This paper challenges the scholarly consensus that the Buddha taught in multiple dialects like Māgadhī, a theory known as the Multiple Oral Transmission Theory (MOTT). Instead, it argues for a Single Oral Transmission Theory (SOTT), proposing that the Buddha used a single standard language, which is the language we now call Pali. The author contends that oral translation of the vast canon was impractical, unnecessary due to the mutual intelligibility of Indo-Aryan dialects, and explicitly discouraged by the suttas' emphasis on word-for-word transmission. The traditional identification of the Buddha's language as Māgadhī is based on a misreading of the term *Māgadhabhāsā* in the commentaries, which actually defined it as *Ariyaka* (Indo-Aryan), a pan-regional term. The paper posits that Pali was a natural, pre-existing standard language based on a western dialect, a precursor to the widespread Epigraphic Prakrit, and that the Buddha adopted this sociolect of the educated to ensure a fixed, albeit phonetically fluid, transmission of his teachings across different regions. This working hypothesis refutes the MOTT by explaining dialectal variants in Pali as natural artifacts of a single transmission rather than remnants of a translation, thereby aligning with the Theravada tradition's claim.
