Dear Nina,

thanks again. In this case, assa is in potential/conditional mood, so 'if' is already implied. I would regard the 'ca' in 'cassa' as conjunctives: and, but; unless it is consistently used in the conditional sense in the literature.

I rewrite the English to illustrate my point above:

"Nanu cassa neva maataa na pitaa na bhaatikaadiisu koci rakkhitaa naama atthi, ko ta.m rakkhati"ti?
"Surely, there is indeed some protector, and if (he/she) would neither be among (his) mother nor father nor brother and so on [i.e. other kinsmen, since none of these people are present], who/what protects him?"

Let's see if there is any other comments on this point, before I move on to the other two sentences.

metta,
Yong Peng.

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

> "Nanu cassa neva maataa na pitaa na bhaatikaadiisu koci rakkhitaa naama atthi, ko ta.m rakkhati"ti?
> "Surely, there is indeed some protector and yet (he/she) shall neither be among (his) mother nor father nor brother and so on [i.e. other kinsmen, since none of these people are present], who/what protects him?"

N: I think that ca here means: if. If there is indeed for him no protector among .... who will protect him?