Pali

The Department of Pali was re-started in June 2005 in the Sanskrit department with 12 students. Eminent Scholar Dr. Yojana Bhagat was appointed as the Coordinator and Head of the Department.

Today in the independent Department of Pali which started in June 2007, we have more than 250 students in the academic year 2015-16 taking courses like M A, M.Phil, One year Certificate course and also PG Diploma in Pali. We soon are starting PhD programme now in the Department. The Department of Pali is proud to say that we have more than 200 Masters in Pali in Mumbai now with 68 NET cleared students with 15 JRF.

The students of Department of Pali are encouraged in the interdisciplinary and pure research in Pali and students have presented research papers in International and National Seminars.

In the Department of Pali, we give emphasis on learning Pali as taught by the Buddha-with Pariyatti, Patipatti and Pativedhana –Pariyatti is reading, listening, discussing the teachings, Patipatti means the efforts to actually walk on the path as read or learned and pativedhana is the experiential knowledge one gains by developing one’s own wisdom. Thus we have one hour meditation session on every Sunday, Dhatu puja meditation on every poornima, recitation of Ratana sutta before every class, special lectures on every Sunday, seminars on different topics like Medicine, Law, Management, Art and architecture in Pali literature, Workshops on Flower arrangements and the teaching’s of the Buddha’, ‘Brahmi script and Pali language’ and so on. We have photo, paintings, Rangoli exhibitions and 4 days Buddha poornima celebration with lighting 2600 lamps in the University campus. We have N K Bhagwat Lecture series, celebrates Sir Alexander Cunningham’s birth anniversary every year with a Conference, conducts state level student’s seminar ‘Antevasikanam Pali Parisa’, take 12 hours study programme on 14th April venerating Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. We pay homage to Babasaheb on 6th December by propagating Pali and Buddhism through notebooks and T-shirts and so on.

Along with this we have two study tours every year where students are taken to different Buddhist archaeological sites of Maharashtra and out of Maharashtra to study the art and architecture personally. Once in every 3 years we also go on a Dhamma study tour to different places associated with Buddha in north India and interact with international Buddhist lay-followers and gain insight into Buddhist traditions of Sri Lanka, Myanmar Thailand and so on.

University of Mumbai had a tradition of Pali learning of more than 100 years, as the first M A Pali course started in Fergusson College Pune by Pali Scholar Dharmanand Kosambi way back in 1912-13, when Pune was in University of Bombay. But it was lost in the interim period. We are trying to bring back the glory of Pali learning by reprinting the Pali books printed and published for the first time in Devanagari script in 1936s by the Pali Text Series-University of Bombay. Till date we have reprinted books like Mahavamsa, Milindapanha and Nidanakatha and Therigatha is in process. Thus we do lot many things to inculcate Buddha’s Teaching in the daily life, so that learning Pali is not just academics but comes out as a culture which was prevalent in India some 1000 years ago.