Re: mudhappasanna

Lance,

I think muddha- is the most promising one out of the four. Perhaps the
Burmese "mudha-" is connected to Skt. mūḍha and Pali mū.lha. The Skt.
equivalent of "muddha" is "mugdha". While looking up "mugdha" in
Apte's Skt. dictionary, I was surprised to find some meanings that
seem compatible with "-ppasannā" (the 2nd member of the compound) and
I'm now thinking that "attractive and pleasing" might be an
appropriate translation for the two occurences of "muddhappasannā" at
Vin III 39. I take the two members of the compound as two past
participle adjectives describing the female lay disciples (Supabbā &
Saddhā) in the two stories.

For sense 7 of "mugdha", Apte gives: beautiful, lovely, charming,
pretty. (I would add 'attractive'). It is also interesting to note the
following meaning of the feminine noun "mugdhā": a young girl
attractive by her youthful simplicity. "-ppasannā" could also be
translated as "bright".

Jim

> My thoughts:
>
> PTS Buddhappasannā makes no sense in the context and is probably a
> printing error without Ms authority. The Thai mudu- also makes no
sense and must be a scribal error. So it is between mudha- and
muddha-.Since muddha- is found elsewhere in similar contexts, I would
opt for that. I think mudha- is a nonce word and therefore unlikely,
but one could opt for it as a lectio difficilior. In any case they
would both mean the ame.
>
> Lance Cousins