This is a response to a post of several weeks back from Tzungkuen. I don't
remember seeing anyone reply to it, but if someone has already done so,
then please accept my apologies for missing it.

>Dear Dhamma friends:
>
>Please do me a favor
>There is a gathaa in KosalaSamyuttam in Samyuttam Nikaaya.
>
>Aayu.m arogiya.m van.n.a.m, sagga.m uccaakuliinata.m ;
>Ratiyo patthayantena, ul.aaraa aparaaparaa.
>Appamaada.m pasa.msanti, pu~n~nakiriyaasu pan.d.itaa

>which is translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu as follows
>
>For one who desires
>long life, health,
>beauty, heaven, & noble birth,
>-- lavish delights, one after another --
>the wise praise heedfulness
>in performing deeds of merit.


>But I don't know how to analyze 'Ratiyo patthayantena, ul.aaraa aparaaparaa.'
>
>Ratiyo : (rati)f.pl.N. or Ac?. meaning 'delight'

Plural: delights. Accusative, because it is the direct object of
patthayanta ("one wishing for...").

>patthayantena :(patthayanta)ppr.sg.I. meaning 'to desire' , why
>Instrumental case?

Because it is *by* the person wishing for long life etc. that diligence
must be exercised. Thanissaro renders it inaccurately as if it were a
dative. (I will have more to say on this below).

>ul.aaraa : (ul.aara) adj.f.pl.N or Ac?. meaning 'great or superb'

Accusative because it qualifies ratiyo. Bodhi translate it as "lofty".
Others use "sublime", "excellent", "fine" etc. What is certain is that the
word u.laara pertains to quality not quantity. Thanissaro's rendering of
"lavish" should therefore be discarded.

>aparaaparaa :?? [in PED. p.52, there is only aparaaparam. meaning 'again
>and again' ]

The PED also gives "to and fro" and "off and on". Childers gives "on and
on", "successively", "up and down", and "backwards and forwards". Where the
passage has to do with movement the context makes it obvious which
direction is denoted, e.g. waves go up and down, bhikkhus go backwards and
forwards on their walking paths etc. In other contexts regular temporal
succession and/or recurrence is the commonest meaning. Where it means
something else the commentary will indicate this. Both the PED and the
Childers dictionary limit themselves to the adverbial form, but in the
present context the word is an adjective qualifying ratiyo.

>What I understand is as follows:
>
>Aayu.m : (aayu)n.sg.Ac. meaning 'long life'
>arogiya.m :(arogiya) m.sg.Ac. meaning 'health'
>van.n.a.m: (van.n.a)m.sg.Ac. meaning 'beauty'
>sagga.m : (sagga)m.sg.Ac. meaning 'heaven'
>uccaakuliinata.m :(uccaakuliinataa) f.sg.Ac. meaning 'noble birth'

Yes.

>Appamaada.m :(appamaada) n.sg.Ac. meaning 'earnestness, vigilance'

Masculine.

>pasa.msanti :(pasa.msati) pres.3.sg.P. meaning 'praise'
>pu~n~nakiriyaasu: (pu~n~na-kiriyaa) meaning 'in performing deeds of merit'
>pan.d.itaa : (pan.d.ita) m.pl.N. meaning 'wise people'

Yes.

Now some remarks on translating verse. Both the Thanissaro translation
above, as well as this one by Bhikkhu Bodhi...

For one who desires long life and health,
Beauty, heaven, and noble birth,
[A variety of] lofty delights
Following in succession,
The wise praise diligence
In doing deeds of merit.

are good specimens of how not to translate Pali verse. Both translators
have striven to present the ideas in the verse in roughly the same sequence
as they occur in Pali. In order to do this they have inaccurately rendered
the instrumental patthayantena ("by one who desires...") as if it were a
dative ("for one who desires..."). If we try replacing "for" with "by" in
either of the above translations, we shall see why both translators felt
compelled to resort to this expedient. Such a translation would fail in
English because there would be too many words separating "the one who
desires" from the "diligence" that he is advised to exercise.

Now in this case it just so happens that the difference in meaning is very
slight. Nevertheless, a mechanical adherence to the Pali word and/or line
order is an imprudent practice when translating verse. In all too many
verse translations the translator's fetish for preserving the Pali line
order has required him to take considerable liberties with the meaning of
the text in order to produce something that is readable in English.

In Pali verse the order of phrases within a single gaathaa need not be
given much account when translating, since it depends primarily on metre
and other stylistic factors, and only secondarily (when at all) on meaning.
This applies even more so when translating verses in post-canonical texts,
where it's not unknown for the subject of the sentence and the main verb to
be 10-15 lines apart. When translating something like this into English
it's impossible to stick to the Pali word or line order.

When translating a Pali verse, having identified the number, gender and
case of each declinable word, it's a good policy to proceed by dividing the
verse into its component phrases and then diagramming them, rather than
immediately attempting a translation of the whole. This is because in verse
there is no requirement that the usual word order of subject -> object ->
predicate be followed. So to reduce the likelihood of error one needs to
consider all the possible ways that the component words may relate to each
other.

So first we should look out for nouns or pronouns in the nominative and
then identify which verb (or verbs) are their predicates and which adjectives
(if any) are qualifying them. Then we can proceed to do the same with nouns
in the accusative and other oblique cases. Sometimes several combinations
may be possible and we should not be too surprised (or disappointed) if the
outcome happens to be several equally plausible translations of the verse.

In the present case, happily, there are no such ambiguities. The verse's
component phrases may be analysed as follows:

1) Subject & main verb:

pa.n.ditaa pasa.msanti
"the wise praise"
[nominative]

2) Primary direct object (showing what it is that the wise praise):

appamaada.m pu~n~nakiriyaasu
"diligence in doing deeds of merit"
[accusative]

3) Instrument (showing the agent by whom the exercise of diligence is to be
carried out):

patthayantena
"by one wishing for"
[instrumental]

4) Secondary direct object (showing the items wished for by the instrument,
now considered as a subject in his own right):

aayu.m arogiya.m va.n.na.m, sagga.m uccaakuliinata.m ratiyo , u.laaraa
aparaaparaa
"long life and health, beauty, heaven, noble birth, and a succession of
fine delights"
[all accusative because they are direct objects of patthayanta]

The relations between these 4 components may be shown on a Reed-Kellogg
diagram, thus:

| |
The wise | praise| diligence
_________|_______|___________
| \
| \
| \ by |
\ one desiring | long life etc.
\_____________|________________
/
following in succession /
_________________________/

(use a fixed space font to view the diagram).

All that remains to do is to decide how to put the pieces of the jigsaw
back together in a way that both suits the natural speech patterns of the
target language AND preserves the meaning of the text.

I would suggest:

"The wise praise diligence in doing deeds of merit by [or: on the part of]
one wishing for long life, health and beauty, heaven, noble birth, and a
succession of fine delights."

I'll leave it to poets to decide how this could best be expressed in verse.

Best wishes,

Robert


"I don't believe I know of anything in life more exciting
than diagramming sentences."
-- Gertrude Stein