Dear Dimitry & Jim,

Thank you for your replies.

Dimitry:

>I think that Ven. ~Naa.namoli translated this phrase according to the
>context. If I remember rightly, Buddhaghosa emphasizes that mindfulness
>of breathing is not suitable for everyone.

Possibly. But it occurs to me that a practice may be as difficult as the
Visuddhimagga maintains mindfulness of breathing to be, and may be suitable
only for certain persons, and yet could still be the "foremost among the
various meditation subjects of all Buddhas, all Pacceka Buddhas and all
Buddhas' disciples". I don't think there would necessarily be any
contradiction in claiming both.

Jim:

>I don't have the PTS ed. but according to H.C. Warren's edition (1950)
>and the Budsir IV CD disk the reading is:
>
>sabbabuddha-paccekabuddha-buddhasaavakaana.m without the a~n~nu.
>
>And according to Dr. Rewatadhamma's edition (Varanasi, 1969) the
>reading is sabba~n~nubuddha-. . . the same as the CSCD.

Thanks for checking. I have just been looking at ~Naa.namoli's earlier
translation of the same passage in his BPS booklet on mindfulness of
breathing. Here he translates the passage in the same way, but adds a
footnote indicating that he is following the reading given in the
Papa~ncasuudanii's commentary to the Satipa.t.thaana Sutta. Here the phrase
is also given as "sabbabuddhapaccekabuddhabuddhasaavakaana.m".

But do you think "of all Buddhas, [some] Paccekabuddhas and [some]
Buddhas's disciples" could be a correct translation even of this version
(just confining ourselves to the question of grammar for now) ?

Assuming that buddhapaccekabuddhabuddhasaavakaa = buddhaa ca paccekabuddhaa
ca buddhassa saavakaa ca, then wouldn't the prefix sabba qualify every item
in the compound, not just the first one? I had always supposed this to be
the case when sabba, a~n~natara, ekacca etc. are prefixed to a
dvanda-samaasa.

I don't remember if this question is addressed in the grammars, but I
vaguely recall being taught that such phrases as "all X's and some Y's" and
"these X's and those Y's" are not conjoined in samaasaa, because of the
needless ambiguity it would generate.

I have been briefly looking for examples to check this matter, but haven't
found very much so far. In the Milindapa~nhaa there is the phrase
"sabbapaa.nabhuutapuggalaana.m hitaanukampinaa". Here it would seem
reasonable to translate "with compassion for the welfare of all creatures
and all persons" (not "all creatures and *some* persons"!). Admittedly, not
much can be concluded from just one example. I'll get back to this when
I've checked further.

>Interestingly, in Dhammapaala's Mahaa.tiikaa one finds the same
>interpretation of the long compound on both the CSCD and Budsir and in
>Dr. Rewatadhamma's ed. as follows:
>
>sabbesa.m buddhaana.m ekaccaana.m paccekabuddhaana.m
>buddhasaavakaana~nca
>
>"ekaccaana.m" explains where ~Naa.namoli's "[some]" comes from.

I had noticed this comment by Dhammapaala, but was uncertain whether it was
relevant, since it is a gloss on
visesaadhigama-di.t.thadhamma-sukhavihaara-pada.t.thaana.m, not
sabba~n~nubuddha-paccekabuddha-buddhasaavakaana.m.

That is to say, if Buddhaghosa was saying that aanaapaanassati is the
"foremost among the various meditation subjects of *all* Buddhas, *all*
Pacceka Buddhas and *all* Buddhas' disciples", Dhammapaala would not have
contradicted him by saying that aanaapaanassati is the "basis for
attaining distinction and abiding in bliss here and now" of all Buddhas,
*some* Pacceka Buddhas and *some* Buddhas' disciples. The practice could
still be viewed as the 'muddha' of all meditation subjects even by those
Aryans who attain distinction and abide in bliss here and now using some
other means.

Best wishes,

Robert

P.S.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a dvanda-samaasa is one type of
compound word. In English it is sometimes called an aggregative compound.
The typical dvanda compound is just a catalogue of words, whose
relationship with each other may be indicated by the word 'ca', 'and'.

E.g. The dvanda compound sama.nabraahma.naa may be expressed as
"sama.naa ca braahma.naa ca" (ascetics and brahmins).

Sometimes the list of items in an aggregative compound can get pretty
long, as in the one found in the seventh of the eight precepts:

maalaa-gandha-vilepana-dhaara.na-ma.n.dana-vibhuusanatthaana