Part 15

Part 15 - Exercise 11(1) Answers

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Exercise 11(1) - Answers

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na kho ahaṃ āvuso addasaṃ

Friend, I did not see.

Addasaṃ is aorist first person singular.

ayaṃ tathāgatassa pacchimā vācā

This was the last speech of the Tathāgata.

Another equational sentence with the verb 'to be' missing, see Warder p.14. Because of the historic present tense of the broader narrative, 'was' is the appropriate verb to insert.

Ayaṃ and pacchimā, respectively a pronoun and an adjective, agree with vācā.

pāmujjaṃ bhavissati, sukho ca vihāro

There will be joy and a happy way of life.

Yet another equational sentence. Again note how verbs expressing 'to be', here bhavissati, do not take objects and thus the words 'joined' by them are all in the nominative. Here the 'joining' is between an implied pronoun 'there' (the agent of bhavissati) and pāmujjaṃ/vihāro. Sukho is here an adjective qualifying vihāro.

addasā1 kho bhagavā tā devatāyo

The Blessed One saw those deities.

, demonstrative pronoun relating to devatāyo, both being feminine accusative plural.

Pali Noun Declension Table (opens in new tab)

iminā kho evaṃ bho pariyāyena Jotipālassa māṇavassa Mahāgovindo ti samaññā udapādi

Thus, Sir, in this way, the young priest Jotipāla‘s designation, 'Mahāgovinda', came into being.

Iminā ... pariyāyena, lit. 'through this course', is a common idiom, see Warder p.45.

Both Jotipālassa and māṇavassa are genitives and therefore relate to and qualify each other. Following Warder (p.61) one might translate '(of) Jotipāla who was a young priest'.

The genitive normally relates to the word(s) immediately following it (see Warder p.56), which in this case is 'Mahāgovindo ti samaññā'. This expression forms a unit, similar to adjective + noun, and the genitive relates to the whole unit.

Udapādi, aorist of uppajjati, see Warder p.63.

sassato loko

The world is eternal.

Another 'equational sentence', i.e. one thing 'is' something else. Note that the words 'equated' are in the nominative case.

so gacchati dakkhiṇaṃ disaṃ

It goes to the southern direction.

The context requires that so is translated as 'it' rather than as 'he'.

Dakkhiṇaṃ is an adjective to disaṃ, both being accusative.


kusalan ti pi na bhavissati, kuto pana kusalassa kārako

There will not even (pi) be the concept 'good', let alone a doer of good.

Kusalan-ti. A word quoted in this way (i.e. using ti) expresses a thought or idea, see Warder p.36.

ahaṃ kho maggaṃ agamāsiṃ

I travelled the road.

Agamāsiṃ, aorist first person singular, lit. 'I went (the road)'.

kalyāṇaṃ vuccati brāhmaṇa

It is beautifully said, brahmin.

Kalyāṇaṃ is here an adverb to vuccati, see Warder p.18.

Vuccati is passive, see Warder p.52.

atha kho rājā Mahāsudassano vāmena hatthena bhiṅkāraṃ gahetvā dakkhiṇena hatthena cakkaratanaṃ2 abbhukkiri

Then King Mahāsudassana, having taken the ceremonial water vessel with the left hand, sprinkled the wheel-gem with the right hand.

Note how King Mahāsudassana is the agent of two verbs, both gahetvā and abbhukiri. Each verb, however, has its own patient with accompanying instrumentals, see Warder p.48.

idaṃ kusalaṃ

This is good.

ayaṃ Jambudīpo3 iddho c'eva bhavissati phīto ca

This India will surely (eva) be powerful and prosperous.

Jambudīpa, lit. 'rose-apple island', thus 'rose-apple land'.

Iddho and phīto are both adjectives qualifying Jambudīpo (India).

micchā paṭipanno tvam asi, aham asmi sammā paṭipanno

You are practising wrongly, I am practising correctly.

Paṭipanno is a past participle agreeing with tvaṃ (and in the second instance with ahaṃ) both being nominative singular. The idioms of the Pali and English are different here and therefore it is difficult to translate paṭipanno with an English past participle (unless one chooses 'engaged in'). In translation work there will always be number of instances when a literal rendering is difficult or impossible.

Micchā and sammā are adverbs to pañipanno.


so tato cuto idhūpapanno4

He has fallen away from there (and) has rearisen here.

Quite regularly in the Pali an 'and' is understood although no connective particle appears in the text.

Both cuto and upapanno are past participles agreeing with so, 'he'. The sense here is active and not passive which is more common with past participles, see Warder p.40. (This is because cuto and upapanno are intransitive.)

This is the usual idiom for describing a deity completing its time in a heavenly realm and being reborn in the human realm.

addasā paribbājako bhagavantaṃ āgacchantaṃ

The wanderer saw the Blessed One coming.

Addasā, aorist.

Āgacchantaṃ is a present participle in the accusative agreeing with bhagavantaṃ like an adjective, see Warder p.46.

saññā uppajjanti pi nirujjhanti pi

Perceptions arise and (pi) cease.

Saññā is a feminine noun plural (same form as the singular).

bhagavato ābādho uppajji

An illness of the Blessed One arose.

Bhagavato, genitive of Bhagavā.

Uppajji, aorist of uppajjati. Note that this is an alternative form to udapādi just above (example 5 in this exercise).

i.e., the Blessed One became ill.

saṃvaraṃ āpajjati

He acquires restraint.

As so often with the Pali there is no agent here apart from the pronoun which is understood by the ending of the verb.

ahaṃ kho kammaṃ akāsiṃ. kammaṃ kho pana me karontassa kāyo kilanto, handāhaṃ5 nipajjāmi

I did the work. Now (pana) while I was doing the work, the body became tired; well, I will lie down.

Akāsiṃ, aorist.

Kammaṃ kho pana me karontassa is a genitive absolute construction. For further details see penultimate example in exercise 10 (opens in new window), and Warder p.58.

Kilanto is a past participle. The Pali construction is actually active, lit. 'the body tired'.

Nipajjāmi. The present tense here expresses the immediate future, see Warder p.12.

imaṃ mayaṃ addasāma idha upapannaṃ

We saw him rearisen here.

Imaṃ (accusative), usually a demonstrative pronoun but here it is a personal pronoun (see Warder p.30).

Upapannaṃ, agrees with imaṃ, 'him (accusative) who has arisen'.

i.e., we saw that he had rearisen here.

1 addasā often stands at the beginning of its sentence.
2 A compound word: "wheel-gem", a symbol of imperial power.
3 India (as continent).
4 When two vowels meet, sometimes the first is elided and the second is lengthened (idha + upapanno).
5 This combination may be regarded as an instance of that described in footnote 4 above, or of a + a > ā by coalescence of similar vowels.

 

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