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

Dear Khristos,

There is a great book on Pali Syntax by Oskar von Hinueber, I think it was
his dissertation or something? I got a photocopy of it, unfortunately not
with me right now, but I remember it to be very thorough and detailed. He
focused on the Vinaya texts primarily but collected a vast amount of samples
which were then analyzed and put into some kind of syntactical framework
(cases, participles, positioning and combinations of all that)...

Probably Jim or Bryan have seen that book. I can try and find out what its
exact title was, but I am not sure if it is available online..

regards,

Lennnart

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 6:31 AM, Khristos Nizamis <nizamisk@...>wrote:

>
>
> Hi Jim, I'm happy you enjoyed the verse version! It was really just a
> variation, not an alternative.
>
> Intuitively, as a Pali 'student' here, I agree with you (whom I think of as
> a 'teacher' because of your experience) that the locative construction even
> without a participle can be translated 'when...' (tasmiṃ thire: 'when this
> is strong...'). It's hard for me to find detailed information about Pali
> syntax (I read somewhere that there's something of a gap in that area, is
> that true? Oberlies' grammar is very detailed but doesn't include syntax.
> Duroiselle is good but not very detailed. If you know of something
> worthwhile, please tell me.) but checking up on the Sanskrit grammar makes
> it pretty clear that in Sanskrit the locative absolute doesn't have to have
> a participle: the predicate can also be an adjective or a substantive used
> predicatively (so says Michael Coulson, _Sanskrit: an Introduction to the
> Classical Language_, Ch. 11, who says that ; and this is pretty much
> confirmed also by Whitney, _Sanskrit Grammar_, para. 303d.).
>
> I was unhappy only with my ('poetic licence') addition of 'when' to my
> first
> line - that is definitely not in the original, and it changes the sense of
> the clause: 'Just as a solid heartwood box is solid...' (for "yathā hi
> thirasāramayo karaṇḍako thiro hoti") is like an absolute categorical
> statement (perhaps emphasised by 'hi', if read as emphatic 'indeed,
> certainly', rather than as conjunctive, 'for, because'). 'If a box is made
> of heartwood, it's solid, and that's that.'
>
> But 'Just as, WHEN a solid heartwood box is solid...' differs from the
> original text; and in meaning, it leaves open the possibility that even a
> solid heartwood box might NOT be solid (depending upon how it's
> constructed). I think the Pali clause obviously intends the former sense.
>
> As you no doubt noticed, I also took some licence translating
> "byañjanakaraṇḍako" as "box (made) of sentences", because in the context of
> the metaphor it seemed more logical than 'box (made) of
> consonants/sounds/letters' - given that the 'pada' are already 'formed'.
> Again, I agree that 'solid/strong heartwood' in the metaphor should refer
> to
> the 'letters'/'sounds' (graphemes/phonemes) of the language, and the
> grammatical rules that govern their combinations and formations. I should
> have a look back at your discussion on 'akkhara'. Intuitively/logically,
> since speech preceded writing, wouldn't one expect 'akkhara' (Skt. ak.sara)
> to refer originally to phonemes - vowels, consonants, or rather, given the
> nature of the Vedic/Indian languages, syllables - and later would have been
> applied naturally also to graphemes. (I gather that vowels were sometimes
> called 'sarā' and consonants 'vyañjanā' - would it be going too far, I
> wonder, to suspect a 'pun' between 'sāra' and 'sarā'?!!) As I'm sure you're
> well aware, there was deep spiritual-cosmological significance attached to
> 'language' and its 'fundamental elements' in ancient Indian thought, and I
> have no doubt that this is connected to the root sense of akkhara (ak.sara)
> as 'imperishable, unalterable'. Fascinating (but understandable) that the
> adjective is applied to Nibbāna!
>
> I can agree with your intepretation/analysis of 'tadabhidheyyaṃ'. Unless
> you can find other contexts/usages to compare with, of course it's pretty
> hard to work out anything very clear and definite. I understand that you
> take 'tad' in 'tadabhidheyyaṃ' to refer back to 'byañjanakaraṇḍako'. The
> way it looked to me, I took 'abhidheyyaṃ' as future p.p. (necessity,
> potentiality), 'is to be named', and so took 'tad' as its 'subject', 'that
> (which) is to be named' (is that grammatically legitimate?), and took
> 'tadabhidheyyaṃ' as coordinated to 'attharatanaṃ'. The sense is still that
> the 'naming' is done by the 'byañjanāni', the 'signs' that evoke
> ('contain')
> the meaning (attha). (In the verse version, I had to 'contract' or
> 'simplify' this sense, for metrical reasons!)
>
> Anyway, I'll do my best to keep learning, and to keep trying to reduce the
> number of my errors!
>
> With best wishes, take care,
> metta,
> Khristos
>
>
> On 20 July 2010 23:37, Jim Anderson <jimanderson_on@...<jimanderson_on%40yahoo.ca>>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Hi Khristos,
> >
> > Thanks for your blank verse rendering which makes the passage sound more
> > beautiful. Thanks also for taking the time to look at the introductory
> > verses of the grammar and Kc 1 (the first sutta). There is quite a lot of
> > commentary (about 165 pages!) on those two introductory verses which I
> have
> > hardly touched so far.
> >
> > I know my rendering of the passage is far from perfect and can be much
> > improved upon. I like your "Just" at the beginning where I have "For". I
> > originally had "solid" before I changed it to "strong". There are several
> > locative absolute constructions with a past participle and I wonder if
> > "tasmiṃ thire" can still be translated as "when this is solid" even
> though
> > there is no participle in the phrase.
> >
> > I'm puzzled by tadabhidheyyaṃ in the passage -- your "what’s named
> > therein,"
> > and my "the named (of the phrasing),". At Abh 785 "saddābhidheyye" (loc.)
> > is given as one of nine meanings of "attha". This is the definition for
> > "meaning". It's what the word(s) is/are referring to or pointing at. I
> take
> > it that "tadabhidheyyaṃ" is an adjective qualifying "attharatanaṃ" and
> take
> > byañjanakaraṇḍako as the referent of "tad". The relationship between
> > "byañjanaṃ" and "attho" is that of the "name" and the "named".
> >
> > I take "solid-heartwood" (maybe solid hardwood?) to be the letters only
> > even
> > though the word "akkhara" does not occur in the third part of our
> passage.
> > That can be taken from the first and second parts. Around the end of last
> > year we had quite a discussion about the meaning of akkhara (a sound, a
> > letter, or both?). A study of its etymology does explain the root meaning
> > as
> > something that is imperishable. It is also a synonym for ṇibbāna. An
> > interesting way to look at it is: the 41 akkharas, at the beginning,
> serves
> > as the solid ground or foundation on which to walk towards the
> realization
> > of Akkhara (nibbāna).
> >
> > Best wishes, Jim
> >
> >
> >
>
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>
> 
>


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