Dhp3 Dhp 4 - Dhammapada 003-4 Glossed

The Dhammadharini community has been studying the Dhammapada as a tool for learning Pali as well as a source of Dhamma. This exercise has led to many vibrant conversations. As we go back through our work, attempting to clean it up further, we would like to share it here for comment and further discussion.

I will be able to post some in the next week or so and then we will have a community retreat for six weeks, so the posts would likely resume in late May.

Here is the link to the third and fourth gatha,

Metta,
Sister Niyyanika

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I wonder if anyone knows who created the Dhammapada resource at:

http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/en/lesson/pali/lesson_pali3.htm

It has been a nice tool for study. However, we have found some things with which we disagree when it comes to the grammar analysis.

For example in this set of verses it says:
“the subject is ye (those, who) which is in nominative singular,” in reference to ye ca taṃ upanayhanti.

We think it is nominative plural, as is found in the pronoun charts

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3ETiekmAK2KRGF1aG91MFNzM2c/view?usp=sharing

and agrees with the plural of tesaṃ.

I’m not sure of the best way to note, or if we need to note, where we have changed the grammar analysis from what the reference states and how we might help update the original site.

… paused in writing to hunt around the site with the Pali Lessons …

Oh dear, just found this. - “No one is permitted to broadcast, transmit, adapt or change in any way the content of this website and of the downloadable files for any other purpose whatsoever without the prior written permission of the Buddhism Digital Library and Museum.”

Alright, I guess my next step is to remove this part of the content from the files temporarily and write to Buddhist Digital Library and Museum.

Sorry, for being premature in posting these resources. I was hoping to start further learning collaboration, but it looks like we’d better step back and take some more care with getting the relationships right with the owners of some of the content.

My sincere apologies,
Sister Niyyanika

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Yes. This seems to be a typo in the source, as it says “ye (those, who) which is in nominative singular. The verb (upanayhanti) is in 3rd person plural”


Since you’re reviewing the various translations for this project, I wonder if you have any thoughts about which is best? I have never really studied them in any detail.

There’s no need to change anything. You cannot copyright grammatical analysis. Copyright is intended to protect the work of original creation, and grammatical analysis is not original creation. The only thing potentially covered by copyright law on that site is the prose text.

One of the many, many, many problems with copyright law is that most people have no idea what it is really about, and so they take it as a blanket invitation to say whatever they want about things, without regard for whether it has any legal basis. It happens all the time, it’s best to just ignore it.

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This is a lovely idea. Thanks for sharing. This is one of my favorite texts in all of Buddhism (for both poetic and contemplative reasons), and it’s safe to assume many would share my enthusiasm. Do you have a curriculum for your studies? If so, are you willing to share it?

Sadhu sadhu sadhu! :sunglasses:

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