Dear Stephen,

I was interested to read what you wrote about the differences in the
Pali and Skt. derivation of 'citta'. I did a bit of research on my own
and would like to share my findings with you and others which I hope
will be of some interest.

The PED derivation of 'citta' from the root 'cint' agrees with what
one finds in Pali commentaries and grammars, eg. cittan ti
aaramma.na.m cintetii ti citta.m, vijaanaatii ti attho. (As 63). Note
that 'vijaanaati' can also mean: to be aware of/conscious of, to
distinguish/discern <the object>. The verb 'cinteti' shows that
'citta' is derived from the root 'cinta' (cinta cintaaya.m -- Sadd no.
1444). 'citta' has the primary u.naadi affix 'ta' as listed in
Kaccaayana's sutta no. 656: 'chadaadiihi ta-tra.n'. One will find
under this sutta the following: aaramma.na.m cintetii ti citta.m,
citra.m; cintenti sampayuttadhammaa etenaa ti vaa citta.m, citra.m.
The Ruupasiddhi (no. 666) explains the sandhi elision of the 'n' of
'cint'. It appears that the Pali 'citta' would be written in Sanskrit
as 'citra' which exists but not as a derivative of 'cint' as far as I
can tell. The Atthasaalinii (63ff) also derives 'citta' from the roots
'ci' and 'citt'.

The Sanskrit 'citta' is derived from the root 'cit' (citii sa.mj~naane
I.39) and takes the past participle affix 'ta' (kta). The Saddaniiti
also has this root listed: 390 citii sa~n~naa.ne -- of which
sa~n~naa.na.m is glossed with cihana.m (Skt. cihna.m) -- mark, and
lakkha.nakara.na.m -- making a mark. It only lists the Pali verb
'cetati' which hardly seems to be in use in Pali texts. Perhaps the
reason the commentators did not derive 'citta' from this root was
because of its close association with 'sa~n~naa' and they needed to
point it to 'vi~n~naa.na' instead. In the Sanskrit Dhaatupaa.tha, the
root 'cinta' has the meaning of recollection (citi sm.rtyaam X.2).

Best wishes,
Jim

Stephen Hodge wrote:

> Curiously, the solution to the problem is quite simple. Time for a

tiny bit

> of philology. As you are aware, Pali is a prakrit derived from an

early

> stage / pre-classical form of Sanskrit or Vedic as it is sometimes

called.

> Sanskrit is phonetically more complex than Pali and so various words

can

> become easily conflated or confused when the earlier Sanskritic

words are

> converted / evolved into Pali. And, of course, one such word is

"citta"

> which is a past participle derived from the root CIT. However, PED

among

> others, derive it from it from "cinteti", which corresponds to a

Sanskrit

> root CINT.

> CIT in Skt means "perceive, know, be aware, observe" etc (but no

"think").

> On the other hand, CINT means "think, having an idea, consider" etc.

So

> what seems to have happened is that by the time of the Pali

commentorial

> literature, "ciita" was considered to be derived from CINT,

especially in

> the citta / cetasika context. If one derive "citta" from CINT

"think", then