Re: te suta.m/me suta.m

Dear Ole,

sammukhaa me ta.m aavuso Channa Bhagavato suta.m sammukhaa ca
pa.tiggahita.m Kaccaanagotta.m bhikkhum ovadantassa:

I would translate the above as:
"This, friend Channa, was heard by me in the presence of the Blessed One,
and accepted <by me> in the presence of <him> instructing Kaccaanagotta,
the bhikkhu: ..."

I'm not sure if it's correct that "sammukhaa" should take a genitive and I'm
puzzled as to why "sammukhaa" is repeated twice. Perhaps Ananda heard
it on one occasion but it wasn't until later that he accepted it. Now, I
would normally have taken "me" as an instrumental enclitic form of the
stem "amha" in accordance with Aggava.msa. I don't yet know what
Kaccaayana has to say about this in the Naamakappa but from reading
Kacc-v 308 (cha.t.thii ca) "kato me kalyaa.no" is given as an example of
the use of the sixth (genitive) case in the sense of the third which would
include the instrumental agent. So one could take the "me" in the Channa
quote as a genitive form. Kacc 308 & 309 together gives the genitive a
very wide scope as it can take the place of 4 different cases in many
instances and to add to the confusion there is the similarity of the forms
of the dative or 4th case.

Best wishes,
Jim

<< One the one hand, there are many examples like the one you quote, where
there is agreement between a ta-participle and the noun it qualifies, the
agent of the ta-participle being in the genitive. However, there are things
about the te suta.m/me suta.m constructions that puzzle me. See, for
instance, the following example from S III 134: sammukhaa me ta.m aavuso ...
Bhagavato suta.m sammukhaa ca pa.tiggahita.m Kaccaanagotta.m bhikkhum
ovadantassa: dvayanissito, and so on. ovadantassa evidently qualifies
Bhagavato (gen.), so we confront an example similar to the one I mentioned
earlier: Two genitives are apparently constructed with suta.m. >>


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