Re: A sanskrit sentence

 

Thanks Balaji for your insights.

Would not chittva ordinarily have two -tt's- in the absolutive form?

Bryan

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From: "Balaji balaji.ramasubramanian@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 7:52 PM

Subject: Re: [palistudy] A sanskrit sentence

 

Hi Khahn, and Bryan

Just by the way, I think there is likely a grammatical lapse in the verse. It should not be svarge, but must be svargo. The nominative singular is svargaH, but the visarga sandhi makes aH into o.

वृक्षान् छित्वा पशून् हत्वा कृत्वा रुधिरकर्दमम् |

यद्येवं गम्यते स्वर्गो नरकः केन गम्यते ||

vṛkṣān chitvā paśūn hatvā kṛtvā rudhirakardamaṃ |

yadyevaṃ gaṃyate svargo narakaH kena gamyate ||

From the Devanagari it is clear how similar the writing for svarge and svargo are. Now, gamyate is karmaprayoga in vartamāna (laṭ lakāra). gam dhātu in passive form declines as follows:

                                                          Sing.       Dual          Plural

Third person (prathama puruṣa):       gamyate  gamyete    gamyante

Second person (madhyama puruṣa):   gamyase gamyethe   gamyadhve

First person (uttama puruṣa):            gamye   gamyāvahe  gamyāmahe

But in the active form, it declines differently:

                                                          Sing.           Dual             Plural

Third person (prathama puruṣa):       gacchati     gacchataH      gacchanti

Second person (madhyama puruṣa):   gacchasi     gacchathaH    gacchatha

First person (uttama puruṣa):            gacchāmi   gacchāvaH     gacchāmaH

The way the verse has it, it is literally translated as:

If this is the way heaven is reached, through what [means] is hell reached?

The last line of the verse can be said in many different ways. But notice how each way has its complications:

Case 1:

yadyevaṃ svargaṃ gacchati, narakaṃ kena gacchati?

If [he] goes to heaven in this way, then through what [means] [he] goes to hell?

As you can see, it makes not much sense to talk in active voice. Who is going to heaven or hell here? Instead it makes a lot more sense to use passive voice. But it is still possible to write it in the active voice without having this discomfort of the absence of an agent. Look at this:

Case 2:

yadyevaṃ svargo gamanīyo, narako kena gamanīyo?

If this is the way heaven may be gone to, then through what [means] may hell be gone to?

Strictly speaking based on how the Buddha explains kamma in the Mahakammavibhanga Sutta (MN 136), this form is preferable - it would be technically more accurate. But then notice how gamyate has many advantages:

1. The agent is irrelevant to the verse when stated in the original verse, but that is true even in the Case 2 above.

2. But gamyate has an added advantage in that it is simplified in meaning. The "may be" part is technically right, but complicates the verse.

3. It fits the metre of the verse nicely. The number of syllables in the second line is just right in the form as seen in the original verse.

Thanks,

Balaji

Balaji

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Balaji <balaji.ramasubramanian@...> wrote:

Hi,

Your confusion in the meaning is because you're probably not paying attention to the actual pronunciation of the words. Unlike in English which basically only has aspirated consonants, Sanskrit and Pali have both aspirated and unaspirated consonants.

citvā = ci dhātu (gather) + ktvā suffix (after having done)

chitvā = chin dhātu (cut) + ktvā suffix (after having done)

The two verbs are totally different, not just in meaning, but also in terms of grammatical usage. They belong to two different dhātu-gaṇas. So the first one (ci dhātu) declines as follows:

cinoti cinutaH cinvanti

But the second one (chin dhātu) declines as follows:

chindati chindataH chindanti

Thanks,

Balaji

Balaji

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 8:08 AM, KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Dear Bryan,

Thanks so much,

For my explanation, I early thought that citvā mean having gathered [after cutting down so much] - that's a kind of concise expression.  But I think your judgement is more exactly

Sincerely yours,

Huynh Trong Khanh

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From: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 9:53 PM

Subject: Re: [palistudy] A sanskrit sentence

 

Dear Huynh,

Citvā is a gerund from the root ci, to gather. Chitvā is a gerund from the root chid, meaning to cut which I believe is the sense in this passage ("having cut down trees"); per Monier Williams it is spelled chittvā with two t's. I don't know if there is an absolutive (gerund) form chitvā with one -t-. Perhaps someone else knows? Pāli has the form chetvā (from the causative), but not chitvā that I can find.

Best wishes,

Bryan

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From: "KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 5:17 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] A sanskrit sentence

 

Thanks so much for all of your support at my very beginning of Sanskrit study, I also found some textbooks already listing those kinds of grammatical elements. That means my knowledge is still so low that I do not know how to find them

By the way, for the word chitvā in the sentence - I think it is gerund [and I learned that all the gerunds must be in the dictionary, cause the formation steps of gerund are so complicated], but I can only found citvā, not chitvā.  So, that means the word chitvā is correct or not?

Sincerely yours,

Huynh Trong Khanh

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From: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 2:27 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] A sanskrit sentence

 

Yes it is simply the third person passive, sing. pres. I think svarge should be in the nom. sing (svargo) as narakaḥ is, "If in this way heaven is gone to, hell is gone to by whom?" (If this is the way to heaven, who goes to hell?"). It looks like the verse has svarge in the locative ("If in this way it is gone [by someone] to heaven..." which is possible with gam verbs, but awkward in this case with narakaḥ in the nominative

Bryan

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From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] A sanskrit sentence

 

If I'm not sorely mistaken, it is kammavacaka (passive) vattamāna (present) form of the root /gam - in regards to going: gam (root) + ya (passive suffix) + te (present atmanaipada ending). So the literal translation should be "is gone to".

On May 21, 2015 8:47 AM, "KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Dear all,

I just translated this sentence:

vṛkṣān chitvā paśūnhatvā kṛtvā rudhirakardamam ।

yadyevaṃ gamyate svarge narakaḥ kena gamyate ॥

Source:  http://sanskritpearls.blogspot.com/search/label/Animals%20%28%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%80%29

I looked up the word "gamyate" on  http://sanskritdictionary.com and got the meaning "one can obtain", while the source-website tranlsated as "is attained".  I still not know what kind of grammatical category of this word, although I think it's also derived from the root "gam"

Please kindly help

Sincerely yours,

Huynh Trong Khanh