Dear Liz and friends,

thanks for your question. As much as I understand, the
word 'saddhi.m' means accompaniment. So, literally, "assehi saddhi.m"
would be "with horses". If the instrumental case is used to express
the means of the action, "by horses", it would be just 'assehi', i.e.
without 'saddhi.m'.

However, of course, if we are reading a passage, then the context has
to be taken into account. Some historical background I have in mind:

1. training is required to ride horses. so, not everyone in the
ancient days can ride horses.

2. horses are expensive properties in ancient days. usually only the
owner can ride it, the others just walk/run beside it.

Hope that helps.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, codecottage wrote:

I'm working my way through the Pali Primer and have a question on
Lesson 3, Exercise 3, Pt. 4 - Translate into English...

20. Kumaaraa assehi saddhi.m gaama.m dhaavanti

I translated it as:
"Boys run to the village on horseback."

The key at www.tipitaka.net rightly translates the sentence:
"Boys run to the willage with horses."

However, since the endings "ena" and "ehi" can mean "by," "with"
or "through," I wondered if a more general verb such a gacchaati
might change the translation and thus, "Kumaaraa assehi saddhi.m
gaama.m gachaanti." might indeed be translated as "The boys go to the
village on horseback."?