While writing the notes for my re-translation of Bakkula Sutta (M 124)--the
monk who invited his colleagues to his own funeral!--I came across this
interesting note in the Comy, and also in Horner's translation of same
without translation:
MA says that in Mahaa Sakuludaayi S (M 77; MA 3:240) antara,ghare means
from the village post (inda,khîla), but here it means from
nimbodakapatana.t.thaana, that is, the elder simply went up to the doors of
the houses with his almsbowl and the people filled his bowl with foods of
various flavours (MA 4:194 f).
The expression nimbodakapatana.t.thaana seems to be a hapax legomenon
(unique occurrence) and I have found no definition or explanation of it in
the dictionaries, only that "nimba" is the Neem tree (Azadirachta indica)
(PED). "Odaka" surely means "water", "patana" = "fallen" and ".thaana" =
"place". One bizarre attempt would be "the place where the water neem
fell." The problem is making contextual sense of it all.
The VRI CSCD search gives only 1 reading, and I do not have a copy of BUDSIR.
I hope you have some time to solve this fascinating puzzle.
Sukhi.
Piya
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