Hi Rene and group,

I think Perniola is right about this somewhat odd and difficult compound. Your reasoning about it being a tp3 makes sense from the point of view of the English rendering "mind-preceded", but this English rendering distorts the way the Pali works. It's a useful distortion, because it sounds better in English and doesn't harm the sense, but it does change the original syntax (because 'preceded' is a past participle, which naturally supports an agent in the instrumental case).

The best that I can understand 'pubba"ngama' is that is means "preceding" "going before" rather than "preceded" or "gone before". And as an adjective it can stand alone as a noun meaning "a preceding thing" "something going before". So the whole compound mano-pubba"ngama means "a preceding thing which is mind". Therefore in the context I would read the whole compund as a bahuvriihi, awkwardly and literally: dhammas have preceding-things which are mind. You can see why translators chose to distort it a little.

So looked at in terms of its internal structure, mano-pubba"ngama, would indeed be a kammadhaaraya. Looked at in terms of its context in the sentence it's a bahuvriihi. I hope someone will correct me here if I'm wrong.

This reading of pubba"ngama looks to me to be supported by the commentary, which glosses pubba"ngama with pa.thama-gaamin "first going" "previously going".
Dhp-a I, 22 (PED). Cakkhupaalatheravatthu 1, at first verse (Sinh etc).

The entire phrase is as follows:

pubba"ngamaa ti tena pa.thamagaaminaa hutvaa samanaagataa.

I'm not sure what the syntax of the commentarial phrase is trying to say exactly. One thing I'm fairly sure of is that this commentarial phrase is condensed: for instance apart from the choice of instrumental form pa.thamagaaminaa expressing something (probably connected to samanaagataa) the word is simultaneously also glossing the cited word (irrespective of the instrumental case here) in a parallel breakdown of the compound: pubba = pa.thama, gama=gaamin.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

best regards,

/Rett

>
> > Yesterday, I was looking at the opening words of Dhammapada verse 1, known to so many: "manopubba.ngamaa dhammaa." = mano + pubba [n] + gamaa / dhammaa, in the nominative plural. According to one writer (Perniola/170), the first part is a kammadhaaraya cpd: a noun (mano) + an adj. (pubba.ngama) = "mind-preceded." According to him, the whole cpd. is then turned into an adj. agreeing with dhammaa. Thus: "Mind-preceded [are] dhammaa." I would have thought of a tappurisa of the instrumental kind, as is sometimes translated into English: "Preceded BY mind are dhammaa." But then I suppose the Paali would be: "manasaa pubba.ngamaa dhammaa." I'm pretty new to compounds, so does this all make sense?-- Rene