Dear Yong Peng,

You are right. The Sanskrit equivalent of sadda, i.e.,'sabda, is
widely used in grammatical and philogical treatises in the sense of
word as form, in contrast to artha (meaning). The great grammatical
treatise of Patanjali, the Mahaabhaa"sya, calls itself a
'sabdaanu'saasana ("instruction on 'sabda"). The Pali grammatical
terminology borrows heavily from its Sanskrit counterpart.

Mahinda

On 1/4/09, Ong Yong Peng <palismith@...> wrote:
> Dear Mahinda and friends,
>
> I quote from an earlier message -
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/message/13075 - ... I will proclaim
> the Saddaniiti or the Science of Words ...
>
> I wonder if the venerable author Aggavamsa mentioned the reasons for
> the choice of the title.
>
> I gather from the PED:
>
> sadda (m) word.
> niiti (f) guidance, conduct, practice.
>
> Hence, literally, saddaniiti means the study, rules, logic/science/art
> of words.
>
>
> metta,
> Yong Peng.
>
>