Re: some thoughts on studying the texts

Dear Nina,

> > I believe that one of the best ways to
> > learn a grammatical text is to memorize the suttas or short
aphorisms
> > at the very least. Unfortunately, this is not a standard approach
for
> > most Westerners .....
> N: . I am all for the good old traditional method of memorizing.
> J: I can think
> > of all kinds of study projects to help us better understand and
work
> > with these remarkable texts.
> N: What kinds of study projects, I am interested.
> Thank you for all the trouble,
> Nina.

Two weeks have passed by since I last wrote the above and I'm afraid
I've forgotten exactly what it was I had in mind at the time. It often
happens that when I've been away for any length of time it takes me a
while to get back to where I left off. Lately, I've been struggling
with the formidable size of my library and wondering why in the world
I had to accumulate so many books over the years. Now I'm slaving like
a librarian in an attempt to catalogue them!

I intend to resume the study of the grammar texts soon and hope to
post some passages for study as soon as I'm satisfied with the quality
of the readings. I'm thinking that Kaccayana's grammar would be a good
choice of a basic text to start from and since the rules usually have
their counterparts in the other grammars such as the Rupasiddhi and
the Saddaniti, a comparative study can happen at the same time. These
extra texts will also provide additional comments on the rules. If you
like, I can present the material in such a way as to give you the
opportunity to do some translation work before I weigh in with my
interpretations. Just let me know as I'm not sure how you feel about
working with grammatical texts whose technical language and style
may be very different from what you're used to. I think you will like
Buddhappiya's .tiikaa on the Rupasiddhi. I saw an interesting
derivation there of attha from the root ar (tattha ariiyati
~naayatiiti attho).

Best wishes,
Jim