Re: bhaavetabbanti [parsing]

Hi Dan,

D: Thanks, Jim. It seems to me like an important sentence, so I want to
get a better grasp on it. Can you help me parse it?

J: I will certainly try to help.

D: Regarding the 4th noble truth: "ta.m kho panida.m
dukkhanirodhagaaminii pa.tipadaa ariyasacca.m bhaavetabbanti me"
[Vin. Mv. 1:6, S 56:11, and Ps XVI.]

J: The Dhammacakkappavattanasutta is also included in Pa.tis XVII
(Dhammacakkakathaa) but not in full. Ps is the abbreviation used for the
Papa~ncasuudanii (MN commentary). There are different schemes for showing
the titles of texts in abbreviations. I think the most authoritative is the
one adopted by the Critical Pali Dictionary.

D: 1. What's panida.m?

J: pana ida.m. 'pana' is a particle while 'ida.m' is the nom. sing. neuter
form of the pronoun 'ima' (stem form). The final 'a' of 'pana' has been
elided before a following vowel. The combination could also be written as:
pan' ida.m. The 'ida.m' (this) goes with 'ariyasacca.m' (noble truth).

D: 2. Also, "dukkhanirodhagaaminii" must be something like "way to
eradicate suffering." In your translation it looks like an
accusative, object of "by developing", which must be some kind of
ablative gerund ("bhaavetabbanti"). [I haven't learned my declensions
too well yet. I'm going by my nearly 20 year old recollection of
Greek grammar, so please be patient with me. Warder doesn't cover
very much in the first 5 lessons!]
What's the stem of bhaavetabbanti?

J: The translation that I made using "by developing" was not one I agreed
with. I was only rewording ~Nm's in order to make it more intelligible. I
think his "maintaining" might have something to do with "anurakkhanaa"
as found in the last of the 4 right efforts (sammappadhaana-s). "pa.tipadaa"
(the way) would be the accusative object of "developing" just like
"maintaining" but "pa.tipadaa" happens to be in the nom. sing. fem.
"dukkhanirodhagaaminii" translates into "leading to (gaaminii) the cessation
(nirodha) of suffering (dukkha).

"bhaavetabbanti" is made up of two words: bhaavetabba.m + iti and according
to the rules of sandhi (euphonic combination), .m + iti becomes nti. The
'ti' marks the end of the quote: "ida.m dukkhanirodhagaaminii pa.tipadaa
ariyasacca.m bhaavetabba.m". It is also possible that the quote could begin
at the very beginning: "ta.m kho panida.m... bhaavetabba.m". "ta.m" is a
word that I'm not sure about (is it a pronoun or a particle?). The stem form
of "bhaavetabba.m" is "bhaavetabba" which you will likely find under the
entry word "bhavati" in PED. The nom. sing. neut. inflectional termination
/a.m/ is in agreement with "ariyasacca.m" (the subject). I believe Warder
calls words ending in -tabba "future passive participles" but I think such
words would be better called "potential passive participles". Most Pali (and
Sanskrit) words can be resolved into their elementary components (morphemes)
and there are grammatical rules describing the formation of words.
"bhaavetabba" is a causative form which is made up of the verbal root /bhuu/
(be, become), the causative affix /e/ and the kicca affix /tabba/. "bhuu" is
changed to "bhaav" before /e/. In a traditional native grammar such as the
Saddaniiti one can find further details on the various uses and meanings of
/tabba/. In the Pa.tis commentary "bhaavetabba" is glossed as
"va.d.dhetabba" which helps a lot.

D: 3. "pa.tipadaa" -- why the long "a" at the end? PTS dictionary (on-
line) only gives "pa.tipada". Surely it's not nominative plural.

J: The online PED isn't showing the proper diacritics if all you saw was
"pa.tipada". The hardcopy would show "pa.tipadaa" (fem.).

D: 4. "ariyasacca.m" must be accusative, object of bhaavetabbbanti.

J: It wouldn't have the accusative case ending (although the nom. and acc.
endings happen to look the same). Here, the object or patient is expressed
in the nominative case just as the agent would be expresed in the
instrumental case. I don't know if I'm correct but I think of terms like
accusative, genitive, dative. etc. as referring to the case endings whereas
terms like agent, object/patient, instrument, etc. refer to kaarakas
(helpers) which help the verb to carry out its activity and could be
expresed in cases other than the normal ones.

D: Please don't feel obliged to spend too much time on my stupid
questions. I don't want you to feel like I'm abusing your generosity
in helping me with my rash of questions.

J: I didn't find your questions at all stupid and I hope you found my
answers to them of some help. I'm glad to help in whatever way I can
although it may take me some time to get back to you as I might have to work
on my understanding of Pali. I had put aside (not forgotten) your other
questions about bhavata.nhaa so I could work on your questions above. So
please be patient. Nina's still waiting (months later!) for my responses to
some of her translations.

Best wishes,
Jim



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