Re: Introductory verse and commentary

Hi Rett,

What a wonderful contribution and with good questions and comments. I
have to agree with Robert that your translation is edifying!

> 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?

Yes to your first question. It will take some more studying to find
what works best. In June last year we went through the two
introductory verses and there was some discussion on 'suttahita.m'
which I wasn't sure about myself. At the time the commentary was
unknown to me even though I had it all the time. Now that we have a
portion of it to help us, I thought it would be well-worth going over
the verses again in much greater detail as the commentary gives a lot
of useful linguistic explanations. In my first translation of
'suttahita.m' I took it as 'useful in the Discourses' and then shortly
after I changed it to 'set into suttas' which agrees with your 'placed
in suttas'. But now that we have the commentarial explanation showing
that it agrees more with my initial 'useful in the Discourses':

hito ti anuruupa.m pavattati, suttassa hito suttahito (sandhikappo),
ta.m suttahita.m, pi.takattayaanukuula.m. (note: there is an error I
made in the text posted to the group: -anukula.m should
read -anukuula.m.)

sutta = tipi.taka (and not the grammatical suttas). hito = anuruupa.m
= anukuula.m. Although in the PED all share the meaning of 'suitable',
I think later on we should examine '-hita' in more detail to determine
what is the best meaning out of several in the context given.

> 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?

I don't know. It doesn't strike me as being out of the ordinary
though. "To understand well" is exactly the way I take it. Instead of
'subuddhu.m' the Sinhalese and Indian reading is 'suboddhu.m' which
makes me curious as to whether both forms accord with the grammatical
rules or only just one of them.

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

That's an excellent choice!

> 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 hadn't noticed until you pointed it out.

> 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'.

I hadn't thought of them as punning etymologies before, which is an
interesting way to look at them I know some would call them
fanciful etymologies. There is an informative explanation of this kind
of etymology in Lily de Silva's introduction (p. lxviii) to the Tika
on the Digha Nikaya (PTS) which I will quote on another occasion.

> 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?

I think it is possible that 'tamo' might be taken as a masculine as
our commentator has it. Apte's Sanskrit dictionary gives a
masculine form 'tama.h' (darkness). We'd have to find other instances
in Pali of such noun with the -o (-as) stem being used in this way to
build up some support. At this stage I'm not prepared to say that the
commentator made a mistake here.

> 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'.

The CPD has the 17th cent. but the library info on Tiwari's ed. has
the 16th cent., so I'd say 16th-17th cent. A.D. I think the
commentator, Mahaavijitaavii, is most likely to have learnt Pali as a
second language and to have become knowledgeable enough to write a
commentary on Kaccayana. To me studying his commentary is like
studying with the master himself. The DPPN has him listed as
Vijitaavii and says that he was a Burmese author belonging to
Vijitapura (Panyaa) who wrote the Kaccaayanava.n.nanaa on the
Sandhikappa, and the Vaacakopadesa. I have some detailed bibliographic
information on the Va.n.nanaa published in Colombo, 1905 (498 pages).
I'm so shocked to learn that this big commentary covers only the first
51 suttas!!

> 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.

I'll leave the two questions for another time. My study is still on
se.t.tha and it may be awhile before I can post some notes on it as
I've been busy lately responding to posts like yours and other list
business. I'd like very much to do a detailed study of all the
words in the verses as explained in the commentary. I know this will
take a long time but the important thing is that we will still be
learning a great deal about Pali. And we can bring in any of
Kaccayana's suttas or material from other grammars to help explain
things better.

Best wishes,
Jim