Re: Questions of YAMA

Dear Khanh,

There are a number of variant readings for this compound:

khalitaṃ sirovalitaṃ (PTS)
khalitasiraṃ (PTS)
khalitasiraṃ valitaṃ (PTS)

khallitasiraṃ (Burmese)
khalitaṃ siro (Burmese)
khalitasiraṃ (Burmese)

Indicating some confusion on the structure.

Cone treats khalita-sira, as an adjective (“with a balding or bald head”) so it simply modifies purisaṃ above. If you take khalitaṃ as an adj. by itself, then it modifies siro or siraṃ. They are both neuter sing. accusative, the Vedic word śiras (= śiraḥ or śiro in masc. and accus.), being a neuter noun with –as stem and simplified to an –a declension with śiraṃ (siraṃ).

I am not familiar with khallita with two –ll’s-. The Sanskrit word is khalati which means bald-headed . There is also a Pali word khallāta (“bald”) and per the PED a Sanskrit word khalvāṭa (Latin calvus), which also occurs as khalliṭa, so apparently it has been directly lifted into Pali in some of the Burmese alternatives. The variation on the spelling, is – according to Kuiper (page 51 Proto-Munda words in Sanskrit) is because of the Munda origin of the word, which was later appropriated into Indo Aryan, and spelt according as it was heard by the IA immigrants. The Munda speaking peoples were an indigenous language group which existed in India before the coming of the Indo Aryans.

jarādhamma is an adjective meaning “subject to growing old or decaying” per the Digital Pali Reader dictionary.

Best wishes,

Bryan

From: "KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: yahoogroups <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2015 7:41 PM
Subject: [palistudy] Questions of YAMA

Dear all,

I just translated 2 questions of YAMA in A.N. 3.36 Devadūta suttaṃ

‘Na tvaṃ addasā manussesu itthiṃ vā purisaṃ vā āsītikaṃ vā nāvutikaṃ vā vassasatikaṃ vā jātiyā, jiṇṇaṃ gopānasivaṅkaṃ bhoggaṃ daṇḍaparāyaṇaṃ pavedhamānaṃ gacchantaṃ āturaṃ gatayobbanaṃ khaṇḍadantaṃ palitakesaṃ vilūnaṃ khalitaṃsiro valitaṃ tilakāhatagattan’ti?

Tassa te viññussa sato mahallakassa na etadahosi: ‘Aham pi kho’mhi jarādhammo jaraṃ anatīto. Handāhaṃ kalyāṇaṃ karomi, kāyena vācāya manasâ’ti?

[1] khalitaṃsiro = bald head, but I do not understand clearly the ending of this word group. It seems not to be a compound, khalitaṃ (bald) = noun, neuter, nominative; and siro (head) = noun, masculine, nominative, both are noun and the former modified the latter (like buddhaṃ saranaṃ), is that right? But as I looked up the dictionary, the nominative of sira is siraṃ, not siro, so how could we understand it here?

[2] jarādhammo = decayed Dhamma - that is the Dhamma having feature of being decayed, is that right?

Sincerely yours,

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