Dear Nina, Bryan and Mahinda,

thank you once again for your time.

Bryan, thanks for your explanations. And, thanks to Mahinda for confirming. Nina, thanks for again pointing to the context.

Please correct me if I am wrong. I run through the commentary, and there is no indication that buddhaviithi = buddhaana.m viithi. I reckon Burlingame took reference from "Buddhaana.m sammukha.t.thaane...", or from another classical source. I also have a read on Burlingame online*, and I propose that buddhaviithi = buddhaaya viithi (road to the Buddha), which is more contextually correct, since we have Citta coming on the road to pay respect to the Buddha.

* http://www.archive.org/details/buddhistlegends02burluoft

I also see that '.thitaa' and 'nisinnaa' form the subject of the sentence, and that is the elegance of the Pali language.

Buddhaana.m** sammukha.t.thaane pana .thitaa vaa nisinnaa vaa ito vaa etto vaa na honti, buddhaviithiyaa dviisu passesu niccalaava ti.t.thanti.
[The people] standing or sitting at a place in the presence of the Buddhas are not here nor there [i.e. moving about], but remain motionless on two sides of the road [leading] to the Buddha.

** The use of plural 'buddhaana.m' here is not well-understood, if anyone can kindly explain.

Citto gahapati mahanta.m buddhaviithi.m okkami.
Citta the householder entered the great road [leading] to the Buddha.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Bryan Levman wrote:

viithi means the actual physical street, See DN I 83 for an example where it clearly means street (viithi.m sa~ncarante... "[he sees people] walking in the street" ). I presume it could also be used metaphorically.

okkamma does have the sense of "step aside" or "turning aside" ("from the road" with the road in ablative, maggaa) as in DN II, 130 where Aa.laara Kaalaama steps off the road to rest from the sun. okkamma < avakramya in Skt. which is a gerund/absolutive form with ava- > -o- and -my- > -mm-

The prefix ava- has several senses, meaning "off, away, down" - so okkami has the sense of "step down upon" (MW) "fall into" or "enter" as per the PED, but it could also have the sense of "step away from" as in the DN example. I cannot find this usage in Skt. (at a glance), but that is clearly what it means in Paali, and they are both the same verb,