Re: PTS dict vol 1

Hi Tadao,

>Hi, Jim:
>When you visit Thailand, you can visit the Mahamakkutt Bookstore and
>pick up a copy of "Dhaatu-ppdiipikaa", which shouldn't cost you
>more than a couple of dollars. This root dictonary lists the definition
>of the most of (common) Pali roots both in Pali and Thai.
>tadao

Thank you for the recommendation. How does this book compare with the lists
of verbal roots with their meanings by Kaccayana, Aggavamsa, and Moggallana?
The second part of Aggavamsa's Saddaniti is the Dhatumala which contains
about 1700 Pali roots each with a commentary. This is what I use mostly. You
can download this volume at tipitaka.org. In the files section of the
homepage for palistudy you can get a copy of a small plain text file I put
together (p1-rts-7.txt) quite some time ago. It contains the complete list
of 1687 Pali roots from the Dhatumala (H. Smith's romanized edition).

As you noted in another message, the Pali root for 'pa.tipatti' is 'pad' and
is listed in the Dhatumala as: 1127. pada gatiya.m (Class 3). It is also
interesting to compare the Pali roots with those in Panini's Dhatupatha with
over 2000 Sanskrit verbal roots. It's easy to match up the Pali ones with
their Sanskrit counterparts. There is a lot more homonymy in Pali than in
Sanskrit and therefore a knowledge of the distinct Sanskrit forms helps to
sort out the confusion caused by different roots that look the same in Pali
but not so in Sanskrit. In some ways I think Pali is a more subtle and
difficult language than Sanskrit.

Best wishes,
Jim


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