Re: sutta 7: the vaggas

Dear Jim,
Thank you very much for all this. Khun Sujin has gone into alot
of detail about the meaning of citta and i am sure you would
find some of this interesting. I just received ven. bodhi's
latest translation of the samyutta nikaya and have noted he
occasionally seems free to depart from the ancient commentaries
when it suits his interpretations. I hadn't noticed that in his
much earlier work.
rob
--- Jim Anderson <jima@...> wrote:
> Dear Robert,
>
> > The corresponding Skt. is varga (root v.rj). In some
> >> ways, Pali is a
> >> harder language to learn than Sanskrit on account of the
> >> abundance of
> >> confusing Pali homonyms which is not so in Sanskrit eg.
> Pali:
> >> vagga & vagga,
> >> citta & citta; Sanskrit: valga & varga, citta & citra.
>
> >Dear Jim,
> >please don't respond to this unless you feel it is essential.
> I
> >was just curious about citta &citta. Are there two different
> >words here? (only reply if it is easy and not time consuming.
>
> This is just the kind of question that gets top priority as I
> have been
> studying the etymology of citta ever since Amara posted her
> translation of
> the Atthaasalini passage on the masterpiece for me to check
> with the Pali
> original. I'm still studying 'citta' and there is still a long
> way to go and
> I know I won't be able to solve all the mysteries for a very
> long time. What
> I know so far is that there are not just two cittas to
> distinguish but
> three. Here are the three that derive from 3 different roots:
>
> 1. from the root 'cint' -- with citta in the meaning of 'it
> knows
> distinctively' (vijaanaati). The prefix 'vi' has several
> meanings and I
> notice that in the Expositor it is translated as 'variously'
> (vividha) which
> I question as I have not found any explanation so far that
> states that this
> is the associated meaning. However, I did find a 'visi.t.tha'
> in the SN com
> which seems to support the interpretation of citta knowing the
> object
> distinctively which suggests a further notion of citta
> distinguishing
> different objects. So here I raise the red (danger) flag for
> 'is aware
> variously'.
>
> 2. from the root 'ci' + affix 'tta' (= Skt. ci+tra > citra).
> ci means to
> collect, gather, accumulate. I don't see anything in the
> dictionaries
> showing citta/citra in this sense. The As uses abhidhamma
> language to
> explain it so somewhat being uncertain I think the meaning is:
> it
> accumulates/gathers a series (santaana) by way of the
> javana-process(es).
>
> 3. from the root 'citt' (Skt. citr) -- (a) to create a picture
> (b) ?show a
> wonder/miracle. It is this citta/citra that pertains to the
> passage about
> painting in the As.
>
> All three roots are documented in the Saddaniti as well as in
> Panini's
> Dhatupatha which could go back as far as the 4th cent. BCE
> with perhaps
> even earlier versions (no longer extant) coming before the
> Buddha.
> Jonothan posted a passage from B. Bodhi's new translation of
> SN (22.100)
> and I was shocked by his 'Faring on' for cara.na which strikes
> me as a
> painting's title (like in an art gallery or book of famous
> paintings). Last
> night I studied the sutta's SN com. and tika after which it
> seems clear
> that this a class name for a type of painting. Cara.na =
> wandering,
> travelling relates to a travelling art show. If I have
> interpreted Bodhi's
> translation the way he intended it then it seems to me that
> we're witnessing
> the disappearance of the saasana right before our very eyes!
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim
>
>


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