Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary

Pali contains such borrowed Sanskrit words and forms, e.g. vākya , ārogya , kva (Geiger 53.3), and brāhmaṇa (and (p004fnc2end-p005fnc1begin) its relatives); this last word is certainly a Skt. loan, as shown partly by the initial br- (which is not conclusive), but especially by the ā before a consonant cluster [UKT: conjunct] and the lack of mentathesis in hm (cf. Geiger 49.1). [UKT ¶]

UKT: Edgerton was looking for mentathesis in  hm  . What did he mean? He probably did not know hm  was a conjunct , and therefore the two aksharas belong to different syllables and there could be no relation between them. My problem is to find what exactly the word "mentathesis" is. Did Edgerton make a spelling mistake - which I could not imagine - and the word should have been "metathesis".  See my note on mentathesis .

Notorious is the Pali gerund suffix -(i)tvā , which must be a Skt. loan-form. Even Aśokan inscriptions, with the single exception of -tpā in the west (Girnar), show only -tu , and the only other record of -tvā elsewhere in Middle Indic (unless BHS be counted as such) seems to be the dialect of the 'Pkt. Dharmapada' (ms. Dutreuil de Rhins; e.g. ñatva , Senart p. 218; hitva  p. 219). But the number of such words and forms is so limited in Pali that it is far from constituting a parallel to BHS. They are no more significant, as dialect mixture, than the so-called Māgadhisms of Pali, mentioned above.... fn004-12b

fn005-13. According to Winternitz, Hist. Ind. Lit. II (1933). 247, the ‘nucleus’ of the Mahāvastu, which is commonly and I think rightly regarded as the oldest BHS work we have, ‘originated as far back as the 2nd century B.C.’, tho it was expanded later, some additions being as late as the 4th century A.D. and perhaps later yet. On stratification in Mv see references in fn. 21, to § 1.81. On classification, in part chronological, of BHS texts, see Bibliography. - fn005-13b

fn005-14. No other fully preserved work is comparable with Mv in presenting its prose parts, as well as the verses, in a largely Middle Indic guise. We know, however, that there must have been others. In Śikṣ (154.17), which is largely a mosaic of quotations from older works, we find a prose passage cited from a lost work called Bhikṣuprakirṇaka, and this prose is precisely like that of Mv, and radically different from the prose of any other work preserved to us. One ms. of Jm contains a short Jātaka story (printed in the Appendix to the Jm ed.) told in the same language and style, and perhaps borrowed directly from an older form of Mv, where it occurs (ii.244 f.); but the Jm insertion contains some passages not found in our mss. and the ed. of Mv, as well as many variants (in part mere corruptions). - fn005-14b
(p005fnc1end-p005fnc2begin)

fn005-15. See my article on ‘Meter, Phonology, and Orthography in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit’, JAOS 66.197 ff. This applies to texts preserved in older forms, the first and second classes listed with Bibliography; not to the verses of the third class.

Professor Helmer Smith (‘Les deux prosodies du vers bounddhique’, K. Human. Vetensk. Lund 1949-1950, 1; Lund, 1950; 43 pp.) has honored my article on Meter etc., cited above, by a somewhat detailed critique. [UKT¶]

UKT 140523, 160220: My knowledge of Pali is minimal, and I am not surprised at my ignorance of the Critical Pali Dictionary by Helmer Smith (1882-1956). It is stated:
"His whole intellectual disposition qualified Helmer Smith for philological studies. His keen intelligence and quick comprehension permitted him to master languages and to surmount interpretative difficulties with exceptional ease. In Sanskrit, Pāli and Prākrit his reading was extensive; he studied a number of modern Indian languages and literatures, especially Sinhalese, Hindi, Tamil, Burmese; and besides he was an excellent classical scholar and possessed a very good knowledge of Old Norse language and literature."
- http://pali.hum.ku.dk/cpd/intro/helmer_smith_obituary.html 140523, 160220

On a number of important points, I am glad to find, he agrees with me, notably on the purely orthographic and artificial character of initial consonant clusters in the writing (my §§ 15, 39 ff.). On the other hand, he is unwilling to accept many of my cases of syllable-lengthening m.c., especially by nasalization or consonant doubling. On p. 4, top , he expresses fear that I may mislead beginners by my use of the term ‘m.c.’ Of course I agree with him that such phenomena originated in genuine linguistic developments of doublet forms, each usable at will, and hence both used, according to metrical convenience. He seems, however (if I understand him), unwilling to grant that once such doublets existed in certain categories, analogy could operate to create similar doublets where historically they ‘ought’ not to exist. [UKT ¶]

UKT 140523: What did Prof. Edgerton mean by "historically", when there is no reliable history of this period. If there had been reliable accounts, Western scholars would have noted the account of the second exodus of Kṣatriya from the birthplace of the Buddha to Tagaung in the very lifetime of the Buddha.

To me it seems impossible to doubt the reality of such analogical extensions, many instances of which are used in BHS only in verses where they fit the meter, and where the ‘regular’ form would not fit. The term ‘m.c.’ seems therefore appropriate to them. See table of abbreviations for my use of ‘m.c.’.

UKT 140523: On page roman 29 (XXIX), Prof. Edgerton defines "m.c."
"metri causa". I include under this term two classes of cases, ...

One of the two ways in which he seeks to avoid acceptance of my interpretations in this category is to explain otherwise the individual cases mentioned in my article. In reply, I would note, first, that in the JAOS article I cited only a very few examples. Many more are cited in this grammar, but even here my lists are by no means exhaustive. [UKT ¶]

The cumulative weight of the great mass of materials seems to me to make fruitless such efforts to explain some of them away, by pluralistic, and ( p005fnc2end-p006fnc1begin ) sometimes force or even impossible, explanations. Let me cite a single instance (p. 4): ‘que, seul, mīḍhaṃ-gilī (ɔ: -gilān Pāṇ 6.3.70), épithète des prāṇaka, donnerait un sens å [LV] 197.3. I think Professor Smith, had he investigated this passage with his usual care and acumen, would not have made this statement. [UKT ¶]

In this LV verse, the Bodhisattva has three dreams about himself; in pāda a , four black and white animals ( prāṇaka has this meaning here, not ‘insects’ as Mr. Smith may possibly take it, and as it may be used) lick his feet; in pāda b , four-colored birds come to him and ‘become one-colored’ (red bhuta = bhūta , with Tibetan, instead of –dbhuta ); in c-d , he walks on ‘mountains of dung’ without being soiled, Instead of ‘mountains of dung’, Mr. Smith would have ‘dung-swallowing’ (animals, or insects). [UKT ¶]

UKT 140523: For easy reading I separated Edgerton's arguments into separate paras.

But: (1) between the prāṇaka of pāda a , and pāda c , intervenes pāda b , with the unrelated ‘birds’; Smith’s syntax seems to me impossible.

(2) Tib. reads ri  ‘mountain (s)’, for –girī .

(3) In Mv ii. 137.3 ff. the same three dreams are recorded, in the same order, and in line 11
mīḍha-parvatasya  disproves Smith’s emendation of LV.

(4) To me, at least, it is of some interest that ‘A’ (on the whole perhaps the best ms. Of LV) is cited by Lefmann as mīḍhagbhirī , i. e. mīḍhaggirī ; this may be the true reading; it tends to support my view of the equivalence of nasalization and doubling of consonants as means of metrical lengthening; Smith’s emendation could not deal with it. – This case shows how even the greatest of scholars may go astray on an individual case. [UKT ¶]

It consoles me, a little, for the (at least) two errors which Smith’s sharp eyes detected in my work; he is quite right (pp. 2-3) on Mv i.70.17 and Laṅk 268.15, which should be deleted from my §§ 72, 71. I can only express gratitude to him, and chagrin at my own carelessness. (As to matīnāṁ , printed in my § 75 for matīnāṁ , it was not an ‘emendation’, as Smith p. 9 naturally supposed, but – I hope – a mere misprint; or else a slip in copying. [UKT ¶]

I am much less inclined to accept most of Smith’s other ‘corrections’ or variant interpretations of passages treated in my work.) I cannot here deal at length with Mr. Smith’s more general considerations. He relies extensively on Pali metrics, and even to some extent on Vedic. [UKT ¶]

UKT 140523: By his own admission, Edgerton was a Sanskritist whereas Smith was a Paliist. Since I maintain that Pali as spoken in Myanmarpré was derived directly from Magadhi brought in by Abhiraza, and not a mere copy of the Lanka-derived Pali, Myanmar scholars should look into sources other than from Lanka. Perhaps the Critical Pali Dictionary by Helmer Smith, might be a starting point.

I frankly have never understood Pali meter, as a whole. (I hope and expect to profit from Prof. Smith’s studies, based on his vast knowledge of Pali, which infinitely surpasses my own.) At certain points I have noted resemblances to BHS, but a great many Pali verses baffle me; they seem to involve principles which I am unable to formulate, but which in any case seem to me, for the present at least, and even after reading Smith, quite different from ( p006fnc1end-p006fnc2begin) any in BHS. [UKT ¶]

UKT 140523: The Vedic language is not Sanskrit. It is probable when the Sanskrit speakers came into India, they came into contact with the original languages most of which was Vedic. Vedic was not IE (Indo-European). It was Tib-Bur (Tibeto-Burman) which again has no relation to Chinese. The oldest Vedic verse still extent is the Gayatri Mantra, which has a different meter from Sanskrit (of Panini). Because Panini and others were finding that what the Sanskrit speakers were pronouncing was different from Vedic, they set out to construct more than one grammar to codified "broken" Vedic into what they called Sanskrit. Panini's grammar is the only one accepted today. Vedic --> Magadhi --> Pal-Myan was how the languages have changed. It was the Hindu religionists who claimed that Sanskrit was passed on to them by the Mahabrahma himself. Since, as a down-to-earth scientist, I cannot accept any axiom such as that of Mahabrahma creating the world, the only change I can imagine is the one presented above. Please note: this remark is pure speculation on my part.

As to Vedic meter, BHS seems to me radically different in fundamental principles, and I think it dangerous to interpret the latter by the former. BHS meter, in fact, seems to me in some important respects quite individual, despite, of course, many points of resemblance to Pali and Classical Skt. Meters. At least provisionally, and at first, I believe it should be studied by itself. [UKT ¶]

Such study is complicated. First, the text tradition of most BHS texts is wretched. Corruptions abound everywhere, notably in Mv, and (probably near the other end of the chronological scale) in such a text as Mmk. We must collect, for each text, forms, and metrical patterns too, which are attested by considerable amounts of evidence; having done that, we may, cautiously, suggest that apparent deviations may be text-corruptions. [UKT ¶]

UKT 140523: Please remember that there was no printing press in those days and each mss was the work of one human being with no editors to check his or her work, and there could be mistakes in spelling. These human beings would have differing L1 (mother tongue) which would interfere with the spelling he or she had adopted.

In Mv I have found a very considerable number of cases which agree with the metrical principles I have set up. In view of the known frightful corruption of the mss., I think we may apply the above principle to seeming exceptions. On the whole I am inclined to treat Mmk in the same way. But there are some texts of my class 3 (see the introduction to my Bibliography) where I still hesitate, because of the lack (in their mss.) of a compelling number of cases supporting my formulas. (Divy is an example.) Some of these Class 3 texts may belong, metrically, to a developed, or broken-down, system of metrics, compared to the texts of Classes 1 and 2. In footnote 21 to § 1.81 I call attention to some stanzas inserted very late in the Nepalese version of SP which are metrically very aberrant, and which I cannot analyze satisfactorily. In principle, therefore, I am not averse to recognizing different ‘prosodies’ in BHS texts as we have them. So far, I remain unconvinced by Professor Smith’s particular views as regards types of BHS prosody. There is not room in this already swollen publication to discuss them in detail, not have I as yet had time to give sufficient study to his (I am sure, very valuable and important) studies in Pali metrics. - fn005-15b

fn006-16. In Hoernle, Ms. Remains, 161 f., Lüders wrote: ‘I am even inclined to believe that the original (sc. Of SP) was written in a pure Prakrit dialect which was after-wards gradually put into Sanskrit.’ (Cf. the next paragraphs. SP is in no way distinctive among BHS works.) If Lüders had been aware of the above evidence, perhaps he would have been ready to consider with me the possibility that the ‘putting into Sanskrit’ was in part purely orthographic. I think, however, that Lüders was quite wrong in identifying the ‘original dialect’ as Māgadhī, solely on the ground of vocatives in –āho; these are not exclusively Mg. (§ 8.88). -- fn006-16b
(p006fnc2end-p008fnc1begin) (p007 has no footnote. fn008-17 is on p008)

Contents of this page

UKT notes

Lalita - the Naga Goddess, and Lilith - the Devil woman

- UKT 140523, 180731, 201015

Naga {na.ga:} and snake {mrwé} are not the same. Naga {na.ga:} are mythical, almost equal in status to Human {lu}, and can take on human form at will. Some are devout disciples of the Buddha, and of course some are renegades doing mischief.

In the simple three world picture of the universe - in the stories that I tell to entertain the children and adults alike (especially my beloved wife Daw Than Than as bedtime stories - who named me {poän-prau:kaung:þau: yauk~kya:}) : the sky world is the abode of the Deva {dé-wa.}, the middle world is the abode of Man {lu}, and the world below - under the sea and under land - is the abode of Naga {na.ga:}. The female Naga {na.ga:ma.} (or Nagi if you like) are very beautiful maidens (in human form) and marry the humans, especially the Zawgyi - the super-human, and heroes. The only drawback is that they lay eggs from which human children are hatched.

Inset pix: Pa-O maiden whose tribal ancestors were Zawgyi (father) and a Naga'ma (mother) with head-dress in the form of a naga-head.

Because of dearth of files on Burma or Myanmarpré on the internet, it is now my policy to start from the articles I've written in Tun Institue of Learning - my own institution. I'll begin from: Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism, by Maung (Dr.) Htin Aung. Printed and published by U Myint Maung, Deputy Director, Regd: No (02405/02527) at the Religious Affairs Dept. Press. Yegu, Kaba-Aye P.O., Rangoon, BURMA. 1981.

From: Folk Elements in Buddhism - flk-ele-indx.htm > 07.06. Cult of Naga - ch07-cult-naga.htm (link chk 201015).

The Cult of the Naga {na.ga:} [big snake-like creature] was the one pre-Buddhist cult which did not recover from Anawrahta's suppression. At the present day the Naga {na.ga:} is not worshipped at all, and there remain only two faint traces fn109-01 of the original cult. As part of the initiation ceremony, the Burmese boy is 'shown' to the Naga {na.ga:} at the western gate of a northern or Upper Burmese village. [UKT ¶]

[For distant travelling], people avoid, as much as possible, going in a direction which is not 'according to the Naga's head' [Milky Way]*. In the first, second and twelfth months of the Burmese year, the Naga's head is turned towards the west, with the tail pointing east. In the sixth, seventh and eighth months this process is reversed. In the third, fourth and fifth months the head faces the north and the tail the south. This process is reversed in the ninth, tenth and eleventh months.

*The Naga's head in the sky is actually the Milky Way as seen in the night sky. See insert -- the head of the Naga is on the right side of the insert while the tail is on the left. The Pole Star is in the centre. From: Map of Union of Myanmar and the World (in Burmese), by Dr. Daw Thin Kyi, et.al., {þa.ma-meit~ta.}, 1956, p.5. See a full account of the Breath of Naga in Nakshatra in the Sky (in Burmese), by U Tézaniya et.al, B.E.T. Press, Yangon, 1967

If one goes into the Naga's mouth, disaster will result, and if one goes against the direction of the Naga's scales, ill-luck will follow; for example, during the months in which [{p110}] the Naga's head is turned towards the east, one must absolutely avoid journeys from due east to due west, and avoid as much as possible journeys from due west to due east. The origin of the belief can no longer be traced and it is not possible to know, or even guess, which particular Naga is being referred to: in fact, if is not even known whether this Naga is in the sky * or at the bottom of the ocean, or in the bowels of the earth.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripura_Sundari 180731, 201014

Tripura Sundari , त्रिपुरा सुन्दरी «tripura sundarī », or Lalita Maha Tripura Sundari is a Hindu goddess and one of the ten Mahavidyas the incarnations of Parvati. [2] She is the Shakti/consort of Sadasiva, सदाशिव «sadāśiva», the Prakriti to his Purusha. Lalita manifests as Goddess Sati, Goddess Parvati, in Shakta literature. Lalita Tripura Sundari Devi is considered to be the most potent incarnation of Parvati or simply Her saguna roopa. She, along with Sadasiva is responsible for the Pancha-Krityas - Sristi or creation, Sthithi or protection, Samhara or destruction, Thirodhana or concealment of the world in Maya and Anugraha or final liberation . She is best known as the Devi glorified in the Lalita Sahasranama and as the subject of the Lalitopakhyanam (story of the goddess Lalita) in Hinduism. [3]

Inset pix left: Sri Lalita Maha Tripurasundari enthroned with her right foot upon the Sri Chakra. She is surrounded by Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Ishvara, Sadashiva, Kartikeya and Mahaganapati. Lakshmi and Saraswati are fanning her.
Inset pix right: Lilith - the first wife of Adam.

UKT 201015: Snakes may not be so despicable to the Easterners. But to the Westerner, with influence from the Hebrew faith, they are the instruments of Evil, as the story of Adam and Eve goes. It seems that Adam's first wife was not Eve, but Lilith (a word similar to Lalita) who was seduced by the Devil.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith 201019

Lilith (/ˈlɪlɪθ/) is a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud (3rd to 5th century AD). From c. AD 700–1000 onwards Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, created at the same time (Rosh Hashanah) and from the same clay as Adam — compare Genesis 1:27.^[1] The figure of Lilith may relate in part to a historically earlier class of female demons (Akkadian: 𒆤𒆤𒄄𒀀, romanized: lilîtu) in ancient Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia.

Go back Lalita-note-b

Contents of this page

Lalitavistara : The Play in Full

However, Lalitavistara Sutra is a Mahayana Buddhist text originally in Sanskrit. It has been taken to Tibet, and you can read the Tibetan translation by the Tibetan Dharmachakra Translation Committee in 2013 in TIL HD-PDF and SD-PDF libraries.
- Dharma-LalitavistaraTibetan<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180731)

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalitavistara_Sutra 140523

The Lalitavistara Sūtra (Skt.) is a Mahayana sutra  that tells the story of the Buddha from the time of his descent from the Tushita heaven until his first sermon in the Deer Park near Benares. The title Lalitavistara has been translated as "The Play in Full" or "Extensive Play," referring to the Mahayana view that the Buddha’s last incarnation was a "display" or "performance" given for the benefit of the beings in this world.

The sutra consists of twenty-seven chapters: [1]

Ch.01: In the first chapter of the sutra, the Buddha is staying at Jetavana grove with a large gathering of disciples. One evening, a group of divine beings visit the Buddha and request him to tell the story of his awakening for the benefit of all beings. The Buddha consents.

Ch.02: The following morning, the Buddha tells his story to the gathered disciples. He begins the story by telling of his previous life, in which the future Buddha was living in the heavenly realms surrounded by divine pleasures. In this previous life, he was known as the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva is enjoying the immense pleasures of his heavenly life, but due to his past aspirations, one day the musical instruments of the heavenly palace call out to him, reminding him of his prior commitment to attain awakening.

Ch.03. Upon being reminded of his previous commitments, the Bodhisattva announces, to the despair of the gods in this realm, that he will abandon his divine pleasures in order take birth in the human realm and there attain complete awakening.

Ch.04. Before leaving the heavenly realms, the Bodhisattva delivers one final teaching to the gods.

Ch.05. The Bodhisattva installs the bodhisattva Maitreya as his regent in the heavenly realms, and then sets out for the human realm accompanied by great displays of divine offerings and auspicious signs.

... ... ...

Go back Lalitavistara-note-b

Contents of this page

Lalitavistara and Sarvastivada

By Thomas, E. J., Indian Historical Quarterly, 16:2 1940.06 p. 239-245
- http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/tho_1.htm 181102

(p239)
The position of the  Lalitavistara-sutra in its relation to Pali Buddhism has been variously  judged. The work was described by Rhys Davids some fifty years ago as, "a poem of unknown date and authorship, but probably composed in Nepal, and by some Buddhist poet who lived  sometime  between six hundred and a thousand years after the birth of the Buddha."(1) [UKT ¶]

UKT 181102: It is probable that by Pali Buddhism, the author meant the Buddhism that is prevalent in Lanka. However, it must be remembered that Pal-Lanka is an artificial language just to serve the Theravada Buddhists in Lanka after the Asokan missionaries brought the Buddhist faith from Magadha. So Pal-Lanka is a derivative of Magadha in Asokan script (Tib-Bur language group), mixed with the Lanka language which is of the Aus-Asi language group. Pal-Lanka was probably infiltrated with Sanskrit (of IE language group). When Rhys Davids says "probably composed in Nepal" he was probably right. There were then no political entities such as India and Nepal. Both were of Magadha Mahajanapada - a region defined by culture and language extending into Tagaung kingdom in northern Burma.

This illustrates the extraordinary misconceptions then prevailing, as well as the attitude of the Pali school, which sought to reconstruct the early history of Buddhism from Pali sources alone. But the Lalitavistara is not a poem, there is no probability that it was composed in Nepal, and it  contains passages as old as anything in Pali.

It was against this attitude of the Pali scholars that the late L. de La Vallee Poussin protested in his Buddhisme, etudes et materiaux (pp. 2-4) where he wrote:

"Pre-occupied in establishing the history of Buddhism and in starting by fixing its origin, the orientalists abandon the path so intelligently opened up by Burnouf; they relinquish the examination of the Northern sources, and take no account of them, they attach themselves passionately to the exegesis of the Southern Scriptures, which in appearance are more archaic and better documented. The results that these labours give us are of the highest importance, both for the history of religions in general as well as for that of Buddhist and Indian ideas. Oldenberg's book is a perfect exposition: Pall Buddhism cannot be better described, its intellectual and moral factors more artistically demonstrated, or a more precise exposition given of the idea that a Singhalese doctor makes of his religion and his destiny. Oldenberg's error was to entitle his book, Buddha, his life, his doctrine and his community. He should have added, 'according  to Pali sources and the principles of the Singhalese Church.' ".

UKT: More in the above article

Contents of this pageL

Contents of this page

Mahavastu & History of Buddhist Thought

- UKT 160220, 181102, 201015

I came across Mahāvastu, translated from Buddhist Sanskrit by J. J. Jones, M.A. (Wales), Deputy-Keeper, Department of Printed Books,National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1949. See also History of Buddhist Thought by E. J. Thomas, 1933

• Mahāvastu and History of Buddhist Thought are now available in TIL HD-PDF and SD-Libraries
- JJJones-Mahavastu<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 201014).
- EJThomas-HistBuddhThought<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 201015)

In Mahāvastu, Jones quoted F. Edgerton, who in 1936, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, Vol. VIII, p.516, states:
"The proto-canonical Prakrit on which Buddhist hybrid was based, was a dialect closely related to both Ardhamāgadhī and Apabhramśa, but not identical with either."

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah%C4%81vastu 160220

The Mahāvastu (Sanskrit for "Great Event" or "Great Story") is a text of the Lokottaravāda school of Early Buddhism. It describes itself as being a historical preface to the Buddhist monastic codes (vinaya). Over half of the text is composed of Jātaka and Avadāna tales, accounts of the earlier lives of the Buddha and other bodhisattvas. [1] [2]

The Mahāvastu contains prose and verse written in mixed Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit. [3] [4] It is believed to have been compiled between the 2nd century BCE and 4th century CE. [2] [5]

Pali Canon parallels

The Mahāvastu's Jātaka tales are similar to those of the Pali Canon although significant differences exist in terms of the tales' details. Other parts of the Mahāvastu have more direct parallels in the Pali Canon including from
- the Digha Nikaya (DN 19, Mahāgovinda Sutta),
- the Majjhima Nikaya (MN 26, Ariyapariyesana Sutta; and, MN 36, Mahasaccaka Sutta),
- the Khuddakapātha,
- the Dhammapada (ch. 8, Sahassa Vagga; and, ch. 25, Bhikkhu Vagga),
- the Sutta Nipata (Sn 1.3, Khaggavisā ṇa Sutta; Sn 3.1, Pabbajjā Sutta; and, Sn 3.2, Padhāna Sutta),
- the Vimanavatthu and
- the Buddhavaṃsa. [1] [6]

Mahayana themes

The Mahāvastu is considered a primary source for the notion of a transcendent (lokottara) Buddha, common to all Mahāsāṃghika schools. According to the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, the once-human-born Buddha developed supramundane abilities including:
- a painless birth conceived without intercourse;
- no need for sleep, food, medicine or
- bathing although engaging in such "in conformity with the world";
- omniscience; and,
- the ability to "suppress karma." [7]

English translation

• Jones, J.J. (trans.) (1949–56). The Mahāvastu (3 vols.) in Sacred Books of the Buddhists. London: Luzac & Co. vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3

Go back Mahavastu-note-b

Contents of this page

metathesis

- UKT 140521: Spelled as "Mentathesis" is wrong.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_linguistics 140521

Metathesis (from Greek "I put in a different order"). Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis [1] or local metathesis: [2]

• foliage > **foilage
• cavalry > **calvary

Metathesis may also involve switching non-contiguous sounds, known as nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis, [1] or hyperthesis: [3]

• Latin parabola > Spanish palabra 'word'
• Latin miraculum > Spanish milagro 'miracle'
• Latin periculum > Spanish peligro 'danger, peril'
• Latin crocodilus > Italian cocodrillo 'crocodile'

Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some use it as a regular part of their grammar (e.g. the Fur language). The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in the English language, as well.

The original form before metathesis may be deduced from older forms of words in the language's lexicon, or, if no forms are preserved, from phonological reconstruction. In some cases, including English "ask" (see below), it is not possible to settle with certainty on the original version.

UKT: More in the Wikipedia article.

Go back mentathesis-note-b

Contents of this page

End of TIL file