Re: rajja.m

Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,

I was wondering why you thought of "barren king" as a translation of
mogharājā, and while I was checking out the commentarial glosses for
moghapurisa, I saw tucchapurisa many times. The "tuchha" (empty) rang a bell
with me as it had come up in an earlier thread on the etymologies of
"dukkha". The idea of an empty man reminded me of the hollow men in the
verses of T.S. Eliot. Another note on niratthaka: in addition to the meaning
of meaningless, etc., i thought of nonseensical or nonsense, i.e., the
happiness of kingship is nonsense.

I should also mention that several days before you posted the quote from the
Apadāna about someone who suffered from leprosy. I had gotten an email from
someone with a grammatical question regarding a sentence (Ud 48-9) in that
leper sutta which I'm thinking of posting to the group after I come back
from my cottage retreat next month. I'll be leaving this Thursday

Best,

Jim Anderson, the idiot scholar :)