Chanting in Pali: Today’s Alienation of the New Generation

Abstract

This paper aims to refl ect my personal view as a Buddhist who has limited knowledge in Pali, as do most Buddhists in Thailand. My concern is due to the fact that the necessity for using Pali in everyday life is diminishing quite rapidly. At the same time, Buddhist monks all over Thailand do not have suffi cient vernacular and Dhamma knowledge to understand the depth of the core teaching of the Buddha. As a result, by merely being chanted in Pali without the chanter’s clear understanding of its meaning, Buddhism could be reduced to a religious ceremony without any substance. This paper is written to urge Buddhists to look into this problem seriously and to encourage Buddhist monks to chant in Pali together with its meaning in Thai, so that Buddhists will benefi t more from the Buddha’s teaching than they currently do.