Introductory verse and commentary

Hi Jim and Everyone,

Here come some questions about the first introductory first which Jim
has kindly provided to us. All help, comments or criticisms are very
welcome.

Attempt at literal translation:

Having saluted the best, world-honoured, topmost
Buddha, and the stainless Dhamma, and the supreme assembly,
To well-understand the choice meaning of the sayings of that teacher
I will here tell, placed in suttas, the right usage of sandhi.

1) suttahitam: Is this an adjective qualifying susandhikappam? What
does it mean here? In the above translation I chose the meaning of
'hita' = 'placed', but there are other senses of the word as well.
What works best?

2) subuddhu.m: I took this as an infinitive (< bujjhati to realize,
to understand) with prefixed 'su'='well', "to understand well". PED
said that 'su' can be prefixed to 'some verb forms'. Is the
infinitive normally one of them?

3) -vara: I translated 'choice' as in 'a choice steak', meaning 'of
the best sort'. Seems okay?

In the commentary, there is an interesting nirutti (etymological
explanation) of the word uttama.m: uddhato tamo yena so uttamo,'that
which removes darkness is ultimate.' Perhaps this is obvious to
everyone but did you notice the pun? ud(dhato) tamo > udtamo >uttamo ?

I find these punning etymologies charming and interesting. They are
meant to be edifying of course, and perhaps they also function as
mnemonics, since it's easier to remember things if you make patterns
of association. Of course in this case it's linguistically
indefensible. Uttamo is composed of the prefix ut- plus -tamo, the
superlative suffix litterally 'uppermost'.

4) I was wondering if the commentator should have written _uddhata.m_
tamo yena so uttamo. 'Tamo' = skrt 'tamas' which is neuter but the
commentator seems to be treating it as a masculine -a stem word. Is
this a mistake, or is there a viable new form 'tamo' (m) -a stem?

5) When was this commentary written? I have the idea it's a later
commentary, so we're talking about an adult who consciously learned
Pali as a second language, right? So a grammar mistake like in
question 4, might be possible, unlike with more canonical texts,
where unique forms are raw data, coming as they presumably do from
something more like 'native speakers'.

In the verse, I took ga.nam uttama.m as simply referring to the
Sangha, since the invocation seems to start out by honouring the
three Jewels. There the commentary gives another punning etymology:
'ga.nitabbo sankhyaatabbo ti ga.no' 'To-be reckoned, to be counted,
is ga.no'. This raises a couple of questions.

6) Might this one indeed be linguistically correct? Is the Pali word
'ga.na'='troop' (especially a group of followers of a samana) derived
from the idea of a group of items one could 'count'?

7) Is the sense of 'count' in the etymological explanation, more than
just counting 1,2,3 etc, but does it imply the sense 'to be reckoned
with', i.e. important? So that the explanation is suggesting that the
uttamo ga.no is the supreme group, the ariyasangha, which are the
people who 'count'='matter'? I'm not sure, but I believe that Pali
also has both of these senses, within the semantic field of 'count',
so it wouldn't just be an English wordplay being projected back onto
the Pali.

That's probably enough for this morning,  as I've got lots to do.

best regards,

/Rett