Dear Bhante Sujato,

Thanks for the interesting post. I have a couple of questions.

>
>I see no problem in retaining the literal instrumental usage in the
>second line....

>>jaata.m ruupa.m sabhaavena suñña.m,

>Materiality that is presently arisen is empty by its own nature
>

I'm hesitant to read it this way, not for
dogmatic reasons concerning the concept of
'svabhaava', but just because the word suñña
normally takes the instrumental to indicate what
something is empty of. So I'd start out with:

"Materiality that is presently arisen is empty _of_ (any) own-nature"

Do you have a special reason, based on
understanding of the text and its wider context,
to wish to read it as a true instrument (kara.na)
? I would normally take this idiom as the default
reading, and only read it the way you suggest if
required by the context, or in order to fit into
the doctrine being presented.

> Here it is obvious that 'viparinata', rendered
>by 'changed', really means 'ceased'

This sounds good. Might the sense of 'ceased' be
along the lines of 'changed away beyond all
recognition'? (the prefix vi- having a completive
and deprivative sense) I don't mean the this as a
viable translation, just as an expansion on how
'changed' can mean 'ceased'.

This might be a clue to a possible point to this
passage. It's telling us that when forms etc
cease, they don't actually cease, they are
transformed beyond recognition and their
constituents move on into new combinations to
make new forms.

Similarly, when forms arise, they arise out of previously existing elements.

So the point would be that there is no 'svabhava'
in things. There is no svabhava that 'takes body'
at birth, and no svabhava that 'departs' at
death. Both are just processes of transformation.
This passage could be specifically refuting a
svabhava theory of birth and death, and
explaining the alternative, namely, dependant
origination.

This is all just guesswork, of course, but it
would support my reading of the instrumental
'svabhaavena' being connected with suñña as
'empty of' rather than 'empty by means of'.

best regards,

/Rett