Hi Dr Oo

>
> vatthuttaya.m vandayataabhisa.nkhata.m which is translated in the
> Amaravati chanting book as "To that which is worthy"

Amaravati translations aim for the spirit rather than the letter,
which is exactly right for chanters, but frustrating for Pali
students!

The context is some verses of homage to the triple gem that are part
of the regular Thai morning chanting,
the 'Ratanattayappa.naamagaathaa'. I believe this is a composition
made in Thailand.

The verse in question has four lines, which, unusually, the Thai
translation renders as a group rather than line-by-line; presumably
because the passage was hard to render literally. The translation does
not follow the sequence of the Pali. Checking this up, i became
interested in the Thai (which i have been neglecting even more than my
Pali!), so i attempt a translation.

It starts off with 'Boon dy' 'whatever merit', which is the first
phrase of the third line. A literal rendering of the whole passage is
something like this:

'Whatever merit that i, the one worshipping the three things - that
is, the triple gem - that one should pay total highest homage to, have
made already in the highest such as this, may obstacles all not be for
me at all, through the power accomplished that is born from that
merit'.

At least some of the syntactical obscurity of this stems originally
from the Pali, which evidently caused problems for the Thai translator.

The sense in the Amaravati translation of 'that which is worthy' is
conveyed by the first line, 'iccevamekantabhipuujaneyyaka.m', which i
would resolve as :

'icc[=iti]-eva.m-ekanta-abhipuujaneyyaka.m'"That which is completely
worth of homage".

The Thai has 'an kuan bucha ying doy suan dio', which is a very
literal rendering of this line. The Thai, however, places this as if
it were the second line. It seems that perhaps the Amaravati
translation might have done the same, thus causing the confusion - it
is not unlikely that the Amaravati trans was in fact influenced by the
Thai.

It seems that the compounds for the second line should be broken up
as:

'vatthu-ttaya.m' 'the three grounds' (or 'bases', 'things', etc.,
presumably referring to the triple gem, the Thai makes this explicit)

vandayata-abhisa.nkhata.m

I'm not sure what the exact grammatical case of 'vandayata-' is, but
the general sense seems to be the 'homage that is made' [to the three
things (gems)].

I think this corresponds to the Thai 'poo wai yoo [seung vatthu
saam...]...dy gratam laeow pen yaang ying...' The latter corresponds
literally to 'abhisankhata.m'. The former phrase ('poo wai yoo...') is
in present continous tense ('the person worshipping...').

yours in Dhamma

Bhante Sujato