Re: What's does the "anta" in Suttanta mean?

 

Hi Lance, Petra and all,

Margaret Cone has anta as meaning "completion, summation of" in final compound  (as well as pleonastic). This would fit with the Upaniṣads as the completion of the Vedas (because they come at the end of the Vedas) and the summation of the Vedas (because they summarize the Vedic message).

Similarly suttanta would make sense in the second meaning as summarizing all the suttas that have come before (Vedic and non).

In the article Petra refers to, Konrad Klaus calls it a Fachbegriffe ("technical term"), so we should look at what he has to say.

Does anyone have access to it? The U of T, as far as I can see doesn't have the book (Petra's citation below)

Best wishes,

Bryan

Konrad Klaus, "Zu den buddhistischen literarischen Fachbegriffen sutta und suttanta", in "From Turfan to Ajanta. Felicitation volume in honour of Prof. Schlingloff, ed. E. Franco and Monika Zin, Vol. 1., Lumbini 2010, 513-526.

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From: "'L.S. Cousins' selwyn@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2014 4:19 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] What's does the "anta" in Suttanta mean?

 

Bryan,

I don't really see a problem with deriving sūtra from the root syū, but
in any case sūtra in the meaning of 'thread' is attested from the
Atharvaveda onwards. So its ultimate derivation seems irrelevant. The
usage in Pali is from the brahmanical and means a single thread in a
composition. In other words, just as many threads make up a tapestry, so
many sūtras make up a composition.

The use as a collective noun for a set of sūtras is certainly later; so
the idea of a thread that unites a composition, however plausible, must
be a later development.

I too thought I remembered that a suttanta tends to be a longer sutta,
but the usage is not very consistent.

CPD has for anta:
7. at the end of a compound in some instances apparently pleonastic
(padapūraṇa, Abh 791), but prob. giving a more concrete sense including
'completion, entirety or system' of something,

Lance Cousins
> Dear All,
> I had always assumed that /suttanta /was formed on analogy with
> /Vedānta /which means "end of the Vedas" and usually refers to the
> /Upaniṣads /which encapsulates the highest knowledge of the Vedas.
> /Suttanta /therefore means "the end of the /suttas/", meaning that the
> Buddha's discourses are the highest knowledge of the Indic
> /sutta/sūtra/ tradition.
>
> However, I have never seen it described in this fashion in the canon.
>
> As for the meaning of /sūtra/, as Lance has pointed out it is usually
> taken as derived from the root /siv,/ "to sew" and is defined this way
> in the /Atthāsalinī:/
> /
> /
> /Atthānaṃ sūcanato suvuttato savanato ’tha sūdanato
> suttāṇāsuttasabhāgato ca suttaṃ Suttan ti akkhātaṃ /(As 19^15-16 )/./
>
> //
> “Because of pointing out the benefits, because of being well spoken,
> well-heard, and because of flowing forth, because of the orders in a
> /sutta/ and because of being like a line of orders on a string, a
> /sutta/ is called a /Sutta/.”
> But if it were derived from the root /siv/syū/ (“to sew”) one would
> have expected the form /s//yūtra,/ with the /–tra /suffix of means or
> instrument ( as in /gātra/, means of going = limb; or /pattra/, means
> of flying = wing, or /pātra/, means of drinking = cup). In Vedic, the
> past participle of /syū /is /syūta /(“having been sewn”) and the
> absolutive is /syūtvā /(“having sown”), so why should the /–tra/ form
> be /sūtra/? with the /-y- /omitted?
> I think a more plausible etymology is that the word is derived from
> the root /sū,/ “to impel, to urge, vivify, consecrate, authorize.” In
> this derivation /sū-tra/ is the *means of *urging, impelling,
> authorizing, etc., or “that by which something is [verbed, i.e.
> impelled, authorized, etc.],” and by extension, "that which should be
> followed." These latter definitions are appropriate to both the
> Buddhist use of the word /sutta/ (which, as has long been remarked,
> significantly differs from the Brahmanical use of the term, which
> refers to a short, pithy aphorism), and the Brahmancial usage.
>
> Walleser made the suggestion that it was derived from /su+ ukta
> /("well said") /= sūkta > /Pāli /sutta /in 1914 and Norman also
> repeated this in his Philological Approach lecture (1997). That is
> also a possibility.
> It could also be derived from the Vedic /sūtta/(= /su-datta/, “well
> given”) or the verb root /sṛ/ past participle /sūrta/ (“bright,
> illuminated”. /Sutta /is a homynym in Pāli and Middle Indic and could
> refer to many different roots, as shown above (it also of course means
> /supta /> Pālī /sutta/, "asleep") which we have been discussing in
> other posts),
> Best wishes,
> Bryan