Dear Dhivan,
There is a very comprehensive Pali-Burmese dictionary (about 20 volumes)
which will probably have entries for the six compounds each beginning with
mukha. Although this is not a dictionary that can be directly accessed by
most of us, one of our members, Suan Lu Zaw (a Burmese native living in
Australia), has, I believe most of these volumes. You could try contacting
him at suanluzaw@... He may be able to help.
I see that Bryan has a different interpretation from what I was thinking. I
had the impression that the six terms were referring to oral sounds that
imitate or mimick the sounds of particular musical instruments.
Best wishes,
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dhivan Jones dhivanjones@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: March 10, 2016 5:49 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] passage from Cūḷaniddesa
Dear Jim and Bryan,
Thanks a lot for your replies. Jim’s reply helped confirm my sense that
these peculiar, probably onomatopoeic words were not really much part of the
Pāli literary vocabulary. Bryan’s reply helped me understand how to find out
what they might have meant in their original linguistic context, through
using wider resources. I’m left with a sense that we may no longer be able
to understand these words in the Cūḷaniddesa except through the kind of
intelligent guesswork or reconstruction that Bryan suggests. I am puzzled
however how musical instruments played with the mouth are examples of
‘verbal play’ (vācasikā khiḍḍā), as they are not examples of speech, like
making jokes, but rather examples of sounds. Perhaps this is to say that
vācasika can mean simply ‘connected with sound’ as well as 'connected with
speech’ (i.e. ‘verbal’).
Thanks again, your help much appreciated,
Dhivan