thread for instance is one. 

[JamesE]

2 hours ago, JamesR said:

For how long have you not been able to see a thread can divide into many subthreads, this thread for instance is one. 

The beauty of an open forum is that only the first few steps of the journey are set. After that it can go anywhere.