abhinavagupta wrote:

>Going happens in the future? May I know where this notion is from,
>i.e. gerund as future? Again, from my pt of view, the action of the
>main verb *follows* that of the gerund.
>
>

Here is something I wrote after looking into the matter a while ago. It
is not academic, but it may answer this question:


Charles Duroiselle states that the gerund (absolutive) "*always* denotes
an action completed before another," (618) yet, Duroiselle still gives
the following two examples:

bhitvaa = fearing (471)
pa.ticca = following upon (472)

which obviously are not denoting actions which have previously occured,
but are occuring presently.

However, Warder, too, *doesn't *seem to mention anything but the "past"
form and explicitly states:

QUOTE(Warder)
"The Gerund, an indeclinable paticiple, is used to express an action
*preceeding* the action of the main verb of the sentence."


After having checked every page of Warder's "Introduction to Pali" with
a listing for gerund, I have come to the conclusion that he does not
list any exceptions to this statement. However, in the glossary, he does
list the meaning of "pat.icca" as being "conditioned by (or) because of"
which obviously breaks his own rule. It seems odd that Warder would
disreguard "pa.ticca," a quite common term, and thus common exception,
in his description of the "gerund."

Thankfully, we have Whitney and his "Sanskrit Grammar" to clear things
up a bit:

QUOTE( Whitney)
"The so-called gerund is a stereotyped case (doubtless instrumental) of
a verbal noun, used generally as adjunct to the logical subject of a
clause, denoting an *accompanying* or (*more often) a preceeding action*
to that signified by the verb in the clause. It has thus the virtual
value of an indeclinable participle, *present or past*, qualifying the
actor whose action it describes."


So, it seems that the claim, that a "gerund" or "absolutive" can have a
meaning of a variety of "times," i.e, with'x' being the verb:

1) "having x'ed"
2) "x'ed"
3) "x'ing"


is correct.

Thus, even though the absolutive might usually have a past "time," the
present "time" is certainly possible, and the translation must depend on
the context, i.e. main verb and adverbs, etc.

This includes the possibility of a gerund happening prior to or at the
same time as a the primary verb in the future tense so that both actions
would be in the future. Though the gerund may well occur before the
action designated by the future tense, it would still be possible for it
to occur in the future (this is what I believe John is saying). This
would be similar to the French future anterieur.

The follow up to this conversation in which Ven. Dhammanando points out
using "sadaniiti" that there are even some cases of gerund usage where
it implies and action happening after the main verb can be found in the
E-Sangha Pali Forum here:

http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=22209

With metta,

Alan