Dear Venerable and Nina,

yes, "pubbe" here is treated as an indeclinable, taking the definition as Nina quoted from PED.

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:

> Exercise 21 Pali to English
>
> # 11. Pubbe Saavatthinagare manussaana.m satta ko.tiyo vasi.msu.
>
> The locative of pubba would seem to be pubbamhi, or pubbasmi [not
> pubbe] because nagara is neuter and follows the declensions of
> �yo� [see text page 49], therefore maybe we have to change the
> above to:
>
> Pubbamhi Saavatthinagare manussaana.m satta ko.tiyo vasi.msu.

------
N: I looked it up in the PED. It says: loc. pubbe: in earlier times, in the past, before.
Thus here it does not have to follow nagare.