Dear Nina

You wrote:

> > 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?

If we take indeclinables to have no cases, it would be very difficult to
explain how "etena" modifies "purisoti". You see, the fundamental rule
is that adjectives (identical adjectives in RG) follow the case, number
and (if possible) gender of the words they modify. If the modified word
is without a case, why is "etena" in instrumental?

Here grammarians have two alternatives: either to modify the adjective
rule or to explain indeclinables differently. They choose the latter,
and define indeclinables as nouns with case-endings elided.

> 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?

>From experience, especially with RG. We can easily know "purisoti" is

of instrumental case in the phrase " purisoti etena", yet of locative
case in the phrase "purisoti ettha". However, it is more difficult in
some other cases, of which the following is an example.

purisoti kattaara.m dasseti.

In the sentence above, there are no words such as "ettha" or "etena" to
help us pinpoint the case of "purisoti". However, if we think it over,
we can see that we may take "purisoti" as either of nominative case or
of instrumental case. With the former, the translation would be "The
word 'puriso' shows the subject". With the latter, it would become "(The
author or speaker in this context) shows the subject with the word
'puriso'."

Please feel free for more questions if you wish.

with metta

Ven. Pandita