<< The Sinhala sanne works ( many of which were authored by very
scholarly monks) quote this definition of 'tulyaadhikara.na': "tulya.m
samaana.m adhikara.na.m attho yassa, ta.m tulyaadhikara.na.m" -
which implies that ' adhikara.na' was understood as 'attha': 'sense'
or, more likely, 'import'. In that case, 'tulyaadhikara.na' means,
having same or similar import": comparable with "having same or
similar base/substratum" in terms of Abhyankar's definition. >>
The above quoted definition is very similar to the one in the
Padaruupasiddhi.tiikaa, p.183 (Burmese edn.): "kriyaapadena saha
tulya.m samaana.m adhikara.na.m attho etassaati tulyaadhikara.na.m". I
was aware of 'attho' being a synonym of 'adhikar.na.m'. I'm rather
doubltul that 'attho' here means 'sense' or 'import'. Abh 785 gives 9
meanings for 'attho'. So the question is: what is the meaning of
'attho' in the context of the .tiikaa gloss on 'adhikara.na.m'? Abh
868 gives 3 meanings for 'adhikara.na.m': vivaado, aadhaaro, and
kaara.na.m. Among these, only 'kaara.na.m' (cause, reason) is given as
a menaing for both 'adhikara.na.m' and 'attho'. This may be a possible
meaning in our case but I'm not so sure in view of the following..
The Kaccaayanatthadiipanii (a fairly recent commentary) has something
very interesting to say about 'tulyaadhikara.na.m' but doesn't give a
meaning for 'attho' itself. But in my opinion, it seems to fit the
meaning of 'vatthu' (subject-matter?). Here's an extract from
pp.539-40 (Thai script edn.) of the text showing the usage of 'attho':