Re: Pa.n.natti/pa~n~natti

Hello all,

[Preamble:] I have just completely disassembled my former computer and
"tore the beating heart from its chest".  Hopefully I will soon be
generating more grammatical nonsense after implanting this heart into
the new computer.

> > Are there any rules in the Kaccaayana or  Saddaniiti with regards
> > the assimilation of ~n and  .n?

I would generally emphasise that this is a separate question from the
~nh/.nh controversy.  My own impression is that "~n~n" and ".n.n"
follow some unwritten rule of euphony --very similar to the rules
governing the permutation of the anuswara.  I only say this is an
"unwritten rule" because I myself have never read it.  As with some
other questions that have been discussed on this list, it would seem
to me a desideratum to compare the operation of this "rule" (if it is
a rule) as it is observed in Pali poetics vs. prose.  It may be that
one pronounciation "sounds more Vedic" than the other (this is an
issue, e.g., in the Sutta-Nipata, where "sounding Vedic" seems to be
at a premium), or it may be (more generally) that there is an
aesthetic criterion (shaping the pronounciation of these words in
certain contexts) that prevails over the rules of euphony _per se_
--and I would hope this might be demonstrable by comparing poetics to
prose.

One other desideratum comes to mind when I read this:

> "8. The cerebrals are entirely secondary, being a specifically Indian
> product and unknwn in the Indo-Iranian period. They are probably due
> to aboriginal, especially Dravidian, influence.

Does anyone know of an actual comparative study of Pali &
Munda/Santali linguistics?  The relationship between Munda/Santal
languages, old Vedic, and M.I.A. (Pali & Prakrit) is certainly a very
thorny subject --but I do not know of any printed source that actually
speak from a sound knowledge of the Munda/Santal group.  Every study I
have seen is limited to comparative judgements about Pali, Prakrit,
and Vedic, with only vague allusions to "aboriginal language" (such as
the quote above) --and PLEASE NOTE (contra the quotation above) *not*
all aboriginal language (in ancient India) can be called "Dravidian".

Unless we are so foolish as to define "Dravidian" as "non-Aryan", the
former term cannot reasonably include Munda/Santal in one category
with all of the South Indian languages.

> My comment: unlike classical Sanskrit, both Vedic and Pali have the
> consonant /.l/.

Indeed; in many respects, Pali has "ostentatious Vedicisims" that most
genres/periods of Sanskrit literature lack.  I think there is an
understandable degree of discomfort in discussing these connections,
partly because of the tendency among some Hindu and Western scholars
to assert that Buddhist philosophy is largely/wholly derivative of the
Vedas.  The latter thesis is absurd to anyone who know the primary
source material, however, it is convincing to many who know absolutely
nothing --and I have met plenty of them.

E.M.