Dear Yong,
Thanks.
The order of words you give is that of English. It would of course be
different by the Pali order. In Pali we never begin a sentence with a
particle like 'viya'.
No problem with mahaa. What is important is "karu.nayaa'paha.ta". It has to
be thus by virtue of the Vasantatilakaa metre. (LLSLSSSLSSLSLL where L
stands for long syllable and S for short.You can see that the 8th syllable
has to be long.)

The 'poetic idea' here is that compassion so filled his heart that there
was no space (avakaasa) in it for feelings of greed - i.e., compassion
totally banished (apaha.ta) greed.

Sorry about the typing errors in my hurriedly composed second post.

Mahinda

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 6:35 PM, Ong Yong Peng <palismith@...> wrote:

> Dear Mahinda and Florent,
>
> Mahinda, thanks for your explanation, particularly on Pali metre,
> which I am not familiar with. However, just to point out, 'mahaa-'
> was in the original question.
>
> "Citte mahaakaru.nayaa paha.taavakaasaa
> Duura.m jagaama viya tassa hi vatthuta.nhaa."
>
> I would rewrite in prose as (again, without considering the preceding
> text):
>
> "Viya tassa vatthuta.nhaa citte mahaakaru.naaya paha.taavakaasaa hi
> duura.m jagaama."
> "Just as his desire for wealth, obstructed by the great compassion of
> the heart, has indeed gone far."
>
> Florent, we can still look at the preceding text if you want to.
>
> metta,
> Yong Peng.
>
> --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com <Pali%40yahoogroups.com>, Mahinda Palihawadana
> wrote:
>
> Going by what you have quoted from the text book, it looks as if the
> prose order of the words in this stanza is: "tassa vatthu-ta.nhaa hi
> citte mahaa-karu.nayaa apaha.ta-avakaasaa duura.m jagaama viya". This
> could (literally) mean: "His greed for wealth (vatthu) was as if it
> had gone far (away), space (avakaassa) (for it) having been taken away
> (denied) by the great compassion of the heart."
>
> The correct punctuation would be "mahaakaru.nayaa'paha.taavakaasaa..."
> apahat.a is PP from apaharati: take away. Literally 'taken away' but
> actually, 'denied'. 'vatthu' means both 'field' and 'wealth'. The
> particle 'hi' is more or less a gap-filler and can be left
> untranslated. (Or, it can be translated as 'indeed', if one so wishes.)
>
>
>


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