Venerable Bhante Pandita,
Thank you very much. Especially the last part I read many times and
reflected on it.
I lean to taking "sara.nanti" as an indeclinable compound.
op 23-04-2005 10:36 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@...:

> Depending on this commentary we can interpret "buddha.m sara.na.m
> gacchaami" in two ways.
>
> The first is taking "sara.nanti" as a quotation, and translating it as
> "I rely on the Buddha (thinking) 'This is my refuge' " In this method,
> "sara.na.m" is in nominative case.
>
> The second is taking "sara.nanti" as an indeclinable compound. Then the
> translation would be: " I rely on the Buddha as refuge".

> In classic grammars, in fact, indeclinables are nouns but with
> case-endings elided, and subsequently, without changing their forms in
> various contexts. This view has practical reasons. For instance:
>
> mahanto puriso (= a great man)
> mahantena purisena (= with a great man)
>
> You may notice in the examples above that adjectives take the cases and
> numbers of the nouns they modify. Then what about "purisoti etena",
> which should be translated as " with this word 'puriso'"? This is a very
> common form in the commentarial literature.

Nina: What is the practical reason for this way?
Bh: Here the grammarians take "purisoti" as modified by "etena". Since they

> must be of the same case, "purisoti" is viewed as an indeclianble
> compound with the instrumental case elided.

N: How can I recognize such a phrase when I meet it?
With respect,
Nina.