Re: Introductory verse and commentary

Rett,
Nice to read your translation - edifying indeed!
If you have time to give the pali line by line with
the English it will make it easier for beginners like
me to follow.
Appreciate
Robert
--- rett <rett@...> wrote:
> 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
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