Re: Question from Alavaka Sutta

Here is the commonly heard phrase:

...sadevake loke samārake sabrahmake sassamaṇa-brāhmaṇiyā pajāya sadeva-manussāya...

The case in the words are slightly different.

sadevaka, samāraka, and sabrahamka are adjectives that describe loka. The 'sa' prefix means "with". and the 'ka' suffix has many meanings. In this context it what makes the word an adjective. For example,

sapushpakaṃ udyānaṃ - a park which has flowers in it.

sakuṭumbaka gahapati - a householder, who has a family

One point to note: the 'ka' suffix here was not really necessary, but it is added to add a flavor of similarity in ending sound. The noun loka has 'ka' in the end, so adding this 'ka', makes the rest of the adjectives flow poetically well. In English we have such formations like alliterations. This is a similar thing in the middle-Indic languages.

Now the words from sadevake upto sabrahmake, are all in the locative case, because their case follows the case of the noun they describe - loka.

The rest of the words: "sassamaṇa-brāhmaṇiyā pajāya sadeva-manussaāya", this part is actually in the dative case. Here paja is the noun and the rest sassamaṇa-brāhmaṇi and sadeva-manussa are adjectives of paja.

So the phrase has a little bit of tautology, but a curious sort of meaning which might be interesting:

"...in the loka with māra and the various devas and brahmās, for the sake of the samaṇa-brāhmaṇas, for the sake of this paja (~generation is an approximate meaning) of humans along with the gods..."

Note: Interesting point is that in the world with māra, devas, and brahmā gods, the teaching is meant for humans and gods! What happens to the brahmā gods and māra themselves?

Another similar phrase is as follows, and a common misunderstanding in Pali classes that I would like to explain here:

yo imaṃ lokaṃ sadevakaṃ samārakaṃ sabrahmakaṃ sassamaṇa-brāhamaṇiṃ pajaṃ sadeva-manussaṃ sayaṃ abhiññā saccikatvā pavedesi

Now the same words we saw before are all in accusative case, including sadevaka, samāraka, sabrahmaka, sassamaṇa-brāhmaṇi, paja, etc., and they all follow the accusative case of loka. This doesn't however mean that they are all adjectives of the word loka! Only sadevaka, samāraka, and sabrahmaka are adjectives of loka. The rest are actually the ones that benefit from the action described in the end - pavedanā - the action. This is because the verb of telling has two different kamma-pada associations. It is like the following sentence:

ācariyo pañhaṃ pucchati - here pañha is in the accusative case.

ācariyo bālaṃ pañham pucchati - here both bāla and pañha are in accusative case, but for different reasons.

In the same way, the loka and the paja are both in accusative case, but for different reasons! In this case, the Buddha knows the loka through abhiññā, but teaches what he knows about the loka to the paja! The rest of the adjectives should be associated with these two nouns.

I hope I didn't confuse you more in my excitement to explain the beauty of this little phrase.

​Thanks,​

Balaji

On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 11:16 PM, KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Dear all,

Na khvâhaṃ taṃ, āvuso, passāmi sadevake loke sabrahmake (sassamaṇa-brāhmaṇiyā) pajāya (sadevamanussāya) yo me cittaṃ vā khipeyya hadayaṃ vā phāleyya pādesu vā gahetvā pāragaṅgāya khipeyya

“Indeed I do not see, friend, anything in the world with its Brahma and gods, among the generation of ascetics and Brahmins, gods and men, that could confuse my mind, rend my heart asunder, and pick me up by the feet and throw me to the other side of the Ganges

It seems that (brāhmaṇiyā) and (manussāya) are locative case, but I can not look up the way they are created, I can only guess that they were added the suffix ya/yā or iya

Please kindly give my your advices

Sincerely yours,