Dear Mahinda,

Thanks! 'sita.m' in the sense of 'pure' seems possible and there are a
number of instances of 'suddhadhamma' in some texts on the CSCD disk
including the Mahaaniddesa and Yamaka. 'sita' (white) comes from the root
SIT in the sense of a 'colour' (va.n.ne) according to the Dhaatumaalaa (#399
in Smith's work). One problem we're going to have with the Saddaniiti is
that there doesn't appear to be any published .tiikaa on it to help us and
the nissaya is in Burmese (I have one of the 2 vols. for the Dhaatumaalaa).
There is supposed to be a 19th cent. .tiikaa on the Saddaniiti but that
would likely exist only as an MS. I think Mme. J. Filliozat has one listed
in one of her catalogues of Pali MSS. The Kaccaayanabyaakara.na is better
served in this respect as it has a number of good commentaries and the 2
introductory verses of Kacc are thoroughly dealt with.

The PED has 5 entries for 'sita'.

Jim

> Dear Jim,
> I think sita.m means 'pure'. Its commoner meaning is 'white' and its
> opposite asita means 'black'. The word idha in this stz means 'here',
> i.e., "in this world".
> Yes, the stz obviously connects with the next through the word ta.m.
> The construction is "yena buddhena desita.m dhamma.m ... ta.m
> namitvaa" :having worshipped the Dhamma proclaimed by that Buddha who
> is... etc.
>
> As you will see this couple of verses also form part of a string of 6
> stzz, the gist of which is "Having worshipped the Buddha, Dhamma and
> Sangha I will proclaim the Saddaniiti or the Science of Words."
>
> Mahinda