Re: upa-nijjhaayati

Dear Nina,

Thank-you for quoting the MA excerpt and for your interesting comments. See
below for mine.

>Dear Jim, Sarah, Jon,
>Here is the text about jhaana I referred to some months ago:
>Papa~ncasuudanii, Atthk to the Sallekhasutta (M.N. I,8):
>Jhaayathaa ti. aaramma.nuupanijjhaanena a.t.thati.msaaramma.naahi
>(thirtyeight objects of samatha), lakkha.nuupanijjhaanena ca aniccaadito
>(beginning with aniccaa) khandhaayatanaadiini upanijjhaayatha. Samatha~n ca
>vipassana~ca va.d.dhetaa(develop) ti vutta.m hoti. Maa pamaadatthaati
>maapamajjittha.
>In this light the use of the word kammatthaana is of interest: not only for
>samatha, also for vipassana, and there it is object of right understanding.
>I just read in the Samuyutta Nikaya IV, Migajaalavaggo, 71,
>Chaphassaayatanikaa, the six spheres of contact, the aayatanas.( I know
>Robert likes this, he is always interested in the ayatanas.) The Commentary
>I have only in Thai: The bhikkhu does not understand these ayatanas, and we
>read that the Buddha was thinking what kammathana would be helpful for that
>monk who had no viriya for the kammathanas of the dhatus , kasinas or other
>subjects. He thought that the kammathana of the ayatanas would be a
sappaya,
>helpful condition for that monk. He then asked whether the eye is I, mine
or
>myself, etc. And so on for the other ayatanas. This sutta is a helpful
>condition for me too, I find.
>
>Nijjhaayati is the same in meaning as upanijjhaayati, reflect, meditate,
>but upa here could mean: support. In other contexts upa could be nearness
in
>the sense of an ennemy, a hindrance, perhaps in: upakilesa ?

I haven't found anything yet to explain the meaning of 'upa' but did find
two passages explaining the 'ni' along with some other prefixes with
'jhaayati':

jhaayatiiti cinteti. pajjhaayatiiti bhusa.m cinteti. nijjhaayatiiti
anekavidhena cinteti. apajjhaayatiiti tato apagantvaa cinteti.
-- Mahaniddesa-atthakatha 2.274

jhaayatiiti cinteti. sa.mjhaayatiiti ito c'ito ca naanappakaaraka.m
jhaayati. nijjhaayatiiti nirantaravasena nibaddha.m jhaayati. -- AA v 79

'nibaddha.m' as an adverb means: constantly, always, continually (PED).
Another possibility for 'upa' could be its use as an intensifier (bhusatthe)
as in 'upanissaya' -- strong-dependence.

There is an interesting passage (which you probably already know about) in
the Atthasalini explaining the two upanijjhaanas in greater detail. See DhsA
167 or The Expositor p. 222-3. P.M. Tin translates 'upanijjhaayati' as
'examines closely'.

>I had not thought before of the prefix vi in vi~n~naa.na, meaning: knowing
>clearly, precisely or in detail. And also: that which should be known
>clearly, as explained in abh list.

On page 84 of The Expositor, P.M. Tin translates 'vijaanati' as 'is aware
variously'. I take it that 'variously' is related to 'vividhe' which is one
of the meanings of 'vi' that we touched on earlier. But the senses of
'clearly, precisely, etc.' seem to relate to 'visese' (distinction) in my
mind.

>A minor point: in the Tika I am studying, further on, between brakets there
>is an O plus numbers. Can I ignore this?
>Best wishes, Nina.

Just ignore. Bracketed items like "(dii0 ni0 3.317; ma0 ni0 2.25)" are
giving references for the aforementioned quote. dii0 ni0 = Dighanikaya, 3 =
vol. 3, 317 = page number of the Burmese Chatthasangayana printed ed.

Best wishes,
Jim


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