Pali seems to have evolved from the Magadhi.
- I am not sure that the Buddha lived in India. It could have been Sri Lanka. But I will not get into a debate about it because it does not matter to me either way.
- The Sinhala language is very close to Pali. Many common words include sankhara, vinnana, gati, anusaya, asava, etc.
- All the key terms in Paticca Samuppada in Sinhala are the same as in Pali.
- As I noted, the Tipitaka was written in the Sinhala alphabet (over 2000 years ago.)
- Also, there is no evidence of the Pali language in India except for the inscriptions on the “Asoka pillars.” All documents that the British found in India were in Sanskrit; they were Mahayana texts. See “Misinterpretation of Anicca and Anatta by Early European Scholars.”
- I highly recommend the book “The Search of the Buddha” by Charles Allen (2003) — mentioned in the above post — for those interested. His family had been in India for generations serving in the British government, and he was born in India. Thus, he has recorded how various sites were discovered and restored over time.