Re: atthesu

Hi Rett,

> >  In the next paragraph of Mmd there is this '-puujaya-' form in
> >the compound 'puujaniiyapuujayattaa' that has me baffled. Do you
> >recognize it? A present participle active would work nicely in the
> >compound (= "from the fact of honouring that which is worthy of
> >honour"), but I think of p.p.a forms of 'puujeti' as puujenta,
> >puujayanta, or puujayamaana. I also thought of the Skt. puujya with
an
> >inserted svarabhakti vowel but there is already the Pali form
'pujja'.

My "p.p.a" should be ppr. (PED).  Cone abbreviates: part.pr.

> You mention that in context it would work well if it was a present
> participle (presumably with a -tva/-tta suffix forming an abstract
> noun, in the ablative)

I'm reading the -tta suffix exactly as you are.

> I'm not certain how this works in Pali, but in Sanskrit the stems of
> passive participles use the weak form, without the nasal. So the
> example you give puujayanta, for example, would be puujayat- in the
> stem form. Perhaps this is the case here, either as a sanskritism in
> the Pali, or a viable Pali form?

I suspect there is a fair amount of Sanskritisms in Mmd, so your
suggestion sounds plausible to me. But is it a valid Pali form? We
could keep it an open question until we can find some validation for
it.

> Hence: puujayat + tta (with ellision of the superflous t)? This is
> just a guess, of course.

A 'puujaniiyapuujayataaya' (with a fem. 'taa' suffix) comes
immediately after in the next clause. Would 'puujayat + taa' in Skt.
be 'puujayataa'?

> Will this passage be coming in the next installment of Mmd?

Yes, indeed! I haven't decided which is better--whether to just go
ahead and post the text first without any translation or include a
translation the first time around. I've been doing the latter up to
now but I'd be interested in trying the first alternative to see if
that might not be a better way. At least it would afford us an
opportunity to work together on figuring out what the heck the author
is trying to convey. As an experiment I'll post the forthcoming
paragraph untranslated with a comment or two on problems I see in the
text. Howver, no one should feel obligated to work on it. Only if they
wish and have the time for it. I think Mmd is going to be a difficult
text to work through. I apologize for the very slow pace. We're all
going to be over 700 years old by the time we get to the end of
Kaccaayana. :-)

For the past week, I've been working on another project of mine that
pertains to promoting interest in the study of Pali in Canada. I have
recently been in touch with the founder of Nalanda College in Toronto
and he has offered to work with me on my idea of forming a national
association of Canadians interested in Pali. I have set up a Pali
discussion forum for Canadians, it's just me so far. Its homepage is
at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palistudy_ca/

Some of my work is going to be contacting Buddhist groups and
individuals in Canada to let them know about my idea and the mailing
list as I hardly think anyone would be looking for or expecting to
find anything like this on the internet. This is just a first step. If
all goes well, centres of Pali learning will be springing up all over
the country in no time. :-)

Best wishes,
Jim