Dear Bhante,

Indeed you are correct. I quote from p.87 of Warder: "The range of
meaning of the optative includes a mild form of command or a strong
injunction, as well as requests, invitations, wishes, possibilities,
suppositions, and hypotheses." And I withdraw my original suggestion
to Yong Peng on this exercise.

Thank you.
With metta,
John

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Yuttadhammo" <buffer@...> wrote:
> > Dear John and friends,
> >
> > thanks for the pointers. Let's leave #13 open for opinions in
> > the meantime. I have uploaded the corrected solutions:
> > http://www.tipitaka.net/pali/palidd/paliload.php?page=d18
> >
> >
> > metta,
> > Yong Peng.
> >
> > --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, John Kelly wrote:
> >
> > > 13. Daughters, you should not do evil, nor cause others to do evil.
> > > Dhiitaro, tumhe papa.m n'eva kareyyaatha vaa na kaaraapeyyaatha.
> >
> > This one seems a little odd to me. If I was reading the Pali, it
> > would come out more like "Daughters, you would not do evil, nor cause
> > others to do evil." That is, it appears to be a fairly mild statement
> > of fact, rather than an admonition to the daughters of what should or
> > should not be done. I hope others on this list more expert in Pali
> > than me will jump in and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me
> > that the future passive particple would be more appropriate for a
> > statment of what should or should not be done. Thus:
> >
> > Dhiitaro, tumhehi paapa.m n'eva karetabba.m vaa na aparehi
> > kaaraapetabba.m.
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> John, I agree with you initially, but take a look at this from the
Dhajagga
> sutta:
>
> "No ce me dhajagga.m ullokeyyaatha, atha pajaapatissa devaraajassa
> dhajagga.m ullokeyyaatha."
>
> "If you don't look up at the top of my standard, then you should
look up at
> the top of the standard of Pajapati the deva-king."
>
> It seems the optative can be used in either way...
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Yuttadhammo