Since the Dhp-a authorship has been discussed here lately I thought I'd
take the chance to ask for help with a passage in the HC Norman edition
that I've found puzzling. I can't make any sense of it as it stands,
but a very slight change seems to make all the pieces of the puzzle
fall together. If anyone else here is interested, I'd be happy to
receive feedback on it.
Norman, H.C. (ed), _The Commentary on the Dhammapada_, PTS, 1970
Vol I, Page 48, lines 11-13
The context is that a female deer (migii) has just had her three
offspring eaten by her nemesis in the form of a female leopard
(diipinii). Here's the relevant part of the text as it stands in Norman:
Migii: 'mara.nakaale imaaya me tikkhattu.m puttakaa khaadi, taa idaani
mam pi khaadissati[...]' ti...
I can't get this to fit together grammatically (subject/verb
agreement), so my question is whether the 'taa' should actually be
attached to 'khaadi' (I also think the scope of the 'iti' might not
need to include the word 'mara.nakaale', but that's a separate issue)
So perhaps it should be revised to look like this:
Migii mara.nakaale: 'imaaya me tikkhattu.m puttakaa khaaditaa, idaani
mam pi khaadissati[...]' ti...
tr. At the moment of death the deer thought, "by her three times my
sons have been eaten, now she will eat me as well..."
Is there some sense to the original text that I just can't see? Is my
rendering cogent? And is it plausible to connect the 'taa' with
the 'khaadi' like that? I've never looked at the manuscripts or source
editions, so I don't know whether the separation is there, or is HC
Norman's interpretation. (though I assume the western punctuation is
Norman's addition, which is why I readily change the scope of the iti).
A possibly relevant variant is that acc. to Norman the Burmese edition
takes the 'taa' as a '-tvaa' and connects it with khaadi. I can't make
sense of that reading either, though it does set a precedent for the
possible connection.