Re: vinayo ca susikkhito

Dear Ven. Bodhi,

 

The answer is yes. There are lots of examples of nom. sing. in -e in the canon outlined by Lüders in his Beobachtungen (§1-21) including at least two where a locative was misunderstood as a nom. sing (20 and 21).  For other examples of no. sing. in -e, see Geiger §80.1.

 

As is well known, Gāndhārī (in which our earliest preserved manuscripts are found) had a wide variety of nom. sing. endings, including both -o and -e (Brough, Gandhari Dhammapada §76) and the eastern Asokan dialects regularly used -e in the nom. sing. The edicts of Shāhbāzgarhī had the -e ending for both nom. sing. and locative sing (See Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka, page xc).

 

If the "original" (better "earlier") form of the Maṅgala sutta read vinaye ca susikkhite, then when it was updated in a western dialect (which Pali is believed to be), the translator would have to decide whether he was dealing with two nominatives, two locatives or one of each and make a decision.  I guess the translation would all depend on context and both make sense, -- “thoroughly learnt discipline” or “one well trained in the discipline” and not much difference in meaning between the two. The most parsimonious explanation however is that we have here two nominatives and if vinayo(e) were a loc. then one of the alternative loc. endings could have been used by the author to make this clear: -asmiṃ, -amhi in Pali or -asi, -aspi, aṃmi, aṃsi, etc., in the northern and eastern dialects

 

Metta,

 

Bryan