Re: Dhammasenapati's Pali Grammar?

Dear Jim,

> They both read correctly on my MS Windows 95 system. I noticed one
> problem though with the plain text file in Velthuis. Your non-velthuis
> palatal n (ascii 150) is only seen as a long dash in Times New Roman.
> I could not convert it to ~n in Windows but was able to do so in DOS.

Right. I notice now that I forgot to convert that character.

> I would very much like to study this .tiikaa and hope that you will
> get around to making and uploading a digital version of it at your
> convenience. You might consider providing the first few pages for some
> of us to get an early start on it.

Okay. Today I will post the Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii's
commentary on the ganthaarambhakathaa. Thankfully
Saddhammasiri limited himself to just one opening verse. I
don't like those long ones that have the subject on line 2
and the main verb 20 lines further down.

I will try to post the Diipanii's glosses a verse at a time
every couple of days, though for the next two weeks I'm
rather busy and probably won't have the time to answer
questions or get into any discussions about it.

I thought I would also attempt a semi-translation of the
verses, i.e. one which leaves most of the technical terms
untranslated, but shows how the samaasa and syntax of each
verse should be parsed. I have to do it this way for now,
because although my study with Ashin Ujjota last year gave
me some familiarity with the technical terms of saddasattha
(dabba, satti, sakattha etc.) I am rather at a loss to come
up with English renderings for them. To make a glossary I
need to do some background reading and see how the Sanskrit
cognates of these terms are handled by scholars like Matilal.

Here is a brief description of the two relevant works that I
have at my disposal. They are both authored by the Thai monk
Phra Mahaa Nimitr Dhammasaaro:

1) Saddatthabhedacintaa, gaathaa plae yok sap
("Saddatthabhedacintaa: a word-for-word translation of the
verses"), 474pp. Mahachulalongkorn Press, 2004.

Consists of the Saddatthabhedacintaa verses in Pali, a
bya~njanato Thai translation of these, and the
Saddatthabhedacintaadiipanii in Pali only. I obtained a copy
of this book only a week ago, so have not yet studied it.
Its publication was subsidised by the Suphatraprathip
family, in memory of Nai Jeum Suphatraprathip. Thanks to
their generosity it sells at the low price of 250 Baht.

2) Saddatthabhedacintaa, kaan seuksaa cheung wikhro
waiyaakorn baalii ("Saddatthabhedacintaa: studying the
analytical foundations [or perhaps 'method of analysis'] of
Pali grammar"), 630pp. Mahachulalongkorn Press, 2002.

Consists of the verses in Pali, an atthato Thai translation
of each verse and then Mahaa Nimitr's commentary (from 1 up
to 10 pages for each verse or verse pair, but usually about
one and a half pages). Very thorough scholarship, with
citations from more than thirty grammatical treatises. This
was the text I was using last year and I came to regard it
as a .tiikaa even though its author is too modest too title
it as such. I don't recall the price of this volume, but
since its publication was unsubsidised it would be rather
more than that of the first book.

I don't know much about this Phra Mahaa Nimitr, but he seems
to be a remarkably productive monk, perhaps a Thai version
of ~Naa.namoli. Besides the above-mentioned works, he has
translated all three volumes of the Saddaniiti.

> To your list of the Pali .tiikaas below, I've added the three listed
> in CPD for comparison.

Thanks. Regarding the .tiikaa names given in my last post I
have a couple of corrections to make.

The .tiikaa by U Janakaabhiva.msa should end in
-bhaa.saa.tiikaa, not -bhaa`saa.tiikaa.

I have received an e-mail saying that the .tiikaa by U
Abhaya should be called Dhaaratthasa`ngaha, not
Saaratthasa`ngaha.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando