Re: Introductory verse and commentary

Hi Rett,

> Thanks for posting that interesting excerpt from de Silva. You
mentioned:
>
> >She says "they have nothing to do with
> >philology or etymology" leaving me a little confused.
>
>
> I wonder if maybe she's guarding against an objection that has often
> been raised that, as etymologies, these niruktis are often
> philologically indefensible. Because of this, scholars have often
> thrown out the baby with the bathwater and dismissed nirukti as
> 'nonsense'. Instead she points out that they still can be
interesting
> and important to study, since they, among other things, help people
> remember traditional interpretations of doctrine.  In that respect I
> expect you'll enjoy E Kahrs's book.  He avoids the extremes of being
> gullible/traditional on the one hand, or
> western/dismissive/know-it-all on the other. It's both appreciative
> and critical, which to me is a model worth emulating.

That's an interesting point you raise which I'd like to discuss
further later on. I'm really looking forward to receiving Kahr's book
which should now be on its way. It was sort of strange how I came to
be ordering it just recently, like how you came by Senart's book. I
went to abebooks.com to find the book and the first book that came up
was at a good price of $27 usd for a used copy from a bookseller in
Rochester, NY which is just a crow's fly away from here. A new book is
fairly expensive at prices ranging from $40 to over $100 usd plus
shipping. I think my 1998 copy will be just as good as new. I just
hope it's not defective with missing pages.

There is a book available from Motilal Banarsidass that I'm also
interested in getting. It's _Paali-Mahaavyaakara.na_ by Jagdeesh
Kashyap Bhikshu, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi 1963, 1985 priced at 10 uk
pounds for a paperback or 14 pds for a hardbound (mlbduk.com). I think
it's probably Kaccayana's grammar in the Devanagari script. Kashyap
was the general editor of the Indian edition of the Tipitaka back in
the late 50s/early 60s. I read an interesting passage in an
autobiography of the Englishman, Sangharakshita (founder of the FWBO),
about his experiences in studying Pali with the Ven. Kashyap in
Benares (I think). I remember from it that Kashyap had Kaccayana all
memorized and mastered. When I was searching for Kashyap on abebooks I
was shocked to find out the current prices of the volumes of this
Indian ed. of the Tipitaka (41 vols.) which I had bought complete
minus 1 volume back in the late 70s for about $40 usd including
shipping. The prices I saw for some of these volumes were like $83 for
just four of them plus shipping. Unbelievable!

There is yet another grammar that looks interesting, the Namamala that
Teng Kee had mentioned here earlier. I have located some info on the
book as follows:

Namamala or A work on Pali Grammar (in Sinhalese Script) by Subhuti,
Waskaduwe 22 cm, 24, c, 148, 346p, (Reprint Colombo 1876 edn.) 2001
ISBN 8120615573; available from: alltimebooks.com $12.07 and
asianeds.com Rs.495.

I found the prices at alltimebooks.com (New Delhi) were very good with
many books selling for $6 usd and there is quite a good selection of
Pali grammars and dictionaries. Just enter the keyword Pali which will
also bring up many books on Nepali.

I'm still studying the third derivation of se.t.tho, in particular,
'santehi sappurisehi' which I've been struggling with for the past few
days. I think the 'santehi' is from the root 'as' and, interestingly,
it seems that the 'sap' of sappurisa has nothing to do with the 'sat'
of Skt. satpuru.sa if the sat is understood to be from 'as'. Someitmes
erroneous etymological assumptions are made between the Pali and their
Sanskrit parallels and this may be one of them. Bodhisattva is another
one as I believe the Pali bodhisatta is related to Skt. bodhisakta.
Also 'suutra' only correponds to one of the six Pali etymologies of
'sutta'. I think this is one advantage that Pali has over Sanskrit --
in that Pali lends itself to more etymological possibilities because
of the ambiguity of the spelling and for this reason Pali is probably
a more difficult language to master.

Best wishes,
Jim