Re: Yā tesaṃ tesaṃ sattānaṃ tamhi tamhi sattanikāye jāti

From: Bryan Levman
Message: 5118
Date: 2019-01-08

Dear Bhante,

According to Whitney (section 1260) repeated words "give an intensive, distributive or a repetitional meaning." So, a you have observed, "each and every"  would be a good translation to capture this function in English,

Mettā, Bryan

On Monday, January 7, 2019, 9:17:20 PM EST, Balaji balaji.ramasubramanian@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 

Dear Ven Yuttadhammo:

Based on your full quotation, I now realize this is coming from DN 22 Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta. The Buddha is explaining jāti, jarā, maraṇaṃ etc, the whole list. And yes, this is just a general concept he - not a specific event. We can see this because, in some cases, he uses terms that would otherwise qualify as adjectives to describe. For example, aging is also the condition of weakness (jīraṇatā), and death is also described as cavanatā (the condition of getting away):

tesaṃ-tesaṃ sattānaṃ ... jāti sañjāti ...
tesaṃ-tesaṃ-sattānaṃ ... jarā jīraṇatā ...
tesaṃ-tesaṃ sattānaṃ ... cuti cavanatā ...

So, he is not explaining birth as an event, but birth as a condition/process: the fact that beings are born. It is like rain. There may be rain occurring in multiple locations on this planet at any given moment, but when we describe the process of rain, and say "when the water droplets in the clouds collect together around their respective nuclei to become heavy and fall down, the process of rain, precipitation, falling of water drops, that occurs, that monks is called rain."

See the pattern? The water-droplets are plural, nuclei are plural, the use of "respective" clause, and yet, there is a singular rain (and not rains). This is to describe a process or a condition or even a phenomenon.

Thanks,
Balaji


On Sun, Jan 6, 2019 at 5:45 PM jimanderson.on@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,

A careful study of the commentary (which you quote from) along with its subcommentary should help resolve some of the problems of understanding the passage in question.

Two quick notes:

1) At this stage, I can only glance over the commentaries. The "sabbasattānaṃ" comment suggests that "tesaṃ tesaṃ" is to be construed as "sabbesaṃ" and, similarly, "sabbamhi" for the "tamhi tamhi" that follow in the next phrase with "sattanikāye".

2) Also, the comment on the "jāti" at the beginning of a list of 6 terms gives it a much narrower meaning than what one would expect for the "jāti" at the end after "vuccati".

Jim

From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: January 5, 2019 1:02 PM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Yā tesaṃ tesaṃ sattānaṃ tamhi tamhi sattanikāye jāti

Thanks Jim, I thought of that about the double satta, but that doesn't seem like a strong argument, since Pali seems okay with such doubling in other circumstances, no? I can see how it was a long shot suggesting the connection there though.

jāti in this passage does seem clearly to be referring to birth in the ordinary sense:

yā tesaṃ tesaṃ sattānaṃ tamhi tamhi sattanikāye jāti sañjāti okkanti abhinibbatti khandhānaṃ pātubhāvo āyatanānaṃ paṭilābho, ayaṃ vuccati, bhikkhave, jāti.

The commentary says:

yā tesaṃ tesaṃ sattānanti idaṃ “imesaṃ nāmā”ti niyamābhāvato sabbasattānaṃ pariyādānavacanaṃ.

So the function of tesaṃ tesaṃ sattānaṃ seems clear at least, delineating the boundary as relating to all beings, not just "of these".

This all came from someone trying to argue for a deeper meaning to what they saw as plural births inferred by English translations like "The birth of the various beings". So I'm trying to understand the grammar behind what appears to be birth in the singular.

Is tesaṃ tesaṃ sattānaṃ maybe to be understood as referring to beings individually? Something like "each and every being"? Or is it simply that birth here means the general concept, as opposed to a specific event?

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019, 11:49 AM mailto:jimanderson.on@... [palistudy] <mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com wrote:

Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,

I agree with Balaji and Ma Vajira that sattānaṃ should be connected to jāti but I can see a problem with sattānaṃ being in the plural with the English "birth" for "jāti"..... It somehow clashes in also suggesting the birth of multiple beings simultaneously into a group of other beings. I think "production" would work better in this case.

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