Re: Tathāgata

From: Bryan Levman
Message: 4564
Date: 2016-03-15

Dear Balaji,

I find tathya in Sanskrit (meaning "truth"), but I can't find tatthya. Can you give me a reference?

I don't know of any scholar who believes there were "two totally different language groups in ancient India", as you have stated it. Most scholars espouse a more middle way view, that is, there were several language groups in India when the Indo Aryans arrived and they gradually mixed and melded through, subjugation, and intermarriage. There would then be pockets of bi- or tri-lingual speakers in various parts of the country (esp. the sub-Himalayas, where both Dravidian and Munda languages were spoken), and it was these bilingual speakers who caused various linguistic phenomena, like the adoption of Dravidian retroflex stops into Indo-Aryan, the adoption of native names from non Indo-Aryan languages into Indo-Aryan, and the various mis-pronunciations that we read about in Vinaya and Samantapāsādikā and the Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, whereby voiced and unvoiced stops are interchanged, aspirates are confused etc. Dravidian, for example, had no phonemic distinction between a voiced and unvoiced stop (and Munda languages have no aspirates), so someone whose first language is Dravidian and also spoke Indo-Aryan, would not hear these distinctions, and a bhāṇaka or scribe might on that account make several mistakes in transcriptions.

It is probably very similar to the language picture in nineteenth and twentieth century North America, where the immigrants learn English as a second language, and make various pronunciation mistakes because of the phonological constraints of their native language.

If you want to look into it in more detail, I have just published an article on "The language of early Buddhism" in the Journal of South Asian Language and Linguistics 2016, page 1-41,

Best wishes,

Bryan


From: "Balaji balaji.ramasubramanian@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2016 2:39 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata

 
Just a small note on this topic - tathāgata could also have been a simplification of the more likely word tatthāgata = tattha+āgata, or maybe even tathāvagata=tattha+avagata. The ava- prefix is simplified to ā in this case. tattha is the Pali form of the Sanskrit word tathya, which means "truth that can be directly seen". tathyāgata or tathyāvagata, fit very well with the meaning in which the word was used in the Pali scriptures. There are many Sanskrit words that are derived in a parallel manner, and found very often in the Vedic literature - vidyāgata, vidyāgama, vidyāvagata, vidyādhigata, devatāgata, devāgama, devatādhigata. These words are found in both the Rg and Sama Vedas, as well as the Satapatha Brahmanas. The word tathya is also definitely Sanskritic in origin, with references seen in the Satapatha Brahmanas, but the words tathyāgata and tathyāvagata are not found in these scriptures (to the extent I have searched). But it wouldn't be impossible to derive it from Vedic Sanskrit.
As to whether the word was Aryan or Dravidian, I am not very much sold on the theory that there were two totally different language groups of ancient India, one of Aryan immigrants, and one of Dravidian indigenous people. The Pali scriptures always use the word ariyo (ārya in Sanskrit) to mean "noble". So I'm not fully sold on the Aryan immigration theory anyway.
But I also agree with Bhante Yuttadhammo, that tathāgata=tathā+āgata or tathā+gata. also seems to have perfectly legitimate etymologies.
Thanks,
Balaji

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 9:26 PM Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 
Dear Bryan,

> Yes, good question. It does seem unproblematic on the surface. But I think people felt that the surface meaning - tathā gata or tathā āgata, thus gone or thus come (in the way of all previous Buddhas) - was too strained, not natural, and as Norman says (as per Steve Collins' reference), quoting Thomas, "in its use in the scriptures there īs no trace of the Sanskrit meaning contained in tathā and gata". 
 
IMHO, the popular English translation "thus gone" stems from the English translations of Mahayana literature.
Here's a excerpt from Mahaprajnaparamitasastra:

"Why is he called To t'o a k'ie t'o (tathāgata)?
1. He preaches the natures of the dharmas (dharmalakṣaṇa) in the way (tathā) that he has understood (gata) them.
2. In the way that the [previous] Buddhas have gone by the path of safety (yogakṣemamārga), thus (tathā) the [actual] Buddha is going (gata) and will not go on to new existences (punarbhāva).251
______
251 Cf. Sumaṅgala, I, p. 60-62 (second explanation)."
 
The interpretation "thus come" is embedded in the corresponding Chinese term 如來 or 如来 .
 
Careful study of Sutta and Atthakatha helps to sort out such interpretations as later ones. It is the interpretation "tathāni āgatoti tathāgato" which is given repeatedly in Atthakatha, and used in Suttanta.

Best wishes,
                      Dmytro

From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2016 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata

 
Thanks friends :)
It still seems confusing that the word might have come from Dravidian sources, esp. why Hurvitz seems so sure that it did, when it looks so familiarly Sanskritic. Bryan, why is tathaa gata or tathaa aagata unconvincing? It just doesn't seem like such a problematic word is all.
Best wishes,
Yuttadhammo
 
Dear Pali friends,
 
Here's my small study of explanations of this word in Sutta and Atthakatha, which points to the explanation: tathāni āgatoti tathāgato as the most substantiated,
 

with tathāni in the sense explaned in Tattha sutta:

‘‘Cattārimāni, bhikkhave, tathāni avitathāni anaññathāni. Katamāni cattāri? ‘Idaṃ dukkha’nti, bhikkhave, tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhasamudayo’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhanirodho’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ; ‘ayaṃ  dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ – imāni kho, bhikkhave, cattāri tathāni avitathāni anaññathāni.

Best wishes,
                    Dmytro
______________________________________________________________
> Od: "Steven Collins scollins951@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Komu: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Datum: 13.03.2016 06:41
> Předmět: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata
>
 
 
On tathāgata see K.R.Norman, Collected Papers IV 162-63.
Steve Collins


From: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata



Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,
The etymology of the word has long been a problem which is why Hurvitz suggests its origin amongst the indigenous peoples of India (Dravidian or Munda, most likely, but we don't know all the language groups that existed at the time of the Indo Aryan immigration).
Hurvitz is only echoing a suggestion made by Schayer in 1935 and Thomas in 1937.
There are indeed a lot of non Indo-Aryan words in theTipiṭaka, some of which I discuss in my article in Buddhist Studies Review (2013: "Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures", p. 145-80). These are mainly place names and names of fauna and flora unfamiliar to the immigrants which were incorporated into the Indo-Aryan language. But there are also a lot of technical terms. The Buddha's funeral, for example, does not follow a "normal" Indo-Aryan practice but is based on indigenous customs.
In my thesis, I briefly discuss the problem of tathāgāta, which I attach for your info (it also contains the references above). There is also a short summary of the problems with the word in Mayrhofer's Etymological Dictionary (1963) on page 472.
Best wishes,
Bryan
From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 5:23 PM
Subject: [palistudy] Tathāgata

 
Dear Friends,

I have just come across a curious passage in the introduction to a translation of the Lotus Sutra, by Leon Hurvitz:

"Without much doubt, tathāgata is a non-Indic word refurbished to have an Indic appearance long after it had come into current use among India's Buddhists."

I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight on the origin of this word as described in this quote - is the implication that it came from Proto-Indo-European?

Thanks,

Yuttadhammo










Previous in thread: 4563
Next in thread: 4565
Previous message: 4563
Next message: 4565

Contemporaneous posts     Posts in thread     all posts