Re: meanings of citta

Dear Jim,


Actually I was answering your firs question also:
'Which comes earlier? Did the notion of picture come out of the idea
of intricateness or was it the other way around?'

So, the meaning of citta, second try:

> >> Is it citta because of its intricateness or because of its
> >picture-nature?
> >> Is is citta because of its nature of making intricate or because
of
> >its
> >> nature of creating a picture?
> >> <snip (for Amara)>


The first would come first, to my mind.  Which does not mean it does
not have both characteristics, as described in the first and the
second.  But to me the second could not come before the first, since
you asked 'what comes earlier'. 

Is this any better?



> Yesterday, I looked at the Summary, Part II for the so-called five
> characteristics of citta. Are there just these five? Do you know
what  Pali
> word 'characteristics' is representing? I usually think of lakkha.na
for
> characteristic but I hardly think it applies here. I know that these
five
> so-called characteristics are discussed in the Atthasalini passage
on citta
> (63ff) and they can be traced back to the three roots (cint, ci,
citt) that
> I mentioned earlier. Out of the five characteristics, one belongs to
cint, 2
> to ci, and 2 to citt. The last 2 (citt) are: 1. citta because of its
> intricateness or picture-nature (cittataaya) and 2. because of its
> picture-creating nature (or your 'because it renders (things)
intricate')
> (cittakara.nataaya). The PED has a 'cittataa' entry that applies
here but
> strangely does not give a meaning. I think it comes down to
determining
> whether the 'citta' in these compounds is an adjective (intricate,
> variegated, etc.) or a noun (picture or perhaps another word). I'm
still
> undecided about which. I prefer to use the word 'picture' instead of
> 'painting' because it can be applied to both the mind and paintings.
> >
> >Am I being graded, sir?
>
> Not at all, ma'am.
>
> Jim


I'm glad, because as I said, I have no idea what the original Pali
looks like, I translated it rather freely from the Thai translation as
quoted in the 'Summary'.  I could not make much sense of what was
there and could not believe that it was correctly translated, so I
decided to translate it according to my own understandings instead of
a litteral translation, the only place where I did this in the entire
book, which is why I was really worried about the adequacy of the
English version, as it is under is my sole responsibility.

I am eternally grateful for this chance of verifying my rendering of
this passage against the original Pali while I can still make
corrections to the book about to be printed,

Amara