Dear Jim,

Now that is very interesting. Yesterday night, just by "accident" I was
reading MN 5, Bhayabherava and came across this stock phrase:

*Esāhaṃ *bhavantaṃ gotamaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi dhammañca bhikkhusaṅghañca.

It seems that here too, eso is not used pointing back but to just emphasize
the "I". "This me (= I ) takes refuge to the Ven. Gotama, the Dhamma and
monk Sangha.

So do we have to translate then:

"That is not mine, I am not, I have no self" => where eso+aham would just
mean its an emphasized "I" and so we are actually to read "na aham asmi" and
"na me atta [atthi]"

Jim, correct me if I am wrong, but that is how I understood it from the
quotes you cited from the Commentaries.

Much more straightforward however, still seems to be the simple explanation
Bryan had suggested and also found in Latin:

An adjective pronoun usually agrees with an appositive or predicate noun, if

> there be one, rather than with the word to which it refers (cf. § cross<http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:5:3:2.perseusmonographs>
> 306):—

hīc locus est ūnus quō perfugiant; *hīc* portus, *haec** *arx, *haec** *āra
sociōrum (Verr. 5.126) , this is the only place to which they can flee for
refuge; this is the haven, this the citadel, this the altar of the allies.

[link<http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:5:3:2.perseusmonographs>
]



metta,

Lennart


I would translate "eso pañcakkhandhapabhedo ahampi na asmi," as "this

> I, too, consisting of the five aggregates does not exist,". For the
> last part, which is not so clear, I would suggest "the meaning is that
> this "I" is not to be grasped." or perhaps "the meaning of 'aha.m'
> is that it should not be grasped". So from these comments, one could
> translate "nesohamasmi" as "this I does not exist" which is quite
> different from saying "this I am not". For "eta.m" in the first
> clause, the same .tiikaa gives "eta.m khandhapa~ncaka.m".
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim
>

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