Re: Mmd: introductory verses

Dear Lance,

I'll respond to your previous message with your translation of the
second verse soon. Just thought this one would be quicker to answer
first.

> So my understanding is, after all, slightly different to yours. I
> take uttamadakkhi.neyya.m as literally 'highest giftable' i.e. it is
> the supreme 'field of merit'.
>
> bowing down to S the Community which is sinless and the highest
> <community> to which offerings can be given

Your rendering seems okay to me. Admittedly, my interpretation of
compounds (especially bahubbiihis) is still fairly limited. I found 3
instances of uttamadakkhi.neyyo on the CSCD, thus giving support to
your separating the last two words from anagha. Your taking anagha to
have an elided terminal -m- is a new phenomenon for me. I simply took
the whole as three equal-standing modifiers of sa.mgha.m without
really giving any serious thought as to what type (or its subtype) of
compound this one actually belongs to. Thanks for your helpful remarks
on the -mat suffix.

I should mention here that the translation I did is not based on a lot
of research and critical thinking. In fact, it was something I'd done
fairly quickly -- I'd only spent a couple of hours on the last verse
just before posting it along with the first which I'd worked on
earlier in the spring. I'm presenting the Mmd as a text that is
ancillary to our main subject of study:  the Kaccaayanavyaakara.na
(the root text, so to speak). I would also like to introduce other
ancillary texts (Suttaniddesa and Ruupasiddhi with its .tiikaa) for
study sometime later. Because of the constraints of time we won't be
able to study these texts in as much detail as Kacc. I thought that we
should continue on with Mmd (for just a little over a page which is
already transcribed) to catch up to where it begins to comment on
Kaccaayana's opening verses which we started on earlier. At that point
we can carry on three concurrent studies with Kacc, Mmd, and
Kacc-va.n.n.

Instead of posting portions of the text with my translation first, I
will post the text only first so others will have the opportunity to
try their hand at a translation and posting it for comments, if they
wish. I will post mine, if no one else does within a week.

I should also add that anyone is free to post translations of
excerpts from other grammatical texts (in Pali or Sanskrit) at any
time, especially if it helps clear up difficult matters for us.

Best wishes,
Jim