Dear Bryan, Ong Yong Peng, Nina and others,

I think Bryan is quite right. The ancient Sinhala translation is suggestive
of the same, having the Sinhala equivalent of 'matta.m' in the nominative
case. Taking matta.m as an adverb, complicates the meaning too: meaning
then would be "only protects" (ie, doesn't do anything else).
There is also a further point to make: 'pavattita.m' here means 'done'
or 'performed' (these meanings are given in Monier Williams' Dictionary for
the Sanskrit equivalent 'pravartitam'). Of this too the Sinh. trsl. is
supportive. So the sentence in its entirety means "Just the barking itself,
done out of affection for the Pacceka Buddha during (his) time as a dog,
protects him."

Mahinda

On May 19, 2011 4:26pm, Bryan Levman <bryan.levman@...> wrote:
>> I think we are all in agreement as to what the sentence means; it's only
>> a question of what the subject of the sentence is, whether "barking"
>> (bhkkhara.na(.m) with mattameva as an adverb modifying rakkhati) or the
>> compound (bhukkhara.namattameva, "nothing but the barking" or
>> the "barking-totality"). Perhaps Mahinda can give us his opinion, as he
>> has a lot more experience than I do translating Pali. My interpretation
>> is based on the standard Skt. construction where maatra at the end of a
>> compound is a neuter noun meaning, "the full or simple measure of
>> anything , the whole or totality , the one thing and no more , often =
>> nothing but , entirely , only (eg raaja-maatram , the whole class of
>> kings " (see Monier Williams dictionary). It is often used as the object
>> or subject of a sentence or clause. This is common in Skt. I know PED
>> gives the possibility of matta.m as an adverb, but one would think, that
>> if it were, then "barking" would be in the nominative and mattameva
>> would be outside the compound, ie bukkhara.na.m mattameva.


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