Re: Question on Sabhiya sutta commentary

Dear Bryan,

>
> Renou's description of the  predicative instrumental only refers to the
> use of the case with verbs v.rt, stha, bhuu and car, not necessarily in a
> gerundive form, however. I am assuming that grammatically only ruupena is
> in the predicative instrumental, whereas attanaa is in the instrumental as
> subject of the future passive participle bhavitabban, which is the normal
> structure.
>
Yes, it would seem that you're quite right about this.  Michael
Coulson, *Sanskrit:
An Introduction to the Classical Language*, Ch. 12, has put my mind at
peace.  I'm sure you have this book, but I'd like to cite the passage
anyway (the second part, about the use of bhavitavyaṃ to mark an inference,
is especially relevant to our example):

"Particularly noteworthy, as defying literal translation into English, is
the frequent impersonal use of the gerundive of bhū ‘be’.  *The complement
of the verb like the logical subject itself must be put into the
instrumental case*:

       tad bhagavati Godāvari, tvayā tatra s’ āvadhānayā bhavitavyaṃ, ‘So
venerable Godāvarī, you must be watchful in this matter’

       viśrāntena bhavatā mam’ ānyasminn anāyāse karmaṇi sahāyena
bhavitavyaṃ, ‘when rested, you must be my companion is another task, which
is not a strenuous one’

  This particular gerundive is often used to mark an inference:

       vyaktam āhituṇḍika-cchadmanā Virādhagupten’ ānena bhavitavyaṃ, ‘this
(person) must obviously be Virādhagupta disguised as a snake-charmer’

       aye dhīra-praśāntaḥ svaraḥ, tat tapasvibhir bhavitavyam, ‘such
strong, calm tones! It must then be ascetics (I hear)’."


As for 'why' the instrumental, this has to be related to the 'original'
sense of the (so-called) 'instrumental', which is not 'expressing the
instrument, means, or agent', but the idea of 'accompaniment' (hence
referred to as 'sociative' and 'associative' (see Speijer, *Sanskrit Syntax*,
§57).  Wijesejera says that Brugmann, *Kurze Grammatik* §540, calls it the
'with-case' (Mit-Kasus).  Hence the sense of someone or something 'being
with or accompanied by an attribute', which is very clear in an example
like "silehi samannāgato", 'endowed with virtues', but more literally,
'followed by or accompanied with virtues'.  And the common sense of
accompaniment with saha and saddhiṃ, "samaṇo sahāyena saddhiṃ...".  It's
also evident in the example I used earlier in our conversation,
"sucibhūtena attanā viharati".

Always nice to study with you, Bryan.

Take care of yourself (in an anattā kind of way),
with metta,
Khristos


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