Pali has no native speakers. Neither does Prakrit. Both are languages whose living descendants, if they have any, are different enough to count as different languages.
Under the criteria India used from 2004, that was close to disqualifying. Under the criteria India adopted in 2024, it is explicitly permitted — and that single change is why Pali and Prakrit now sit alongside Tamil and Sanskrit on the list of the country's classical languages.
On 3 October 2026, the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, approved the establishment of five Centres of Excellence (CoEs) for studies in Classical Assamese, Classical Bengali, Classical Marathi, Classical Pali and Classical Prakrit.
Where they go, and why
| Classical language | Centre of Excellence |
|---|---|
| Classical Assamese | Tezpur University, Assam |
| Classical Bengali | Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal |
| Classical Marathi | Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute (Deemed to be University), Pune, Maharashtra |
| Classical Pali | Central University of Odisha, Odisha |
| Classical Prakrit | Central University of Gujarat, Gujarat |
Three of those placements are obvious — Assamese in Assam, Bengali at the university Tagore founded, Marathi at Deccan College, which has been a centre of Sanskrit and Indological scholarship since the nineteenth century and produced the Sanskrit Dictionary project.
The other two are the interesting ones, and they are not arbitrary.
Pali at the Central University of Odisha. Pali is the canonical language of Theravada Buddhism — the language of the Tipitaka. Odisha's claim is archaeological and historical: the Dhauli edict site where Ashoka recorded his remorse after the Kalinga war, and the Buddhist complex of Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitagiri in Jajpur district. Kalinga is where the single most consequential conversion in Indian Buddhist history took place.
Prakrit at the Central University of Gujarat. Prakrit — strictly a family of Middle Indo-Aryan vernaculars rather than one language — is the language of the Jain Agamas, the canonical texts of Jainism, composed largely in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit. Gujarat has among the largest Jain populations and the deepest institutional Jain scholarly tradition in India. Siting Prakrit there puts it where the manuscripts and the scholars are.
The Centres will work on four broad areas: strengthening academic research and scholarship, preservation and digitisation of linguistic and literary heritage, and wider dissemination of knowledge.
The eleven, and when each was recognised
| Language | Year |
|---|---|
| Tamil | 2004 |
| Sanskrit | 2005 |
| Telugu | 2008 |
| Kannada | 2008 |
| Malayalam | 2013 |
| Odia | 2014 |
| Marathi | October 2024 |
| Pali | October 2024 |
| Prakrit | October 2024 |
| Assamese | October 2024 |
| Bengali | October 2024 |
That table is the single most examinable fact in this topic. Tamil was first, in 2004. Sanskrit followed in 2005. Telugu and Kannada share 2008. Then a decade's gap after Odia in 2014, and five at once in October 2024 taking the total from six to eleven.
Note what classical status is not. It is distinct from inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which lists 22 languages and governs their use in official and educational contexts. The two lists overlap but are not the same: Pali and Prakrit are classical languages but are not in the Eighth Schedule, while most Eighth Schedule languages are not classical. Conflating the two is the commonest error in this area.
Classical status is accorded by the Ministry of Culture, on the examination of proposals by a Linguistic Experts Committee constituted under the Sahitya Akademi. The benefits are academic rather than administrative: international awards for scholars, professional chairs in central universities, and Centres of Excellence — which is precisely what was approved here.
The criteria, and what changed
The original criteria (2004) required:
- High antiquity of early texts or recorded history over a thousand years
- A body of ancient literature or texts considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers
- A literary tradition that is original and not borrowed from another speech community
The revised criteria (2024) require:
- High antiquity of early texts or recorded history over 1,500 to 2,000 years
- A body of ancient literature or texts considered heritage by generations of speakers
- Knowledge texts, especially prose texts in addition to poetry, together with epigraphical and inscriptional evidence
- That the classical language and its literature may be distinct from its current form, or discontinuous with the later forms of its offshoots
Read those two lists side by side and the revision pulls in two directions at once, which is the genuinely interesting thing about it.
The antiquity bar went up — from a thousand years to between fifteen hundred and two thousand. That is a tightening.
The continuity requirement was relaxed. The fourth criterion explicitly permits a classical language to be discontinuous with whatever descended from it. This is the clause that admits Pali and Prakrit, neither of which has a continuous living speech community, and it also matters for the classical forms of Assamese, Bengali and Marathi, which differ substantially from their modern forms.
And the evidentiary standard shifted. Requiring knowledge texts, especially prose alongside poetry is a demand that the language carried systematic thought — grammar, philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy — not only literature. Adding epigraphic and inscriptional evidence means the claim must be datable from stone and copper, not only from manuscript traditions that are themselves later copies.
The honest reading is that this is a defensible reframing of what "classical" means — from continuously venerated to demonstrably ancient and intellectually substantial — and also that widening criteria tends to increase the number of claimants. Several other languages have pressed for the status, and the criteria now in force will govern those claims.
What the Centres of Excellence add is the part that outlasts the announcement. A language with no native speakers survives only through institutions: scholars trained to read it, manuscripts catalogued and digitised, dictionaries and grammars maintained. Pali and Prakrit in particular are read today almost entirely by specialists, and a Centre with a budget and a university home is the difference between a status and a discipline — the same reasoning that drives the Gyan Bharatam Mission on manuscripts and the concern about transmission that runs through India's tribal languages.
🔑 Revision block
- 3 October 2026: the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education approved five Centres of Excellence for Classical Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Pali and Prakrit.
- Locations: Assamese → Tezpur University; Bengali → Visva-Bharati University; Marathi → Deccan College PG and Research Institute, Pune; Pali → Central University of Odisha; Prakrit → Central University of Gujarat.
- Pali is the canonical language of Theravada Buddhism (the Tipitaka). Odisha's link: Dhauli (Ashoka's Kalinga edict) and the Ratnagiri-Udayagiri-Lalitagiri Buddhist complex.
- Prakrit is a family of Middle Indo-Aryan vernaculars; the Jain Agamas are largely in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit. Gujarat has a deep Jain scholarly tradition.
- The eleven classical languages and their years: Tamil 2004 · Sanskrit 2005 · Telugu 2008 · Kannada 2008 · Malayalam 2013 · Odia 2014 · Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, Bengali — October 2024.
- Classical status ≠ Eighth Schedule. The Eighth Schedule lists 22 languages. Pali and Prakrit are classical but NOT in the Eighth Schedule.
- Status is accorded by the Ministry of Culture, on examination by a Linguistic Experts Committee under the Sahitya Akademi. Benefits: international awards for scholars, professional chairs, Centres of Excellence.
- Original criteria (2004): antiquity over 1,000 years; a body of ancient literature held as heritage; a literary tradition original and not borrowed.
- Revised criteria (2024): antiquity over 1,500-2,000 years; a body of ancient literature; knowledge texts, especially prose, plus epigraphical and inscriptional evidence; and the classical language may be distinct from its current form or discontinuous with later offshoots.
- The revision tightened antiquity, relaxed continuity, and raised the evidentiary standard. The discontinuity clause is what admits Pali and Prakrit.
- The CoEs will focus on research and scholarship, preservation and digitisation, and dissemination.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The first Indian language to be accorded classical status, and the year, were: (a) Tamil, in 2004 (b) Sanskrit, in 2005 (c) Telugu, in 2008 (d) Odia, in 2014
→ (a) Tamil, in 2004, was the first. Sanskrit followed in 2005 — a sequence candidates frequently reverse because Sanskrit is the older language.
Q2. How many Indian languages currently hold classical language status? (a) 6 (b) 22 (c) 11 (d) 8
→ (c) Eleven — the original six plus the five granted status in October 2024. The figure 22 is the number of languages in the Eighth Schedule, which is a different list.
Q3. Which pair of languages holds classical status but does NOT appear in the Eighth Schedule? (a) Odia and Malayalam (b) Marathi and Bengali (c) Tamil and Telugu (d) Pali and Prakrit
→ (d) Pali and Prakrit are classical languages but are not Eighth Schedule languages. All the others listed are both — which is exactly the overlap that makes this distinction worth knowing.
Q4. Under the criteria revised in 2024, the required antiquity of early texts or recorded history is: (a) 500 years (b) 1,000 years (c) 1,500 to 2,000 years (d) 2,500 years
→ (c) The revised criteria require 1,500 to 2,000 years, raised from the 1,000 years of the 2004 criteria. The antiquity bar went up even as the continuity requirement was relaxed.
Q5. Which element of the 2024 revised criteria most directly enables Pali and Prakrit to qualify? (a) The requirement of epigraphical evidence (b) The provision that a classical language may be discontinuous with later forms of its offshoots (c) The raised antiquity threshold (d) The requirement of prose knowledge texts
→ (b) Neither Pali nor Prakrit has a continuous living speech community. The discontinuity clause removes the obstacle that a strict continuity requirement would have created.
Q6. Classical language status in India is accorded by which Ministry, on the examination of proposals by which body? (a) Ministry of Education, through the University Grants Commission (b) Ministry of Home Affairs, through the Official Language Commission (c) Ministry of Culture, through a Linguistic Experts Committee under the Sahitya Akademi (d) Ministry of Minority Affairs, through the Central Institute of Indian Languages
→ (c) The Ministry of Culture accords the status, with proposals examined by a Linguistic Experts Committee constituted under the Sahitya Akademi. The Ministry of Education runs the Centres of Excellence, which is a separate function.
Q7. Pali is best described as the canonical language of: (a) Theravada Buddhism (b) Mahayana Buddhism (c) Jainism (d) The Vedic corpus
→ (a) Pali is the language of the Tipitaka, the Theravada canon. The Jain Agamas are largely in Prakrit — specifically Ardhamagadhi — and the Vedic corpus is in Vedic Sanskrit.
Q8. The Centre of Excellence for Classical Prakrit has been approved at: (a) Deccan College, Pune (b) Central University of Odisha (c) Visva-Bharati University (d) Central University of Gujarat
→ (d) Central University of Gujarat — reflecting Gujarat's Jain scholarly tradition, Prakrit being the language of the Jain canon. Central University of Odisha hosts Pali, for Odisha's Buddhist heritage.
Q9. The 2024 criteria added a requirement for 'knowledge texts, especially prose texts in addition to poetry'. The purpose of this is to establish that the language: (a) Was used in royal administration (b) Carried systematic thought such as grammar, philosophy, law or science (c) Had a standardised script (d) Was spoken across more than one region
→ (b) Requiring prose knowledge texts tests whether the language carried systematic intellectual work — grammar, philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy — rather than literature alone.
Q10. The Centre of Excellence for Classical Bengali has been approved at: (a) Visva-Bharati University (b) Tezpur University (c) University of Calcutta (d) Jadavpur University
→ (a) Visva-Bharati University, the institution founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Tezpur University hosts Classical Assamese, which is the distractor the question is built around.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Language questions in CDS fall into four groups, and this topic supplies all four.
The first and most important is the list-versus-list distinction. The Eighth Schedule has 22 languages and concerns official use; classical status covers 11 and concerns scholarly heritage; official languages of the Union under Article 343 are Hindi in Devanagari and English. Three different lists for three different purposes, and the paper tests whether a candidate keeps them apart.
The second is years of recognition. Tamil 2004 and Sanskrit 2005 are asked most often, because the chronological order inverts the intuitive order. The five added in October 2024 are now fresh material and highly likely to appear.
The third is language-to-corpus matching: Pali with the Tipitaka and Theravada Buddhism, Prakrit with the Jain Agamas, Sanskrit with the Vedas and the classical literature, Tamil with the Sangam corpus and the Tirukkural. This is culture and history as much as language, and it is examined from both sides.
The fourth is institutional: the Sahitya Akademi for letters, the Central Institute of Indian Languages at Mysuru, the Central Institute of Classical Tamil, the National Mission for Manuscripts. Each does something specific, and a question naming one and asking its function is standard.
Preparing for CDS/OTA? Draw the three language lists side by side — Eighth Schedule, classical languages, official languages — with their counts and their purposes. Most language questions are a test of which list is being asked about. Build the base with our CDS/OTA study material, follow the daily CDS current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Hitendra Deswal — Economy and polity faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.