Re: Introductory verse and commentary

Hi Rett,

> Thanks for the answers. I'd like to say now, as a kind of blanket
> statement, that anything I don't respond to should be understood as
> 'read with gratefulness and pleasure'. It's impossible to respond to
> everything (apart from the fact that the number of posts would
> snowball to infinity). Similarly, I'm happy for whatever responses I
> get, but don't expect any. That's how e-mail forums seem to work.

I will try my best to respond to messages on this list but sometimes
it may take longer. I'd like to get back to some of your earlier
questions later on when we take up the words in more detail. I need to
study the root of ga.na before I try to answer your questions
concerning that word. I'm far from having mastered the language and
quite often I will have to do some studying before I can answer a
question.

> >  suttassa hito suttahito (sandhikappo),
> >ta.m suttahita.m,
>
> Yes, this sounds better. I'd also go with the commentary here. My
> first guess would be that that way in which  knowledge of the rules
> of sandhi would be beneficial to the suttas would be that it would
> help preserve them from corruption. Since copying manuscripts is a
> way of gaining merit, it can happen that basically illiterate people
> make copies with disastrous results. The more grammar that scribes
> understand, the less likely they are to mutilate the fine points
(one
> would hope), and the more likely they are to notice and correct
their
> own errors. Further, the more people who are able to read the
> suttas,the more they can be put into practice and kept alive and
> relevant. I wonder if there is a connection here to the attitude
> which culminated in Panini's detailed phonetic analysis of Sanskrit;
> its explicit goal was to protect Vedic from linguistic change (which
> was viewed as corruption rather than development).

The study of Panini's grammar is also of great interest to me in the
comparison of Pali words and grammars with their Sanskrit
counterparts. Much of the ambiguity of Pali clears up in a comparison
with the Sanskrit, I find. I use S.C. Vasu's A.s.taadhyaayii of
Paa.nini, a large two volume edition and translation of about 4000
sutras into English with copious notes. I'm using Vasu's approach as a
model for studying the suttas of Kaccayana. Right from the beginning
he applies the Paninian rules in his explanatory notes. The work is
lacking in the kinds of tables and indices one sees in Smith's
Saddaniti (except for the Dhatupatha index). I went through a lot of
trouble preparing a useful list of references to linguistic items in
the Paninian sutras such as the k.rt and taddhita affixes that we
might find useful in our discussions of similar items in Kaccayana and
the other works. These grammars are vital in preserving the language
of the original texts.

> Here's Fahs' entry for the infinitive of the root 'budh':
>
> bujjhitum buddhum -bodhitum -bodhum boddhum
>
> I'm not sure whether he has culled that list from the literature, or
> is providing entries from one of the grammars, but I suspect the
> former.

Thanks for the entry. That's a good book to have.

> >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.
>
>
> Thanks! I just returned that book to the library without having read
> the introduction! (lazy me). I'll try to remember to look at it next
> time I'm there.
>
> A work on this subject which could be of interest is Eivind Kahrs'
> _Indian Semantic Analysis_ 1998, which treats these sorts of
niruktis
> and discusses broader philosophical questions and rhetorical
> strategies. It's not a work on Pali, but might still be interesting
> to people on this list.

I'd be interested in reading a book like that. The same (?) author has
written an interesting article _Exploring the Saddaniiti_ in JPTS XVII
which takes a hard look at the kaaraka suttas.

> >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).
>
> Where exactly? I couldn't find that in Apte, or MW, but I only spent
> a couple of minutes searching. I did find a masculine, tamasa.h, but
> the only masculine of tamas (as a consonant stem) that I found was
as
> an epithet of Rahu.

You'll have to look again. It's under the entry 'tamam' (Apte, p.762,
col. 1) and 'tama' (MW, p.438, col. 1). The latter has: "1. Tama, m.
(...) = tamas" but not in the sense of 'darkness' apparently except
for the neuter. However, Apte has "3. darkness" under 'tama.h' in the
entry cited.

> >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.
>
> I agree that even if we just study a single word in depth, it could
> lead to further questions, which lead to further questions and we'd
> finally end up learning all sorts of things about the language.
> Wherever this goes is fine by me. I just send in questions or other
> responses when I have time. My hope is that there will be lots of
> aside 'chat' about methods, editions, where to find books, favorite
> dictionaries, good restaurants in various cities, you know, the
> works! I was also very happy to see how exactly you had transcribed
> from what I believe is Burmese characters? Just getting that
> late-commentary extract was exciting! I printed it out and started
> writing all over it.

Thanks for this! I'm sure there will be plenty of aside 'chat' to
liven things up around here in our discussions of what many would
normally find a very boring subject, grammar. I transcribed (or
transliterated) the commentary extract from the Devanagari script of
what I think is Tiwari's edn. and Hindi translation of the
Kaccaayanavyaakara.na. I could have done the same if it had been in
Burmese script. I checked over the whole thing only once after I did
the transcription so it's possible there still could be more typos.

One area I find quite interesting is the study of Pali and Sanskrit
roots (dhaatus) which I'd like to introduce into our study of words.
Most words have a root or element which serves as a meaningful kernel
of a word to which prefixes, affixes, and other items are added. I
have two etext lists of the roots with their meanings for the
Saddaniti and Panini's Dhatupatha but they need some more editing
before I make them available to the group. There are also two other
Pali lists of roots in Andersen and Smith's little book now available
from PTS. It isn't always easy to determine the exact root of a word
and quite often you have to choose from several identical ones. In the
second etymology of se.t.tha it took me a while to narrow down the
root from a list of 10 (is, iis, es) and in doing so I discovered some
illuminating connections.

Jim