Re: Samathanimitta

Dmytro and Jim,

The word upalakkhetabbākāraṃ may be functioning as a bahubbihi compound qualifying an implicit yaṃ … taṃ “that which” construction. Thus we might reformulate the sentence to make this explicit:

     Kasiṇanimittaṃ viya saññāṇaṃ viya saviggahaṃ viya ca yaṃ suṭṭhu upalakkhetabbākāraṃ, taṃ ‘‘nimittan’ti vuccati.

I would understand viya as used here to have the function of citing examples rather than of making a comparison. And I would take saññāṇaṃ to be a mark or sign (an objective basis for subjective recognition = saññā). This may seem arbitrary, but an external mark of the object fits better with the other examples cited, kasinanimitta and saviggaham.

The intention of the statement is to explain why samatha itself can be regarded as the samathanimitta. Thus, as a rough guess, I would take the sense of this and the following sentence jointly to be as follows:

“That which has an aspect that is to be thoroughly observed—such as a kasiṇanimitta, such as a sign, such as something with a shape—is called a nimitta. And samatha is such an aspect, so it is called a nimitta.”

This seems supported by the Pāthikavagga-ṭīkā, which says:

     Yenākārena pubbe alīnaṃ anuddhataṃ majjhimaṃ bhāvanāvīthipaṭipannaṃ hutvā cittaṃ samāhitaṃ hoti, taṃ ākāraṃ gahetvā sallakkhetvā.

     "Having grasped, having observed, the aspect by which the mind, having previously entered upon the middle course of development, so that it is neither sluggish nor excited, has [afterward] become concentrated."

It's also possible that the sentence as it has come down in this version of the ṭīkā has been corrupted. Is there another non-Burmese version of this ṭīkā against which the CST version can be checked?

With metta,

Bhikkhu Bodhi

 

Hi Dmytro,

I've been looking at the grammar of the following Mūlaṭīkā sentence you quoted:

Kasiṇanimittaṃ viya saññāṇaṃ viya saviggahaṃ viya ca suṭṭhu upalakkhetabbākāraṃ ‘‘nimittan’ti vuccati.

I'm wondering why "upalakkhetabbākāraṃ" isn't in the nominative case (-ākāro) in agreement with "vuccati". If it's not the subject, then where is it? The sentence that comes after "vuccati" is: Samatho ca evaṃ ākāroti ‘‘nimitta’’nti vutto. One possibility might be that the "samatho" in the Aṭṭhasālinī comment is understood to be the subject of vuccati and " upalakkhetabbākāraṃ" is an adjectival compound modifying "nimittaṃ".

Best wishes, Jim

------------------------
From: palistudy@yahoogroups.com <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2019 7:11 AM
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [palistudy] Samathanimitta

Dear Pali friends,

I am struggling with some Pali passages which are important for my research on Samatha training methods.

Commentary to Sangiti sutta from Digha Nikaya and to Dhammasangani states:

Samathova taṃ ākāraṃ gahetvā puna pavattetabbassa samathassa nimittavasena samathanimittaṃ.

The attunement to serenity is an attunement, by power of which one can make serenity to reoccur, having learned [previously] the mode of [attaining] serenity.

[...]

-- 
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Chuang Yen Monastery
2020 Route 301
Carmel NY 10512
U.S.A.

Sabbe sattā averā hontu, abyāpajjā hontu, anighā hontu, sukhī hontu!
願眾生無怨，願眾生無害，願眾生無惱，願眾生快樂！
May all beings be free from enmity, free from affliction, free from distress. May they be happy!