Dear Rene,

I was away when you sent the following message on Mar. 27. I'm just
now catching up with it.

> Dear Pali friends--
>
> I was recently looking at the most recent list of issues of the Pali
> Text Society and am curious about a number of them. Does anyone own

any

> of the following, or have information about them?
>
> -- The Saddaniiti (5 vols.) The description says: "The greatest of

the

> extant Pali grammars, written by Aggavamsa of Arimaddana in Burma in
> A.D. 1154." I am curious about this work, as I understand it looks
> at Pali from the point of view of the roots, which is my preferred

way

> of studying the language.

It is fortunate that this work has recently been reprinted. I acquired
it with some difficulty in 1982-3 as the first two volumes were out of
print at the time. I had to photocopy these in the library of the
University of Toronto. I found one volume in a second-hand bookstore
and ordered the remaining ones from Munksgaard. After making good use
of these volumes for many years I can say that they are definitely
well worth having. Here is some information to give you an idea as to
what these volumes contain:

The title of the work is: Saddaniiti -- La Grammaire Palie
d'Aggava.msa. ed. by Helmer Smith.

The Pali text itself takes up the first 3 volumes as follows:

1. Padamaalaa. This one starts with the first verbal root (dhaatu) --
bhuu sattaaya.m, which is explained in great detail giving nearly all
the words derived from it and providing complete conjugational and
declensional paradigms. It also covers other kinds of words like
pronouns and numerals.
2. Dhaatumaalaa. This covers roots no. 2 to 1687 in eight classes
(ga.na-s)
3. Suttamaalaa. This contains 1347 suttas in seven chapters in an
arrangement much like those found in the grammars of Kaccaayana and
Moggallaana. The 8th chapter treats word classes, and has some useful
material on prefixes (upasagga-s) and indeclinables (nipaata-s). The
9th chapter deals with textual matters eg. it starts off by
classifying texts into paa.li, a.t.thakathaa, .tiikaa, and
pakara.na.m.

The next two volumes are appendices containing tables and indices.

4. Tables (first part). Contains all sorts of listings such as an
alphabetical list of roots with page references and with
correspondences to the roots of Panini's Dhaatupaa.tha (class and root
nos. only). There is also a listing of affixes and augments and a
summary of the grammatical system which is written in French with
translations of the Pali grammatical terms.

5. Tables (second part -- actually this takes up 2 volumes). Contains
an alphabetical index of words found in the Saddaniiti. Altogether,
the five volumes take up 1795 pp.

A different version of the Padamaala and the Dhaatumaala are available
online at tipitaka.org and on the CSCD which apparently do not have
the Suttamaalaa. There is a very good article on the Saddaniiti in
JPTS XVII, pp. 1-212 'Exploring the Saddaniiti', by E.G. Kahrs. It's a
critical study and translation of the kaaraka suttas (§547-573) in the
Suttamaalaa.

If one can't find all the information one seeks concerning the Pali
language in modern European-style grammars and primers, I think it
then becomes necessary to turn to the long-standing tradition of
grammatical texts written in Pali and going back many centuries. But
these grammars can also be incomplete in some respects and one may
then have to turn to native Sanskrit grammars to supplement one's Pali
studies. It may even become desirable to study Panini (as I do) in
order to understand the often cryptic grammatical suttas and to find
more detailed explanations about affixes, etc. and how words are
formed.

Best wishes,

Jim