Re: Mmd: introductory verses

Dear Lance,

Thank you for your helpful reply.

> As regards the first verse, I don't think it is necessary to add the
> anusvaara - the compound buddhisampaapaka.m can extend across the
> boundary between the first two paadas. If so, we have to take
> visuddham with buddha.m:
>
> Having bowed to the Buddha who is pure [but]  causes impure people
> To reach understanding, . . .

I agree. Although I was aware that compounds can extend across the
boundary between two paadas, I unconsciously made the mistake of
thinking that it couldn't happen here merely because the two paadas
are on separate lines!! I think this was due to the fact that I'm more
used to seeing such compounds across paadas of 8 syllables that are
both on the same line and often separated by a hyphen or space at the
boundary. I think inserting an editorial hyphen (buddhi-) would help
avoid this mistake. This also made me rethink the boundary between the
last two paadas of the second verse. See my response to Rett on this.

> In the second verse the addition of ya does seem necessary.

In April, I asked Teng Kee, one of our contributors, to check his 1933
copy of a different Burmese publication and he confirmed the presence
of the 'ya' in it. It appears that my copy is printed from a photocopy
of the original and although most of the characters are clear enough,
some only appear partially and one has to fill in the gaps which I've
been able to do so far in nearly all cases.

> For the first line I would take muniva.n.nitabuddhim as describing
> kaccaayana~n:

I also agree with you on this. I mistakenly took '-buddhimassa' to be
an inflected form of 'buddhimaa' which would normally be either
'buddhimato' or 'buddhimantassa' in the dat. or gen. sing.

> And to Kaccaayana whose understanding was praised by the Sage

That reads a lot better.

> Is this a reference to the Buddha's description of Mahaakaccaana's
> ability to describe in detail what the Buddha has taught in brief ?

Yes, I think this might be so. This is also the Kaccaayana as
understood in the Saddaniiti, Suttaniddesa, and the Ruupasiddhi with
its .tiikaa. I know that in modern times Kaccaayana's grammar (as we
now have it) is not taken by scholars to be any earlier than the 7th
cent. A.D. However, it seems possible to me that at least the suttas
(some or all of them) could have originated from Mahaakaccaana while
the vutti and payoga parts of the grammar were the contributions of
later authors as described in the Kaccaayanabheda according to DPPN.

Best wishes,
Jim