Re: Gāndhārī cadurag[h]ulu in context

Dear Professor Allon,

Thank you so much for your comments, which settle indeed one of my little
points.

I am pleased to report Vincent Tournier's answer was quite near to yours
(however, Vincent and I not having alas your volumes at hand).

with best wishes
Eugen

2011/7/29 Mark Allon <mark.allon@...>

> **
>
>
> Dear Eugen,
>
> -gh- for original OIA/MIA -g- is merely an orthographic peculiarity of the
> scribe of this manuscript. Although alternation between aspirate and
> non-aspirate forms is not uncommon in Gandhari, in this case the scribe
> converted all -g- forms in his exemplar to -gh-. The same scribe also wrote
> the following manuscripts:
>
> Allon. M. 2001. Three Gāndhārī Ekottarikāgama-Type Sūtras: British Library
> Kharoṣṭhī Fragments 12 and 14. Gandhāran Buddhist Texts 2. Seattle:
> University of Washington Press.
> Lenz, Timothy [J.] 2003. A New Version of the Gāndhārī Dharmapada and a
> Collection of Previous-Birth Stories: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments 16
> + 25. Gandhāran Buddhist Texts 3. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
>
> Discussion of -gh- is found in all three publications.
>
> The variation of the final vowel: Bajaur *caturangula*, AG-G *caduraghulu*
> is typical for Gandhari. As noted by Fussman long ago, final vowel is weak
> and counts for nothing: for example, nom. sg. m. forms are -a, -u, -o, -e.
>
> Hope this helps with the variant forms, at least.
>
> Best wishes
> Mark
>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] On
> > Behalf Of Eugen Ciurtin
> > Sent: Tuesday, 26 July 2011 4:42 PM
> > To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [palistudy] Gāndhārī cadurag[h]ulu in context
> >
> > Dear Professors and Dear List-Members,
> >
> >
> >
> > In the 2008 edition of the *Anavataptagāthā* by Prof Richard Salomon,
> > the
> > Gāndhārī word analogous to *caturangula* / *caturaṅgula* is
> > *caduraghulu*‘four fingers (long/width)’, present in contexts rather
> > similar in several
> > canonical works in Pali or Sanskrit (as well as Chinese and Tibetan).
> > As
> > Prof Oskar von Hinüber writes in his review (*JAOS* 130.1, pp. 90-94,
> > published December 2010, here 93; please excuse the very rough copy
> > below):
> >
> >
> >
> > […] the same recitation of Srona preserves one of the very few
> > references to
> > the old Indian concept that hair grows on the bottoms of the feet of
> > particularly tender people: caduraghulu ya me lumu/jadu padatale rmidu,
> > vs.
> > 21 (p. 214) "And soft hair, four fingers long, grew on the sole(s) of
> > (my)
> > feet" (Salomon): compare Sono Koliviso ... sukhumalo hoti, tassa
> > padatalesu
> > lomani jatani, Vin I 179,5 (cf. 182,2; 185,14) and hesta padatalabhya
> > ca
> > romabhuc caturangul(i), SHT
> > <http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/SHT>
> > *sht* - server-parsed HTML IV p. 309 (Kat. Nr. 187 = K 1081) = Bechert,
> > Bruchstucke, p. 125, in a Srona-Avadana, which is compressed into four
> > verses. The same idea concerning the feet of extremely tender people is
> > also
> > found in the Jaiminiya Brahmana: cf. Willem B. Bollee, "Folklore on the
> > Foot
> > in Pre-modern India," Indologica Taurinensia 34 (2008): 39-145, esp. nn.
> > 24
> > and 477: lomasau hasya adhastat pddav asatuh, JB II 270.
> >
> >
> >
> > It is of course very hard to supplement Prof von Hinüber’s enlightening
> > references to the ‘hair of the soles’ (W. Caland: “this quality [...]
> > is not
> > noted anywhere else”, cited in W. B. Bollée 2008 p. 104 n. 477; for
> > Sk/Tib *
> > Anavataptagāthā*, see Marcel Hofinger ed. 1954/1982, p. 208). It is I
> > assume
> > also difficult to understand why such people are seen as belonging to a
> > *m**
> > ṛdu*-category (no Āyurvedic references found so far), as there are so
> > many
> > restrictions and taboos as regards hair in Buddhist texts, also one
> > identification as ‘Evil’ in immediate JB II 269. One possible
> > explanation, I
> > would suggest, is to consider the connection of several different Indic
> > expressions and ideas here conflated, more typically: 1. soles’ hair
> > (even
> > if strongly contradicting the *mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa*); 2. soles’ four
> > fingers
> > distance from earth; 3. Earth’s capacity (especially as flat, levelled
> > earth
> > - one locus classicus being *Lv* 57 Vaidya), to rise and subside under
> > specific circumstances no more and no less than four fingers, in an
> > equally
> > rare instance of ‘seismic waves’, in dozen of passages associated in
> > fact
> > with the manifestation of earthquakes; 4. some *āyurveda* and
> > *kāmaśāstra*interdiction to directly touch the earth; 5. other
> > occurrences of ‘four
> > fingers breadth’ related to earth: e.g. special herbs as in *Vess* 534
> > or
> > special rice as in the *Supriyāvadāna*.
> >
> >
> >
> > As among the list-members are not only several masters of Pali but at
> > least
> > one, Professor Allon, of Gāndhārī also, I would like to ask:
> >
> >
> >
> > - how to explain the presence of two forms, in two different
> > Gāndhārī contexts and collections, for *caturangula*, as Bajaur
> > Fragment 2,
> > part 5, line (I. Strauch 2008 fig. 36) has a rather legible (checking
> > with
> > some tables of flawless Dr Glass) –*gu*- instead of –*ghu*-.
> >
> > - would you consider this a very genuine stock-expression, as
> > it is
> > now attested by the oldest MSS? Are there some solutions for detecting
> > its
> > origin and explain their varieties?
> >
> >
> >
> > I would also like to sum up (from a paper still in progress) the
> > analogous
> > handling of ‘four fingers’: *caturangula* is the strict measure of hair
> > (from a special foot); the strict measure of rice foliage (from a
> > special
> > earth, in *Divy* 120); the strict measure of bodily size (of a special
> > individual: Nanda’s tallness [only] four fingers less than the Buddha,
> > seen
> > as a most positive fact; including in some Central Asian fragments);
> > the
> > strict measure of the Buddha’s opening of his robe (MN I 233,36); the
> > strict
> > measure of ‘levitation’ above the earth (again, of the most unique
> > airborne
> > beings); the strict measure of earth’s aptitude — reputedly,
> > *mah**ā**pṛthiv
> > **ī* is from early narratives to later Abhidharma seen as *acal**ā* —
> > to
> > become ‘elastic’. It seems these are by no means the single types of a
> > rather autonomous, ‘floating’ and ‘[quite systematically] intruding’
> > expression. Do you perhaps know a special study already devoted to this
> > topic which escaped my attention?
> >
> > Even if far away from Gandhāra, I am pleased to add this ‘survived’ up
> > to
> > Handel’s *Messiah*, in an opening aria just titled ‘Ev’ry valley should
> > be
> > exalted’, which is a rephrase by his Brit benefactor Jennens of similar
> > passages from Isaiah and Luke, but is present as well in different
> > Christian
> > apocryphal gospels, in the French carol ‘Baissez-vous, montagnes;
> > plaines,
> > haussez-vous’, etc.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanking you in advance for your observations,
> >
> >
> >
> > With kind regards,
> >
> > E. Ciurtin
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
> 
>



--
--
Dr E. Ciurtin
Secretary of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions
http://ihr-acad.academia.edu/EugenCiurtin

Publications Officer of the European Association for the Study of Religions
www.easr.eu

Lecturer & Secretary of the Scientific Council
Institute for the History of Religions, Romanian Academy
Calea 13 Septembrie no. 13 sect. 5, Bucharest 050711
Phone: +40 733 951 953 or +40 721 877 659
www.ihr-acad.ro


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