Re: A sanskrit sentence

Hi Huynh,

Good point you bring up. The Vedas were primarily focused on ritual sacrifice and animal sacrifice was a part of that. All ancient Indian philosophical traditions are basically different theories of action. Some said that actions don't have any consequences, some said stars and planets controlled us, some claims specific rituals controlled the future, and so forth. To understand ancient Indian philosophy generally, it is important to understand how they addressed two important issues: "Do actions have results, and how does it all work?", and "Is there life after death at all?". We don't find a clear summary of the Vedic theory on these matters in the Vedas itself. But a later work from 100 CE (Jaiminī's Mīmāmsā Sūtras chapter 2) summarizes the basic theory of action in the Vedas:

Life after death: The Mīmāmsā Sūtras cleverly got around the issue of dukkha and simply say that life in heaven is "better" than life on earth. The Vedas didn't say anything explicitly about repeated cycles of birth and death. It is hard to conclusively say whether they accept the theory of repeated rebirths or not, but they surely did talk of life after death. We don't know if the Vedic idea of life after death was similar to the rebirth idea of the samaṇa culture, or if it was similar to the belief in the Abrahamic religions like Christianity and Islam.
Karma: The Mīmāmsā Sūtras claim that the way to go to heaven is to engage in Vedic action (vaidika karmāṇi - rituals). The Sutras don't explicitly say that animal sacrifice itself is going to lead to heaven. But the Sutra culture (ca. 100 BCE - 100 CE) didn't say anything in detail. They stated everything in very brief almost cryptic aphorisms - you'll see that even in the Brahma Sūtras which are supposed to summarize the theory behind the Upanishads. So the Mīmāmsā Sūtras only spoke generally and said that Vedic rituals lead to life in heaven. They didn't say that all Vedic rituals lead to heaven - in fact they are very clear that some rituals lead only to happiness in this life. For example, some rituals were meant to have a male heir, and so forth. So they didn't take a clear stand on animal sacrifices in particular!

A number of people were sick and tired of this, and they were the samaṇa groups. They openly denounced the Vedas for enjoining and encouraging ritual sacrifice, especially animal sacrifice. They commonly said that it is indeed ridiculous that activities of such killing and chaos etc. could be believed to lead to heaven. So this verse is reminiscent of the sense of humor that Buddhists, Jains and other samaṇas had, and the field day they had poking fun at the brahmans for having such beliefs.

The Sūtras were very cryptic as I said earlier. So if you want to encourage people to engage in animal sacrifice, you could use such cryptic aphorisms to imply that all Vedic rituals are meant to lead to heaven. But if you are facing a samaṇa opponent who is denouncing the Vedas, you could get vague and say "I never said that animal sacrifice specifically leads to heaven. Why don't you see the numerous other 'good rituals' in the Vedas?" This is a very ancient debate and this is how some brahmans behaved around 600 BCE. This is why we see the Buddha saying that such people aren't worthy of associating with - this is what he calls "eel-wriggling".

Thanks,

Balaji

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 8:36 PM, KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Dear Balaji, thanks so much

I think your insight is a good explanation. I just noticed a little bit more that I'm not sure whether the sentences came from Buddhism source or not. It may also belong to another phylosophical/religional stream as well

Sincerely yours,

Huynh Trong Khanh

From: "Balaji balaji.ramasubramanian@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 9:56 AM

Subject: Re: [palistudy] A sanskrit sentence

Yes. Apologies for any misspellings. Thanks for pointing out:

छित्त्वा = chittvā

Thanks,
Balaji

Balaji

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 7:51 PM, Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Thanks Balaji for your insights.

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

Bryan

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

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

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

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

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