Re: Mmd-p.t passage regarding Kc 1 (2 of 3)

Dear Jim and Bryan:



I’ve been following this discussion with some interest from the side; but, I
should say, more from the perspective of ‘phenomenology’ than ‘grammar’ (but
in the end, one can’t keep these things apart, and I think that’s part of
the meaning of the passage you’re discussing).



I can’t resist throwing a couple of further ideas into the discussion.



Bryan already pointed out: “I think, for the passage to make sense, the
words nipphaadana, nipphanna, nipphaadetabba, etc must all be taken in the
sense of "analysis" or "perfection". They all come from the same root
ni.spad in Skt. which has the sense of "ripen" and nipphanna in Paali has
the sense of "perfected".”



Jim replied: “That is just some of the meanings although I have some doubt
about "analysis". Nipphatti is another cognate in use in the commentaries,
e.g., saddanipphatti (I think of the derivation of words or word-formation).
Nipphatti is the example given for the "ph" substitute of "p" in Kc 19. Also
note that the negative ppa. "anipphanna" is given only the meaning of "not
derived" in CPD Vol. I, p.174. The verb "nippajjate" or "nipphajjate" (as in
Mmd) is one of the three words in Kc 53 (liṅgañca nipphajjate). I looked it
up at Mmd p. 69 and found "thapīyati" (is established) given as a synonym.
That doesn't sound too far off from "is brought about, is produced" (cf.
definition 2 in Apte s.v. niṣpad). I have to disagree with "perfection" or
"analysis" for "nipphādana" in your translation (but will keep them in
mind):



Bryan: “The primary meaning of the root ni.spad is definitely "to produce"
or "accomplish" or "bring forth", but what does that mean in this context?
"nipphanna" has the meaning of "perfected".



Some further thoughts:



(1) Checking Monier-Williams (SED), ni.s-pad (ni.spadyate) has the primary
sense ‘to fall out; to come forth, issue, arise, be brought about or
effected, become ripe’; the causative (ni.s pādayati), ‘to bring about,
accomplish, perform, do, make, cause to ripen’.



SED then lists ni.spanna, ‘gone forth or sprung up, arisen, descended from
(abl.); brought about, effected, succeeded, completed, finished, ready’, and
it gives a special sense, in grammar, ‘derived from (abl.)’.



So at least one technical grammatical sense is noted there, and its
etymological sense is quite clear.  Also, ‘derivation’ can work both ways,
from the simple elements (e.g., letters, roots) to the complex composites
(e.g., words, phrases, sentences, discourses), which would be a ‘productive’
aspect; or the reverse, which would be an ‘analytical’ aspect.



(2) ‘ni.spanna’ reminded me of two things: these are not directly relevant
to your text in a directly grammatical sense, nor even in a directly
doctrinal sense; but I feel that they are relevant in a more philosophical
sense.  I’ll only point them out, there is a lot of ground between the
passage you’re discussing and these ideas, but I feel there are pathways
between them.



(2.1) I’m sure you’re well aware that ‘ni.spanna’ occurs in the term
‘parini.spanna’ (usually trans. ‘perfected’) in Asaṅga’s system (late
4thcent.) of the ‘tri-svabhāvā’ (usually trans. ‘three natures’).
It denotes the ‘absolute truth’ (paramārtha-satya) as the ultimate cognition
of reality freed of all distortions.  This link may be a bit incidental, but
it’s not entirely irrelevant, because of the connection between
‘pari-ni.spanna’ and ‘parama-artha’: the perfect understanding of the nature
of phenomena is the understanding (realisation, experience) of the ultimate
meaning.



I think the sense of ‘artha’ here is important: I think the primary sense of
‘artha’ in Mahāyana in ‘paramārtha’ is not ‘thing’ but ‘meaning’, and no
doubt Nāgārjuna and the Madhyamaka movement was very effective in
establishing this sense (which I believe goes back to an important idea to
be found in the pre-Abhidhamma Suttanta Piṭaka); whereas in Abhidhamma,
according to Nārada, ‘attha’ in ‘paramattha’ should be understood as
‘thing’: “immutable or abstract thing”, “abstract reality” (*Manual of
Abhidhamma*, p. 7), i.e. the four types of fundamental dhammā.  In grammar,
however, the primary sense is surely ‘meaning’.



What’s the point of this?  Well, ‘meaning’ is something experienced in
consciousness.  And the communication of ‘correct meanings’ is the
communciation of ‘correct experiences’.  This is the (philosophical) point
of the interplay between ‘words’ and ‘meanings’, which your passage is
concerned with.



Quite directly, the fruition or perfection of a word is its ‘meaning’.
  Changing
a single grapheme or phoneme will change the ‘meaning’ of the word, the
sentence, the discourse.  The passage Jim translates is quite beautiful:



vinaṭṭheca byañjane vinaṭṭhovattho hoti ||

naṭṭhe atthe naṭṭhāva paṭipatti ||

naṭṭhāya paṭipattiyā naṭṭhova paṭivedho ||



and when the phrasing is lost, the meaning gets lost;

and when the meaning is lost, the practice gets lost;

and when the practice is lost, the penetration gets lost.



(2.2) The second idea might seem even farther removed from you text and its
meaning, but there may also be an interesting parallelism.  The root ‘pad’
in ‘ni.s-pad’ is supposed to have the primary meaning, ‘to fall’, and that
is probably where the sense of ‘pad’, ‘foot’, and hence ‘pada’ and ‘pāda’,
‘step, pace, stride; footstep, footprint, footfall’ (audible and visible);
and so also, ‘word, verse, measure’, and so on.  (There seems to be deep
connection between the movement of walking in steps and the movement of
speaking in words, which may be both analogical and ‘biological’.)



Going back to the sense of ‘to fall’, cf. ‘padyate’ and ‘ni.spadyate’: under
‘pajjati’, PED notes that the Vedic ‘padyate’ had only the sense ‘to come to
fall’, the later Skt. also ‘to go to’.



It’s curious that the grammatical term ‘case’ comes from the Latin term
‘cāsus’, lit. ‘a befalling, an occurrence’, from ‘cadere’, ‘to fall’ (as
when one says, “Now, what exactly is the case here?”, i.e., ‘what’s the
situation, what has happened, how have things fallen out’).  The Latin term
is a translation of the Greek grammatical term, ‘ptōsis’, lit. ‘falling,
fall’, from ‘piptein’, ‘to fall’, which was used to describe the grammatical
modification of words: originally, it referred to the modifications of all
words, but later it was applied just to nouns (case inflections) and the
term ‘enklisis’, lit, ‘inclination, leaning towards’, was used for the
declination (declinatio) of verbs.  Both ‘falling’ and ‘inclining’ suggest a
movement out of or away from state, form or condition towards some other
state, form or condition.  This movement, which is a change of form, is
obviously connected with the formations and modifications of ‘meanings’.


(2.3) For me, the most important and interesting question here is how, for
example, the writer of the text from which your passage comes understands
and thinks about the experience of ‘meaning’ as such, and its relation to
language in general and grammar in particular.  This seems to me, too, to be
the most essential point of the passage.  It’s very easy to take the
experience of ‘meaning’ for granted: it is quite ‘invisible’ and
‘automatic’, and we hardly even notice it, even when we work very hard to
try to understand the ‘meaning’ or possible ‘meanings’ of a passage,
analysing every single word, its form, its root, and so on.  But what
exactly is ‘meaning’ itself?  And how is it related to ‘words and
sentences’?  I would love to know: does the grammarian in question have
anything to say about this?  Is the metaphor that Jim mentions (see the next
point) an indication of his concept of ‘meaning’?



(3) So, I’m looking forward to the passage that Jim described: “There is
also a delightful metaphor of a box (pada) made of durable wood (akkharas)
with the jewel (attha) inside.”



Literally, these words seem to suggest the sense: ‘a word or sentence (pada)
made of sound (akkhara) with the meaning (attha) inside’.  I’m very keen to
see how this metaphor or pun works.  Incidentally, is it possible to  provide
an example of, or source for, ‘pada’ with the sense of ‘box’ or ‘container’,
and ‘akkhara’ as ‘wood’?



Thanks very much for your discussion: as you can see, I found it very
‘stimulating’.  I hope I haven’t clouded or confused the issue with these
ideas, but rather, made some helpful conceptual connections.



With Metta,

Khristos


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