Aññamaññissā in Bhikkhuni Sanghadisesa 12

[srkris]

@Sobhana

Greetings Srkris. The solution to aññamaññissā really was given earlier in this thread.

Greetings.

As I have indicated in my prior post above, the imputed meaning you are assuming would be adequately conveyed if the phrase had been “aññamaññavajjānaṁ paṭicchādikā”, then:

• aññamaññavajjānaṁ = of each other’s (one another’s) offences,
• paṭicchādikā = they are the hiders

The syntax is clear, the grammar is clear, all good.

Else if it had been

• aññamaññānaṁ = of one another (plural)
• vajjappaṭicchādikā (they are the offence-hiders)

then too it may be passable grammatically and syntactically.

But the phrase we have is:
aññamaññissā (assuming a fem.gen.sing) = “one another of her’s”
vajjappaṭicchādikā (comp. fem. nom. pl) = offence-hiders

If you adopt the meaning you’ve assumed, you would be breaking Pali grammar and syntax , for the first word is referring to one woman, but the second word is referring to multiple women. Either the second word should be singular or the first word should be plural for the phrase to make any sense. But if the second word is singular, it wont agree with the rest of the sentence, which is talking about multiple women.

Besides, the Pali dictionaries which claim that aññamañña is a pronoun are wrong. añña is a pronoun, but aññamañña is an adjective and should not be declined as a pronoun. A pronoun can be used independently like a noun but an adjective always qualifies another noun. añña is used as a pronoun (for example eko tatra tiṭṭhati. añño gacchati). However aññamañña cannot be used as a pronoun (for example aññamañño gacchati, aññamañño tiṭṭhati etc would make no sense).

[Sobhana]

@srkris I can see that you are an original thinker, and more studied in the wider Indian history and language than myself. I’m just interested in making the pali texts comprehensible and meaningful.

@srkris

aññamaññissā (assuming a fem.gen.sing) = “one another of her’s”
vajjappaṭicchādikā (comp. fem. nom. pl) = offence-hiders

If you adopt the meaning you’ve assumed, you would be breaking Pali grammar and syntax , for the first word is referring to one woman, but the second word is referring to multiple women. Either the second word should be singular or the first word should be plural for the phrase to make any sense. But if the second word is singular, it wont agree with the rest of the sentence, which is talking about multiple women.

But it is perfectly possible for a plural subject to have a singular direct or indirect object, or a singular genitive to modify a plural noun.
bhikkhunisaṅghassa vihesikā They are annoyers of the bhikkhuni sangha. aññamaññissā vajjappaṭicchādikā, They are fault concealers of one another.
Another example: bhikkhū … aññamaññassa vaṇṇaṁ bhāsanti The bhikkhus speak about one another’s beauty. AN2.48

…and many more examples.

[srkris]

@Sobhana

I’m just interested in making the pali texts comprehensible and meaningful.

That is good, I am not trying to complicate it much further with extraneous aspects, and making it comprehensible is my sole objective as well here. I too would like to learn from you if I am making a mistake here.

@Sobhana

But it is perfectly possible for a plural subject to have a singular direct or indirect object, or a singular genitive to modify a plural noun.

If we are talking about modifying nouns, we are in the territory of adjectives proper, not pronouns (as it is the duty of adjectives to modify nouns, not the duty of pronouns), so the word cannot have pronoun endings. Also if you look into it a bit deeper, aññamañña is a compound from añña+añña, and compounds can only be used adjectivally, not pronominally, and therefore not have pronoun declensions.

Can you find any other pronoun that is a compound made up of multiple words? There is none, not in Pāli, nor in Classical Sanskrit, nor in Vedic. So interpreting aññamañña as a pronoun makes not only no grammatical sense but also no semantic sense, as I have pointed out at the end of my prior post above. What dictionaries list can also be incorrect, just because Prof. Cone or the DPD has listed it as a pronoun doesn’t
mean it actually is.

A similar word to aññamañña is ekameka (one by one, individually) - which is also an adjective.

Look at the Critical Pāli Dictionary where both words are correctly listed as adjectives. Clearly they cant all be right?

So now that you agree that the word is modifying nouns (you are thereby obviously taking it as an adjective), so the word must have adjective endings and not pronoun-endings, the meaning proposed by you and some other translators for the word aññamaññissā is grammatically and syntactically untenable.

@Sobhana

bhikkhunisaṅghassa vihesikā

In this example, the bhikkhunisaṅgha is a noun-compound, not a pronoun, and bhikkhunisangha is not an adjective of vihesikā. So in this example we are not talking of any pronoun, nor even an adjective, but about two nouns with a genitive relationship. So this is an apples to oranges comparison. That is why I suggested a solution above - “aññamaññavajjānaṁ paṭicchādikā” would have meant what you’ve assumed it to mean - but the phrase we have instead is aññamaññissā vajjappaṭicchādikā, which is something else.

@Sobhana

Another example: bhikkhū … aññamaññassa vaṇṇaṁ bhāsanti The bhikkhus speak about one another’s beauty. AN2.48

Here aññamaññassa is a genitive singular of the adjective aññamañña. Here the aññamaññassa relates to the word vaṇṇaṃ (aññamaññassa vaṇṇaṃ) - and does not relate to the word bhikkhū which is another noun. The phrase is not “aññamaññassa bhikkhū” (i.e. the genitive relationship of aññamaññassa is not with the bhikkhū).

This is what Dr. Edgerton says about the Buddhist Sanskrit cognate of aññamañña :

[Sobhana]

Excuse my weakness in expressing these concepts. I agree with you that it’s too lazy to speak of all kinds of word relationships as “modifying.” It just seems obvious that the -issā ending is a pronoun declension, for the meaning of the rule. Surely a pronoun and a noun can have a genitive relationship. I really am trying to defeat your introduction of the idea of (issā = jealousy) into this rule. In commentary it is written: itthiyo hi aññamaññissā vajjaṃ paṭicchādenti. [kaṅkhā purāṇa abhinava ṭīkā] Women conceal one another’s fault. Same idea as a sentence rather than a phrase. No jealousy.
In trying to work out the pali grammar I try to sort out the word clusters as phrases or clauses, and diagram the sentence, although not seeing this approach in the pali grammars.

[srkris]

If aññamaññissā is a genitive form, and if the genitive relationship of that word is with vajjappaṭicchādikā - then they are two different nouns, and giving aññamañña a feminine declension ending (i.e. taking it as a word describing vajjappaṭicchādikā) in order to make it accord with the gender of vajjappaṭicchādikā is incorrect. Giving it a feminine ending without any reason would also be incorrect.

Also if aññamaññissā and vajjappaṭicchādikā were pronouns or nouns referring to the same people, one would be an adjective of the other (or both of them would be adjectives of a third word), and adjectives have to agree in declension, gender and number. One cannot be genitive singular and the other nominative plural.

Hence the only interpretation that makes grammatical sense (in the absence of any other grammatically correct alternative) is to treat it as a bahuvrīhi compound in the feminine nominative plural [thus being a compound, it consists of 2 words aññamaññ(a)-issā - and being bahuvrīhi, it refers to those bhikkhunis who have envy/jealousy towards other bhikkhunis].

If you think the commentary is not misinterpreting the word, we should be able to explain why it is grammatically correct. It’s not like the commentators had some divine eye to see the correct meaning intuitively or that we lack the skills to see what they see. They too made mistakes here and there, and some later translators may be following the commentary without applying their own mind to it.