Nina wrote:

>op 28-09-2002 19:37 schreef Robert Eddison op robedd@...:
>> [The Buddha]
>> "Sace te, Bhaggava, agaru viharemu aavesane ekarattan ti."

>N: viharemu (from viharati) must be optative, but I could not find it in
>Warder under optative or under sace. This intrigues me. I would appreciate
>help.
>Nina.

Dear Nina,

Yes, the -emu ending is optative. I expect Warder omitted it because it is
so rare in the Diigha Nikaaya on which his book is based. Kaccaayana's
grammar also leaves it out, giving only the regular endings:

Parassapada:
1. eyya eyyu.m
2. eyyaasi eyyaatha
3. eyyaami eyyaama

Attanopada:
1. etha era.m
2. etho eyyavho
3. eyya.m eyyaamhe

Nevertheless, Moggallaana, Aggavamsa and Kaccaayana's commentator
Buddhapiya all agree that emu is an alternative form for eyyaama, the
optative 1st person plural (or 3rd person plural if we're going to follow
the Indian system in which 'he' and 'she' are the 1st person).

Aggava.msa writes:

"Kvaci eyyaamass'emu. Eyyaama-vibhattiyaa emu-aadeso hoti kvaci. Tayajja
guttaa viharemu divasa.m. Katha.m jaanemu ta.m maya.m? Na no dakkhemu
Sambuddha.m."
(Saddaniiti, Suttamaala, sutta 1080)

Translation:

"In some places emu for eyyaama. Emu is a substitute for the eyyaama
inflection in some places. Examples:
"Today may I live the day protected by you." (Mora Jaataka)
"How should we know it?" (S i 13 et al.)
"We may not see the Fully Awakened One." (DhpA. Devoroha.navatthu)


He also gives -omu as an alternative ending for verbs in the tanaadi group.
But this seems extremely rare. All I can find on my Tipi.taka CD are two
occurences of 'pappomu' ("may we attain") in the Jaataka Commentary.

In canonical prose passages emu is also a fairly rare bird and seems mostly
to be found in certain formal expressions such as the one you cited from
the Dhaatuvibhan.ga Sutta. In verse, on the other hand, emu's are much more
common. I should think that this is due to the metrical inconvenience that
the regular ending "-eyyaama" would cause. Using this ending one would be
burdened with a giant ostrich of a word like "vihaareyyaama". In the most
commonly used Pali metres if one were to say "vihaareyyaama" there would
only be space for two or three more syllables on the line. So replacing the
ostrich with an emu (or an omu) gives the poet more free syllables to play
with.

By the way, if anyone is wondering why the verb is in the plural when only
one person is speaking, this is a Pali convention used sometimes when
the speaker is someone of importance like a Buddha, a king, or (in the
Jaatakas) the chief of some group of animals. I suppose it's something
like the 'royal we' in English.

Best wishes,

Robert