Dear Natalie, Nina and Jim,

Natalie asked why not 'khattiye'. Why did she ask this? Probably she thought
of the English equivalent: "Mahagovinda approached those Khattiyas." If Pali
idiom was same as the English, "those Khattiyas" would translate as "te
khattiye" (accusative). This is not impossible. We could have had
"mahaagovindo braahma.no te khattiye upasa.mkami." But it is more idiomatic
in Pali to say it as it is found in the text. Jim was right as far as the
usage of the instrumental 'yena' (in the sense of the locative 'yattha') was
concerned. Now what must be added is that the Pali has here a (contracted)
complex sentence, It is, if the implied word is added, "atha kho
mahaagovindo braahma.no yena te khattiyaa (aasu.m), ten'upasa.mkami."
(Mahagovinda approached there where those Khattiyas were).Naturally, the
subject of the subordinate sentence (khattiyaa aasu.m: Khattiyas were)
needs 'khattiyaa' in the nominative case. The other sentence is to be
explained in the same manner. Regards.

Mahinda

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 9:42 PM, Jim Anderson <jimanderson.on@...>wrote:

> Dear Natalie,
>
> I remembered that you had raised a similar question here before. That
> was late last January from my search of the messages. Buddhaghosa's
> Vinaya commentary (Sp I 128) on the phrase "yena Bhagavaa
> tenupasa"nkami" may be of some help. It offers two explanations that
> can be applied to your sentence as follow:
>
> 1) yena and tena are instrumental expressions in the sense of the
> locative, equivalent to yattha (where) and tattha (there),
> respectively. Then, where those nobles were, there Mahaagovinda
> approached.
>
> 2) yena and tena are equivalent to yena kaara.nena (for whatever
> reason) and tena kaara.nena (for that reason), respectively. Then, for
> whatever reason those nobles (are to be approached), for that reason
> Mahaagovinda approached.
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim
>
>
>


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