Dear Florent;

"[in] this very / [in] city / principal treasurer / would have
become... Moreover Malasekera writes in his dictionnary of proper
names ...there was a man who had had the power of becoming chief
Treasurer or attaining arahantship, ..."

Thanks. You must be referring to the following entry in the Malasekera
dictionary of proper names:

1. Mahaadhana. The son of the Treasurer of Benares. His parents
possessed eighty crores, and, for all education, he learnt music and
singing. He married the daughter of an equally rich family and of similar
education. After the death of their parents, they were very rich. One
night, as the husband was on his way from the palace, some knaves
tempted him to drink. He soon fell a victim to the habit and all his wealth
was squandered. Then he spent his wife's money, and finally sold all his
belongings, and used to go about begging, a potsherd in his hand. One
day the Buddha, seeing him waiting outside the refectory for leavings of
food, smiled. In answer to Ananda, who asked him the reason for his
smile, the Buddha said that there was a man who had had the power of
becoming chief Treasurer or attaining arahantship, if he did but use his
opportunities, but he was now reduced to beggary, like a heron in a
dried up pond. DhA.iii.129ff.

http://what-buddha-said.net/library/DPPN/maha/mahadhana.htm

That's interesting. The same page in the dictionary has three other
Mahaadhanaas who seem to be the other kind of rich merchant setthi.

I wonder how distinct the two categories were.

All the Mahaadana stories are from the Dhammapadatthakathaa so they
might well be repeated in the Jatakas as they often are. One is in the
Petavatthu.

The semi-historical worlds of the Jatakas are fascinating. I want to
investigate them in further detail. Also this case has caused me to pay
more attention to the role of rich merchants and treasurers at the royal
Burmese court, pretty well documented for the 19th century. They kind
of served like bankers providing financing for royal projects, paid back of
course with tax revenues. The financing of big pagoda projects is also
worth delving into, such as the largest in the world, the Mingyun pagoda
in Burma along the Irrawaddy, that remained incomplete.

Investigating the details like this is where one really starts to uncover
the interesting stuff.

What is the Mahaadhanase.t.thiputtavatthu ? A Sri Lankan work?
When was it published?

With metta,
Jon

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "flrobert2000" <flrobert2000@...> wrote:
>
> > yeva nagare aggase.t.thii abhavissaa
> > [in] this very / [in] city / principal treasurer / would have
> become
> >
> > Is actually probably:
> >
> > would have become the richest person in this city
> >
> Dear Jon,
>
> This sentence comes from the Mahaadhanase.t.thiputtavatthu which is
> translated as "The story of Mahaadhana the Treasurer's son" by Ven.
>
> Weragoda Sarada Thero. We can read p664 "For if, [...], this man
had
> not squandered his wealth, [...], he would have become the principal
> treasurer in this very city."
>
> Moreover Malasekera writes in his dictionnary of proper names "In
> answer to Ananda, who asked him the reason for his smile, the
> Buddha said that there was a man who had had the power of
becoming
> chief Treasurer or attaining arahantship, if he did but use his
> opportunities, but he was now reduced to beggary, like a heron in a
> dried up pond."
>
> Anyway, he would certainly have become quite rich!
>
> With metta,
>
> Florent
>