Re: Mmd: introductory verses

Hi Jim,

Interesting ideas. I definitely agree it's worth looking for more
readings; the one I sent is admittedly a bit far-fetched. Finding one
with a less jumbled word order would be more elegant.

About 'assa kaccaayanassa' being free-standing and just delineating
the topic 'with regards to this kaccaayana': good question. I don't
know. I did find something in Hinüber (Kasussyntax der Pali) called
the genitivus commodi, which might fit. There the genitive marks _for
whose sake_ an action is taken. He even says that to clarify it, you
can add atthaaya. If it is a case of that it could be expanded to:

assa kaccaayanassa [atthaaya] (for this kaccaayana's sake).

I don't know how to judge if this would be correct though. For one
thing, would he say that of a teacher who has long since passed away?
It's rather for the sake of the pupils that he writes an
introduction, I would think. But it could perhaps be for K's sake in
the sense of honoring him, or helping his instruction to be
understood by later generations of pupils.

Another possibility (perhaps far-fetched as well) would be if
'kaccaayana' there is a shortened form of the title of the work
kaccaayanappakaranam. In this case it could be expanded to: assa
kaccaayanappakaranassa mukhamatta.m kariasssa.m

or: I will make an introduction of this one's (k's) (work entitled) kaccaayana.

Though this would seem to be asking for confusion, since the
shortened title of the work is identical with the name of the author.
A final longshot would be if kaccaayana is actually from
k_aa_ccaayana (initial lengthened aa) along the lines of the vriddhis
in Bauddha from Buddha or Jaina from Jina. The law of Morae would
then re-shorten the lengthened aa in kaaccaayana to kaccaayana. 'of
this kacccaayanist (work, tradition)' But again, this would seem to
be asking for confusion. Use only as last resort :-)

Your idea of making a single long compound out of paara.m-->upadesa
looks interesting. That would take care of the question of who the
upadesa is received from, instead of it just being 'received' in
general (like we might say of the 'received' version of a text).

Anyhow, trying these various ideas out perhaps we can get something like:


anvaya:

assa kaccaayanassa [atthaaya]

paara.mparaabhatavinicchayaniccha[ya]~n~nuuladdhopadesam avalamba

aha.m tena katassa mukhamattam karissa.m

(By 'anvaya' I just mean rearranging the words in the verse into an
order that reveals the syntax of the interpretation, as well as
separating words written together, perhaps resolving some sandhis,
stuff like that. I've seen the term used this way in some student
editions of Sanskrit works)


Translation of above:

For the sake of this kaccaayana

relying on the instruction received from those knowledgeable about
the investigations passed down in succession

I will make an introduction to what was composed by him.


This still leaves open the question of what exactly nicchaya and
vinicchaya mean here, so I still just translate with 'investigations'
as a placeholder for now.

I'm pretty sure that 'upadesa' refers to oral instruction, or a book
written in a form that resembles this oral instruction, i.e. where a
short statement is given, which is then explained at length in prose.
(Perhaps it also suggest instruction for relative beginners???)

I would still like to leave open possibilities, like that katassa
takes -upadesa as its genitive object, or that -ññuu is the end of
its compund and is congruent with aha.m. But I agree with you, it
seems tough to get a satisfactory final answer.

I'm looking forward to what you, and Lance and others, come up with.
I hope we're getting closer.

best regards,

/Rett