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

Hi Jim and Khristos and all,

Thank you both for your excellent translation and analysis of the passage.

I think, as Khristos suggests, that there must be a pun to be understood between
saara (heartwood) and sara (Skt. svara, sounds or vowels and the complement of
bya~njana or consonant, letter). The sounds (sara) are the heartwood of the
letters/consonant - i. e. a consonant must have a vowel to go with it before it
is meaningful - at least that's how I interpret it. In Skt. as in Pali, every
consonant has an inherent vowel with it. The sounds/vowels are thus the raw
material (heartwood) which give the consonants their form and allow them to
function to indicate meaning.

When one makes a pada (word or sentence) from solid heartwood (or sounds), then
the box of the letters/consonants is strong and then the jewel of the meaning of
these letters/consonants (together with their sounds) does not disappear.The
word abhidheyya..m is a gerundive ("to be named") modifying attharatana.m, and I
believe tad refers to the bya~njanakara.n.dako, as Jim suggests - i. e. tad =
bya~njanakara.n.dakena. So it would translate as "the jewel of the meaning which
is to be named by the box of letters/consonants..."


A great metaphor and a great reason for studying grammar, etymology, etc.,

Metta, Bryan




________________________________
From: Khristos Nizamis <nizamisk@...>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, July 21, 2010 8:01:42 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Mmd-p.t passage regarding Kc 1 (3 of 3)

  
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@...> 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
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]