Re: Eng translation of Kacc 1:1

I am now writing from the glistening, black, menacing, millipede of a
city that is Phnom Penh.

> Although the word "budha" (a wise or learned man) isn't listed in the PED,
> it is found at Abh 228 among 25 synonyms of a wise man. It's also in Apte's
> Skt. dictionary but with 3 additional meanings: a god, a dog, and the planet
> Mercury.

Yes, I think you probably could have guessed from my prior message
that I am well familiar with the term (thus my stated jest that we
would have to interpret the verse as praising the planet Mercury)
--however, unless you would actively refute the proposition that the
metre requires the contraction (e.g., count out the syllables) it does
seem a very likely explanation.  "Buddha" makes more sense than
"Budha" in the passage.

> One of
> the nayas enumerated in the Kaccaayanatthadiipanii (p. 21) is the naya of
> avoiding the two extremes (as set forth in the Buddha's first discourse).

Yes, but Jim this is precisely the kind of "valid but spurious"
connotation that commentaries and Pali lists of synonyms present us
with --but should not be allowed to intrude into the (genuinely alien)
context and context of the passage we're looking at.  If we were to
consider all meanings listed in such sources as equally valid, we
would have to consider the Pali word "white" as meaning "exposed bone"
in each and every context --as the commentaries (etc.) list this,
because on a single occasion, in a single verse, "white" is used with
this implied meaning.

If we want to contrue the argument that Kaccayana was a devotee of the
planet mercury, and that every grammatical use of "naya" in fact
implies a sermon on "the middle path" then we certainly *can* do so
--but we merely *should* not.

E.M.