I wish Warder would have modified his exercises a bit. It’s good to get ‘real language’ from the text to get students to learn through doing exercises, but copying the whole thing without a context is not an ideal way of teaching.
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Well, very shortly Warder will be giving you large blocks of Pali to translate at once.
So gather ye rosebuds while ye may…
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or would it have to be “Tayā ca me ca…” He mentioned that “me” cannot start a sentence, but can “te”?
Be careful what you wish for, @Dheerayupa !
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Right, I don’t think an enclitic pronoun can start a sentence. ‘Te’ can be both, so possibly?
(Te bhikkhū…)
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On a more serious note, it would appear ‘daunting’, but in the end, it would be easier to get the right answer.
Mayā khārakā karavīrā samparicitā (?)
Pupphāni heva pacinantaṁ byāsattamanasaṁ naraṁ,
suttaṁ gāmaṁ mahogho va,
maccu ādāya gacchati
http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/en/lesson/pali/reading/gatha47.htm
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Ah. So: Te me pacitā (?)
Q1. Translate into Pali “I have heard this.”
Kelly: Evam me sutaṃ.
Brahmali: Evam me sutam. / Sutaṃ me taṃ.
Are these also admissible? Etaṃ me sutaṃ. / Imaṃ me sutaṃ.
.
Q2. Translate into Pali “I did the work.”
Kelly: kammaṃ me kataṃ [D.III.257 – xxxiii.(Saṇgīti).3.1(v)]
Brahmali: Aham (kho) kammaṃ akāsiṃ. (D III 257, 1-2)
I can see how they both came up with what they did. But I don’t understand their references. They apparently agree with Warder’s source on p465, “III 257”, so I searched DN3 for both versions and found neither. 
Nor can I interpret the extra reference material they each give.
.
Q3.
? =
by me / buds / oleander / gathered
I gathered the oleander buds.
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Q1: please be careful with spelling. Sutam with one t. Your other options might be correct, but not how it is found in the suttas.
Q2: Did you use this to convert the PTS reference?
When I plug in their reference I get DN 33.
(PS. The PTS reference is by Volume and page number. The roman numeral is the book volume)
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Thanks.
I forgot about the PTS referencer lookup. But I wouldn’t have identified their references as being PTS. I know we have threads on this and will study them later.
I looked in DN33 and I now realise that @johnk gave the name of the Sutta, Saṅgītisutta, which is a small step ahead. But searching DN33 for both their versions I still find nothing.
However I still
PTS sutta references have the book volume as a roman number followed by the page number.
I’m able to find Ven. Brahmali’s quote in DN 33.
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Hi folks, sorry about being absent these past few days, I’ve been furiously working on updates for SC. Well not that furiously. But somewhat energetically!
@stephen you’re doing incredible work, thanks so much!
Sorry, my bad, I thought I had done this!
I think most of the questions have been answered, but if not, please put a reminder.
Just one thing:
We find idaṁ used at the end, eg. idam-avoca bhagavā, “that is what the Buddha said”.
I think evaṁ is more open-ended and slightly more elevated. Idaṁ is pointing to something specific—what the Buddha said—whereas evaṁ creates a broad canvas.
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This is an interesting case, because taken in isolation they can have a slightly different sense.
- kammaṃ me kataṃ = I have completed the work
- Aham (kho) kammaṃ akāsiṃ: I have done work, i.e. I have been working.
But in context they refer to the same situation.
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Dear Bhante @sujato,
Stephen kindly helped a lot, but I’d be grateful if you could address the following:
Question 1: Use of Past Participle to indicate Present Perfect in Active Voice
Is this explanation correct, please? “The past participle will be in the nominative case and agree with the subject’s number and gender. So will the auxiliary verb.”
Ahaṃ āgato asmi = present perfect = I have arrived.
Question 2: Word order in a sentence
Mr. Learning Pali explains the word order of the sentence:
He locks the door with a key.
= tāḷena dvāraṃ pidahati
at https://youtu.be/xDrYreeCU-U?feature=shared&t=341:
“In Pali, the subject, along with things that belong to the subject, comes first in the sentence. In this case, the subject modifier is the ‘means to do something’ = a key = tāḷena. Then, it is followed by the object in the accusative case. The verb is at the end.”
So, the formula of the word order would be:
Subject + Subject Modifier, including a means to do something (here = instrumental case) + Object + Verb
However, examples from Meiland shows that the modifier comes before the noun:
The created being lives.
= nimmito satto jīvati.
The Blessed One has been seen by the freed prince.
= bhagavā vimuttena rājaputtena diṭṭho.
Perhaps I misunderstood Mr. Learn Pali?
Question 4: desito Ānanda mayā dhammo1
= Ānanda, the doctrine has been taught by me.
I can’t translate this sentence as I didn’t know how to work out the word order for this sentence.
After seeing the answer, I guess that Ānanda is the vocative because it is the second word of the sentence (because a Vocative can’t start a sentence). But I don’t understand why the verb desito starts the sentence when the subject dhammo is at the end. Can’t the Pāli be: “mayā dhammo Ānanda desito”? Is it because Ānanda would become the third word of the sentence.
Totally puzzled here…
Question 5: iminā tvaṃ purisa dhanena jivāhi
= You, man, make a living with this money!
My interpretation “Man, you must live by virtue” seems incorrect. Why can’t dhanena here mean ‘virtue’?
Question 6: te ca me evaṃ puṭṭhā āmā ti vadanti
= And asked thus by me, they said ‘yes‘.
Would the translation “They say ‘yes’ to the question asked (thus) by me” change the meaning of the source text?
Can puṭṭhā be interpreted as a noun in this sentence?
If not, I guess it is because of the word ‘ca’ — ‘ca’ combines the two clauses here? But I guess there are other grammatical reasons too?
Question 7: dānaṃ detha
= Give alms.
I guess we can’t translation it as “Please allow this gift” because in order to mean ‘to allow’, the verb {deti} needs to be followed by an object and an infinitive?
Question 8: They experience happiness
= (te) sukhaṃ paþisaṃvedenti
I couldn’t recall seeing the verb paṭisaṃvedeti, so I consulted the DPD and came up with this sentence: = sukhaṃ papponti. Will it be acceptable?
Question 10: I have heard this
= evaṃ me sutaṃ
Why is evaṃ, not idaṃ, used here? Are these also acceptable: mayā idaṃ sutaṃ and idaṃ suṇiṃ?
Question 11: I did the work
= ahaṃ kammaṃ akāsiṃ
11.1 Are these also acceptable: ahaṃ kammaṃ kariṃ?
11.2 If we want to make this sentence into the passive voice, what can we say? I got “mayā kammaṃ katena”. Will it be ok?
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Is the Zoom link at the top correct, Bhante? 
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Yes.
Yes.
LP is using “subject modifier” to mean “means to do something = instrumantal”. This is a copula, and as we have covered in previous lessons, the order can be reversed willy-nilly. Or nilly-willy, same diff.
There’s no modifier here, “was seen” is a passive past participle governed by “the freed prince”.
Word order is almost always irrelevant for the meaning of the sentence. It usually conveys only emphasis.
Ānanda is the stem form, thus it must be vocative, no guesswork needed.
For emphasis.
- Taught, Ananda, is the Dhamma by me.
The placement of the vocative is stylistic only, not a hard and fast rule. Change the word order all you like.
Dhana means wealth, which can be used in a metaphorical sense to say that “morality is a person’s true wealth”, but there is nothing in the context to suggest it is a figurative meaning.
That seems fine.
“interpret” schmerpret, it’s a past participle. But if you’re asking about translation, then yes, it’s quite common to find cases where it is convenient to translate a past participle as a noun or whatever.
In fact, the shoe really should be on the other foot. It is normally wise to ignore the purely lexical features of the source language when crafting a translation. Different languages accomplish the same thing in different ways. Grammar, and indeed vocabulary, are sets of abstractions invented by grammarians, and a so-called “literal” translation is merely an attempt to mimic one set of abstractions with another set of abstraction.
Our job as students is to recognize how those abstractions work in Pali. Our job as translators is 10% to understood what the text is saying and 90% express it in the target language.
There are, however, some cases where lexical features should influence translation from one language to another. In Pali, one of these cases is word order, specifically in those instances where the text departs from normal word order for the sake of emphasis. That’s why we learn word order.
But even then, the existence of a specific lexical feature—such as an emphasized word at the start of a sentence—does not necessarily mean it should be translated with the same lexical feature. Sometimes the gods of language smile upon us and make this possible. But the main thing is that the emphasis is conveyed, not that the lexical feature is imitated.
Per Stephen, the ca connects it with a wider context.
This sounds unnecessarily complicated. Detha is imperative plural , and the phrase means “give alms!”
Grammatically it is correct, but the sense is not quite the same. pappoti can be “to experience”, but in the sense of “to gain an experience of something”, i.e. to reach or attain it.
DPD says this spelling is allowed, but kar normally takes the augment, so ahaṁ kammaṁ akariṁ. But sure.
Should be:
mayā kammaṁ kataṁ
by me / the deed / was done
kata is not instrumental, as it is not performing the deed.
Consider the following:
mayā katena kammaṁ kataṁ
The deed was done with what I made.
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hmmmmm…
hmmmmm…
And this is only Lesson 7!
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So, if we wanted to stress that e.g. the seat was prepared (but isn’t anymore) could we use the aorist with the past participle? āsanaṃ paññattaṃ ahosi?
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