Dear Huynh Trong Khanh,
Thank you for writing about the Theravāda in Vietnam and the efforts that
have been and are being made to translate the Pali into Vietnamese. It would
be interesting to see what effect a good knowledge of traditional grammar
would have on translations.
This grammatical approach deals a lot with word-formation which helps one to
analyse words into roots, suffixes, and inflections and see how the word is
formed. Another important role of the grammar is to preserve and maintain
the established forms of ancient times.
Kaccāyana's grammar contains 673 or 675 suttas (aphorisms or concise rules)
each with a vutti or commentary and with examples. I think the vutti is
dated to around the 7th cent. A.D. but I believe the suttas are much earlier
perhaps originating with Mahākaccāyana, the Buddha's great disciple. It is
the oldest extant Pali grammar we have. There are several other later
commentaries on the suttas such as Mukhamattadīpanī (also known as the
Nyāsa) which has three ṭīkās. There are many Pali grammatical treatises and
one can see them listed in section 5 of the CPD bibliography.
The Pali grammar tradition is part of a larger Indian group which includes
Pāṇini's Sanskrit grammar. They share similar technical terms just like the
Latin terms used in European grammars and in modern Pali and Sanskrit
grammars. It seems to me that the Indians took the science of words to a
higher level than the Greeks and the Romans. According to Patañjali, grammar
is the most important of the sciences.
Best wishes,
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: "KHANH TRONG HUYNH testsuda@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: September 14, 2016 8:07 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Kaccayana Pali Grammar
Dear Jim,
Thanks so much for your useful & interesting information. As I know until
now, in Vietnam there are not so much people knowing about Kaccayana or Pali
traditional grammar in general.
The Theravada was transmitted to Vietnam in 1930s and until now, we still
not have a Vietnamese Tipitaka completely. Before the last 10 years, we just
have had about 80% of the Suttas, 0% of Vinaya which was translated from
Pali to Vietnamese and a little bit of commentaries and sub-commentaries but
with low-quality. We also have the Abhidhamma but it was translated from the
Thai version. During about last 10 years, we have Ven Indacanda who have
been re-translating the old Suttas, translating the new Suttas, he has
translated all the Vinaya too. All those he has been doing with the method
of literal translation. I also considered him as my Pali teacher.
More recently, we have another Ven who is translating Pali Nissaya from
Burmese to Vietnamese. So, if someone goes on to apply the traditional
grammar for translating the Vienamese Tipitaka. It would be another
contribution for us.
Sincerely yours,
From: "'Jim Anderson' jimanderson.on@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Kaccayana Pali Grammar
Dear Huynh Trong Khanh,
I tried contacting Sayadaw A.Thitzana again and got a very good response