Re: AK and Tika on avecca

From: Bhikkhu Bodhi
Message: 4092
Date: 2014-12-06

Dear All Participants,

I also echo Jim's sentiments. Unless we merely parrot the words of the texts, we can never escape the circle of interpretation. This does not mean that the commentaries are to be regarded an infallible and incontestable. But it does mean that they should be given serious consideration, as representing the ways in which learned doctrinal specialists, going back in a chain of transmission close to (and perhaps even as far as) the time of the Buddha, understood the received texts. If we reject an interpretation in the commentaries, this should be done for sound reasons, on solid philological and doctrinal grounds. It should not be done on the assumption that, even without extensive knowledge of the teachings and the languages in which the texts were preserved, one is equally or better qualified to explain (that is, to interpret) their meaning and terminology.

But coming back to avecca, I wonder, Bryan, where in Buddhaghosa's commentaries we find the explanation that you provided. I just did a search for aveccappasaada in the Atthakatha and Tika, using the CST's search function, and all the occurrences that I come up with (taking the AK and Tika jointly) treat avecca as an absolutive with the meaning "having known". I have pasted the relevant passages in below. From these citations it emerges from the Atthakatha that such confidence is "unshakable and imperishable" (acalena accutena) because it stems from having accurately known (yathābhūtato ñātattā) the excellent qualities of the Buddha (or of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha). And the Tika makes it clear that avecca is an absolutive: avecca yāthāvato jānitvā. Thus, as I see it, the commentaries are *not* deriving avecca, contrary to correct etymology, from a + veti > a+vetya > a + vecca. Rather they are deriving the word correctly, but saying that because it is based on direct knowledge, it is therefore unshakable and imperishable.
 
Ledi Sayadaw, writing centuries later, also explains avecca on the basis of knowledge and insight: buddhaguṇādīnaṃ dassanaññāṇena sampayutto pasādo aveccappasādo nāma.

Just below are all the commentarial passages that I could find (I did not include a few which were identical with these in both AK and Tika). If there is a derivation through the negation of the verb veti, where in the Atthakatha is that derivation to be found?

With metta,
Bhikkhu Bodhi

Sv II 544: Aveccappasādenāti buddhaguṇānaṃ yathābhūtato ñātattā acalena accutena pasādena.

Ṭīkā: Avecca yāthāvato jānitvā tannimittauppannapasādo aveccapasādo, maggādhigamena uppannapasādo, so pana yasmā pāsāṇapabbato viya niccalo, na ca kenaci kāraṇena vigacchati, tasmā vuttaṃ ‘‘acalena accutenā’’ti.

 

Ps I 172: Tattha aveccappasādenāti buddhadhammasaṅghaguṇānaṃ yāthāvato ñātattā acalena accutena pasādena.

Ṭīkā: Avecca ratanattayaguṇe yāthāvato ñatvā pasādo aveccappasādo. So pana yasmā maggenāgatattā kenaci akampaniyo appadhaṃsiyo ca hoti, tasmā vuttaṃ ‘‘acalena accutenā’’ti.

 

Spk II 74: Aveccappasādenāti adhigatena acalappasādena.

 

Spk III 90: Aveccappasādenāti acalappasādena.

Ṭīkā: Aveccappasādenāti vatthuttayaṃ yāthāvato ñatvā uppannapasādena, maggenāgatapasādenāti attho. So pana kenaci asaṃhāriyo asampavedhīti āha ‘‘acalappasādenā’’ti.

 

Spk-pṭ II 228: Aveccappasādenāti vatthuttayassa guṇe yāthāvato avecca pavisitvā pasādo.

 

Ledi Sayadaw: Anudīpanīpāṭha

‘‘Buddhe aveccappasādenā’’ti ettha pana arahatā sammāsambuddhatādīnaṃ buddhaguṇādīnaṃ dassanaññāṇena sampayutto pasādo aveccappasādo nāma.


 
On 12/6/2014 1:18 PM, Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy] wrote:
 
Dear Jim, D. C.,

I have to echo Jim's sentiments. The commentaries are much closer to the historical Buddha than our own interpretations; some of them may have been composed to elucidate his teachings by his disciples, even during his own lifetime or shortly therafter (that is, disciples who knew the Buddha). As Jim says, they were an established tradition before Mahinda. Therefore they are of especial interest to anyone studying the dhamma.

Take the example of avecca, which has no clear etymology. Per Buddhaghosa (who was presumably translating these same commentaries that Mahinda had brought from the mainland), it is to be interpreted as acala = avigata = a + veti > a+vetya > a + vecca ("immovable, not disappearing"). This helps to illuminate the sense of the word, even if the "correct" etymology is from ava + i, "to understand".

The idea that sutta might be dervied from suta (<Skt. śruta, "heard")  is very intriguing. We know that in the early writing geminates were not written down, so sutta would have been written suta, but presumably it would have been pronounced differently in the oral traditīon with a long -ū- representing the vowel before the double -tt-'s or even the two t's pronounced distinctly to distinguīsh the word from suta.

But it is a tempting etymology since most suttas start with the evaṃ me sutaṃ phrase.Of course it is far-fetched to suggest that suta is equal to sutta, when the entire Indic tradition derives it from sūtra or sūkta, but nevertheless it is good to keep an open mind in case any evidence turns up to support it,

Best wishes,

Bryan





From: "'Jim Anderson' jimanderson.on@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2014 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] avagamana

 
Dear D.C.

I'd like to comment on this statement of yours:

"For me commentaries are interpretations. So they have no value." taken from
the following :

<< 2. However, I found the word in the Commentaries. For me commentaries are
interpretations. So they have no value. But more importantly, we have no
way of giving them a meaning. I give below three instances of aveti in the
commentaries.>>

I agree that the commentaries are interpretations but I don't agree with
your conclusion that they therefore have no value. The commntaries
(aṭṭhakathās) were around long before Mahinda brought them to Sri Lanka and
rendered them into Old Sinhalase and afterwards restored to their Pali
originals by Buddhaghosa. They represent a time-honoured and widely-accepted
interpretation of what the Buddha and his disciples once said long long ago.
In my view, the commentaries have immense value.

You aren't the only one to dismiss the value of the commentaries. I once
knew a Sinhalese bhikkhu, a former head of the Toronto Mahavihara, who
rejected the commentaries as well as the Abhidhammapiṭaka. My view is that
any text that is written in reasonably good Pali is worthy of consideration.
They all have something of value to offer.

Best wishes,

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dc Wijeratna dcwijeratna@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: December 5, 2014 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] avagamana

Dear Bryan, Ven. Bodhi, and Jim

*Avecca, Acala and Aveti*

My comments are as follows:

1. To start with I must make a confession. I don’t know Sanskrit; I don’t
know Pali (language) either.

2. I accept only the words attributed to Lord Buddha (Bhagavā Buddho,
usually shortened Bhagavā in the Suttas.) as the vocabulary of the Teaching
of the Buddha; not Buddhism.




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