Filling the blanks in AN 6.17

Translations
1

Here is the relevant part of AN 6.17

What do you think, mendicants?
Taṃ kiṃ maññatha, bhikkhave,

Have you ever seen or heard
api nu tumhehi diṭṭhaṃ vā sutaṃ vā:

of an anointed king who rules his whole life, dear and beloved to the country, while indulging in the pleasures of sleeping, lying, and drowsing as much as he likes?”
‘rājā khattiyo muddhāvasitto yāvadatthaṃ seyyasukhaṃ passasukhaṃ middhasukhaṃ anuyutto viharanto yāvajīvaṃ rajjaṃ kārento janapadassa vā piyo manāpo’”ti?

…

Have you ever seen or heard
api nu tumhehi diṭṭhaṃ vā sutaṃ vā:

of an appointed official …
‘raṭṭhiko … pe …

a hereditary official …
pettaṇiko …

a general …
senāpatiko …

a village chief …
gāmagāmaṇiko …

or a guild head who runs the guild his whole life, dear and beloved to the guild, while indulging in the pleasures of sleeping, lying, and drowsing as much as he likes?”
pūgagāmaṇiko yāvadatthaṃ seyyasukhaṃ passasukhaṃ middhasukhaṃ anuyutto viharanto yāvajīvaṃ pūgagāmaṇikattaṃ kārento pūgassa vā piyo manāpo’”ti?

So here we have that the king is beloved “to the country” and the “guild head” is beloved “to the guild”, but we don’t have the same for the other instances in between.

I figured that for a village chief, he would be beloved “to the village”, but what of the others? Would the appointed official and the hereditary official be also beloved to the country? Would the general be beloved to the soldiers?

2

By the way, this appears to be a mistake. The commentary says:

pettaṇikoti yo pitarā bhuttānubhuttaṃ bhuñjati

One who enjoys what has been (enjoyed and accumulated?) by his father.

AN 5.58’s commentary explains in more unequivocal terms:

pitarā dattaṃ sāpateyyaṃ bhuñjatīti pettaniko

One who enjoys the wealth given by his father

3

This version seems to have no abbreviations:

http://awake.kiev.ua/dhamma/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikaya/Anguttara4/6-chakkanipata/002-saraniyavaggo-p.html

1 Like
4

Interesting.

Do you know where that comes from? It seems that someone has already attempted to fill the blanks, as evidenced by inconsistencies,e.g.:

yāvajivaṃ senāpatikattaṃ kārento senāpatikassa piyo manāpo?"Ti.

yāvajīvaṃ senāya vā piyo manāpo’ti.

The weird “T” and the discrepancy between the two phrases that should be identical makes me think someone has edited the text but it is doubtful how authoritative this version should be seen as.

My guess in this passage would rather be

yāvajivaṃ senāpatikattaṃ kārento senāya piyo manāpo

5

Hey, it comes from “Sri Lanka Buddha Jayanti Tripitaka Series”. It’s a copy of metta.lk site.

Here:

http://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pali/an/06_sixes/an06.017.pali.bd.htm

it says “Adapted from the 1995 edition of the digital version of the Sri Lanka Buddha Jayanti Tripitaka Series and proofed against, and mostly resolved to the Pali Text Society Anguttara-Nikaya edited by Prof. E. Hardy, Ph.D., D.D.”

PTS version can be found here:

(go to page 300).

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6

Thank you for the info.

The PTS version is just like the one here on SC, collapsed.

I remember this website, I remember having gone through to check his Pali glossary a few years ago but it looked so idiosyncratically unsound that I couldn’t give it credit. I suspect the author just did it himself as he thought would be best. I can’t give it credit now either, because of such blatant discrepancies as I exemplified earlier, whatever PhD the statement on top mentions.

7

Just a note that Prof. E. Hardy, Ph.D., D.D. was an editor of the PTS text.

BTW, the PTS version is based on many original sources, but I have no idea if they were ever digitized. I wonder if abbreviations appeared only in PTS edition or are an earlier thing.

8

Ah okay, thanks. That is probably what was meant, rather than that the “doctored” translation had been proofread by him.