Dear Nina and others,
You are right, Nina.
"Nanu cassa neva maataa na pitaa na bhaatikaadiisu koci rakkhitaa naama
atthi".
Here we have three emphatic particles: NANU, EVA and NAAMA; the particle of
negation (NA) repeated thrice; the conjunctive CA. Perhaps it is this
complex combination that confuses. A literal translation would be " (There)
certainly isn't any protector whosoever (ko ci rakkhitaa) for him among
father, mother, brothers and so forth (mataa, pitaa, bhaatikaadisu)".
"No protector among father, mother, brothers etc." looks odd in English, of
course. We should take it as meaning "no protector such as..."
Translating 'assa' as "for him" may seem questionable because the
pronoun 'ayam' is commonly taken as "this person", which is literally
correct and can be applied here too.
To be doubly sure that this is how it has been understood, I looked up the
(for us) famous 14th century Sinhala translation of the Dhammapada
Commentary called Saddharma-ratnaavaliya, acclaimed as a literary
masterpiece. Its rendering is as given above.
Mahinda
On May 16, 2011 6:43am, Ong Yong Peng <palismith@...> wrote:
> Dear Nina and friends,
> it's fine if you want to discuss further any doubts.
> For 'assa', I have already presented my case. I can hardly think it is
> the dative singular of aya.m, but let's hear from the group.
> metta,
> Yong Peng.
> --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:
> > 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.
> N: I took assa differently, I thought: for him. Perhaps Mahinda can help
> us. By the way Mahinda, I find it helpful to read about some points twice
> in different posts, because then I will not forget! Repetitions in
> grammar are always useful. I am always happy to see your name and I hope
> you will come in more often to help us.
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]