Dear sister Dipa, the reason for not being sure what the word means is
because of homonymy.

asatthika is made up of three parts:

a - privative particle, meaning "not", compare in English un- or in-
(unable, impossible)
sattha - meaning either caravan or weapon, knife (could be even something
else, see PED); this word has evolved from various etymologies and coalesced
phonetically in Pali, compare English mean (v. signify), mean (n. average),
mean (a. not generous)
-ika - meaning that the word is an adjective, just as the English -ic
(classic, fanatic, automatic)

Having said that, DOP (A Dictionary of Pali) makes it a derivate of sattha,
caravan: "asatthika, not travelling with a company or caravan", and gives
the example you are probably referring to from Vin IV 295,15.

In any case, just to confirm Buddhist theories, words do not have meaning by
themselves, but only in dependence of other words, pragmatic considerations
and so on.

Hope this helps.
Rosa

_____

From: Pali@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Pali@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Sister
Dipa
Sent: dimarts, 29 / novembre / 2011 16:09
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Pali] asatthikaa caravan or armed?




In I.B.Horner's Book of Discipline Vol. 3 page 317 she has translated
asatthikaa as weapon, with a footnote saying that "translators differ as to
whether this means "without a weapon" or not (having joined) a caravan."

I assume that there has been some progress made amongst translators since
this was written. I would like to find definitive proof that this word means
caravan and not weapon.

I have not been able to find the definition in the Chattha Sangayana.
In DPR the word is divided up with (as) and then (atthikaa). In the result I
don't see any definition but "good" "bad" which doesn't help.

Can anyone point me in a direction which will help me to resolve the meaning
of this word and why it is so hard to find the meaning?

with friendliness,
Sister Dipa






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