Re: Sadd: TOC (linga)

Hi Rett,

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I found your message quite a
challenging one to respond to as it's on a topic I still don't know
much about even after spending a fair amount of time on it over the
past week!

> >Jim:
> >Aggava.msa does not seem to give a definition of this particular
term
> >but does for 'li"nga' on page 641 where he gives two different
> >definitions....
>
> I even found a third directly after (Sd 197). I'm pretty sure that
he
> is defining different senses of the term, so there need not be a
> conflict between the definitions.

The Sd 197 rule is just an extension of the same definition at Sd 196.

> Monier Williams has 'linga' in grammatical contexts as meaning both
> 'gender' and 'praatipadika' (as you remarked on below)! And it looks
> likely that 'pakatiruupa' in Sadd is more or less equal to
> 'praatipadika'.
>
> >In the first definition he defines
> >it as a derived expression (nipphannavacana) having gender, etc.
and
> >gives the example of puriso [sic. shld read Buddho],
>
> Rett:
>
> Here is Sd 192, which you just referred to:
>
> 192 Visadattaadisahita.m liinatthagamaka.m nipphannavacana.m linga.m
>
> Linga is a derived expression clarifying what is obscure
> (liinatthagamaka) and accompanied by gender. (lit: accompanied by
> purity/brightness etc, i.e purity, impurity and
> neither-purity-nor-impurity)

I find 'gamaka.m' a hard one to interpret. Mmd 53 has the following:
liinam attha.m gamayatiiti li"nga.m. Here, 'gamayati' is a causative
verb of which Apte gives "make clear; signify, denote" among its
several meaning--so your 'clarifying' seems okay. I too translate
'nipphanna' (produced, effected) as 'derived'. I hope it's okay.

> I have some questions and proposals about this sutta and about its
> explanation which follows.
>
> First, Visadatta < visadda (clear, bright, manifest) + tta. I don't
> really see the connection to gender in the word Visada. But the
> following suttas (Sadd 193,194, 195) seem to define a visada
> expression as masculine, an avisada expression as feminine, and a
> neither-visada-nor-avisada expression as neuter.

One correction: your "< visadda" should be "< visada". Thanks for
pointing out my earlier error with "puriso" instead  of "Buddho".

> So Visadattaadi (visada tta aadi) perhaps shouldn't read 'gender
> etc', but simply 'gender'. The aadi in this case would be the
> feminine and neuter. If expressed with an etc-phrase you might say
> 'masculine etc' meaning all genders.

I'm inclined to think of "visada" etc. as features of grammatical
gender.

> Is this connected to some idea of purity, where males are considered
> more pure than females? Or is it connected to an idea of light and
> dark, where males are light and females are dark? Or is visada a
> grammatical term that I just haven't found defined? I've looked in
MW
> and Apte, as well as the lean, unlovely PED without luck.

It doesn't seem to be mentioned in Kacc. and the only other grammar
I've seen it in is Ledi Sayadaw's. I think it is connected to the idea
of degrees of ambiguity regarding the inflectional endings eg.
feminines in -aa have the same -aaya suffix for 5 cases in the
singular. There is quite a bit on 'visada' etc. at Sadd I 220-5 where
you will see some statistical analyses of all three genders starting
at the bottom of page 220.  I have not studied these pages, so not
sure if this is what Aggava.msa means by "visada" etc.

> Sd 192's exp has a fairly straightforward syntactic breakdown of the
> sutta, then continues:
>
> vutta.m hi: "rukkho ti vacana.m linga.m, lingattho tena diipito;
> eva.m lingañ ca lingatta.m ñatvaa yojeyya pa.n.dito" ti.
>
> What exactly is the point here? I'd translate roughly:
>
> For it is said: the expression 'rukkho' is linga, the linga-meaning
> is illuminated by it; the learned should construe (it) knowing linga
> and the linga-meaning thusly.

I think it's fairly simple. It's knowing the difference between the
word-form and what the word-form means or stands for. In Saussurean
terms: the signifier and the signified. This reminds me of the first
rule in Kacc: the meaning is properly understood through the letters
(attho akkharas~n~naato).

> Is it possible, that the second sense of linga you wondered about
> (which resembles praatipadika, and is coming below) is what is being
> called 'lingattha' here?: a sign-sense, while linga in this sutta
> refers to gender (as a further sign placed onto the bare form)? Or
> are there other ways to make sense of this quotation, and what it
has
> to contribute here?

I'm still puzzling over this sutta. I don't think you can equate
'li"nga' in the second sense with 'li"ngattha' even though 'li"nga' is
defined as having meaning (atthava.m).

> The quotation (about rukkho) appears to be from the Mmd (53), which
> you're working on anyway. Would it be possible to look more closely
> there?

I've had a look and made a transcription of it. It's mostly related to
Sd 192 and I've already quoted from it. For Sd 196 you have to look at
Mmd 284 (li"ngatthe pa.thamaa) which runs to four pages. I've only
gone over the first half page of it. It menitons paa.tipadika and even
sakkatagantha (Sanskrit book) several times. I will try and make a
complete transcription of the four pages in the near future.

> >  But I'm not sure if Aggava.msa takes them both
> >to refer to the same thing. Having two different definitions of
> li"nga
> >is also confusing to me. The second defn. of li"nga is similar to
> >Panini's defn. of praatipadika.
>
> Do you have handy where in Panini that definition occurs?

The praatipadika definition is given at 1.2.45-6

> >  There is also the 'a"nga'
> >(inflectional base) term used in Panini that I still haven't sorted
> >out.

The definition for this one can be found at 1.4.13.

> How did you read pa.tichanna.m anga.m ?

I read it as "hidden base". It seems to be a synonym of li"nga. Mmd
284 has "liina.m a"nga.m" instead and equates 'liina.m' with
'apaaka.ta.m'. This 'anga' just adds another difficulty.

I'm still studying the matter and will let you know if it gets any
clearer.

Best wishes,
Jim