Re: Dhammapada commentary

Hi Jim,

yes, indeed, as as Wilhelm put it in rendition of the commentary to a
passage of the I Ching, 'a man has to set his own boundaries or else risk
losing himself in the infinite'.


> The verb maññāti is very often followed by a future participle
> passive. If the verb is intransitive, the future participle passive is
> used impersonally. The intransitive verb is sometimes used in the
> neuter singular in a kind of impersonal construction, but with the
> object in the accusative.
>
> appeva nāma appasaddaṃ parisaṃ viditvā upasaṅkamitabbaṃ maññeyya 'on
> seeing that assembly is silent, he might think of coming' (MN II
> 2:7) -- Perniola, p. 371
>
> I'm not at all clear about the usage and meaning of the fpp in this
> quote and the preceding explanation which strikes me as ambiguous.
>

I agree, the explanation's not exactly lucid.  If you feel inclined, have
another look at Wijesekera, §60 'Acc. with passive verbs', pp. 76-77.  He's
talking about the same thing there.  But they seem to disagree about how the
-tabba.m form should be analysed: Perniola seems to take it as a nt. nom.
sg. taking an acc. object, but Wijesekera takes both as acc. governed by the
'verb of thinking'.  One can't tell purely from the form, of course, because
its neuter.

While I was collecting samples of the syntax of -tabba.m, I started coming
across literally dozens of these constructions even in just the Vinaya and
the Digha.  I believe the following is just one typical example:

`kathañhi nāma mādiso samaṇaṃ vā brāhmaṇaṃ vā vijite vasantaṃ apasādetabbaṃ
maññeyyā'ti.  (D i.53)
Meanwhile, I'm going to try to follow up Ma Vajira's clue about
avatta-kamma-saadhana, I'd like to learn more about that one in this
context.

Metta,
Khristos


>
> My understanding of the fpp still remains rudimentary at best despite
> the reading up on it over the past few days. As for the rest of your
> message, I can hardly even begin to try to respond to it. I'm just not
> ready for it nor do I have the time to do the necessary research. Past
> participles is another subject worth delving into as well. There is so
> much to study and to think about, eh?
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim
>
> 
>


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