I’m wondering about whether there is a Pali equivalent for this word but it seems to not exist. Could some Ajahns who know Pali inform me if there exists an equivalent?
Perhaps nīti?
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That could be it. I’m not sure how likely it would be that Vedic vocalic liquid r̥ becomes an n.
Considering that r̥ju (straight) becomes uju in Pali.
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The DPD has Sanskrit roots listed and my quick search of the DB reveals no hits with the whole word “ṛta” (plenty of kṛta, etc) Utu is from ṛtu = season (and there’s no uta)
I feel the Pali goes out of its way to avoid this word. Possibly the Buddha wanted to distinguish ṛta from dhamma. But normally if he did this he’d explain why. In any case, the process was well underway before his time.
From an etymological view, ṛta and dhamma are almost opposites. Ṛṭa is from “move”, like the wind or the seasons, while dhamma is from “bear”, like the earth.
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Niyama and Dhammata are very similar concepts.
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I think if a descendant word did exist it would be “ata”.
Taking into account the trend of the vocalic liquid r turning into the proceeding vowel.
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ṛta: past participle from √ṛ “go”: thus meaning “gone”. And used figuratively to mean something like “the way things have always been” and thus “the way things truly are” (c.f. Mahoney 1998: 46).
On how this word functions in Vedic thought see William K. Mahoney (1998) The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination. SUNY Press. I highly recommend this book to Buddhists seeking to understand the Vedic religions without all the bitter anti-Brahmin prejudice that pervades books on Buddhism.
If you look at Edgerton’s BHSD he lists a few words with initial ṛ but many of them are simply wrong Sanskritizations. Phonetically, initial ṛ in Sanskrit can become either a, u, or i in Pāli. There are only a handful of genuine examples.
- ṛkṣa > accha (see note below)
- ṛddhi > iddhi
- ṛṇa > iṇa
- ṛṣi > iṣi
- ṛju > uju
- ṛtu > utu.
As far as I can see, Sanskrit initial ṛ- usually goes to i or u in Pāli. And based on Indic phonetics, this is just what we expect.
Note: The example of ṛkṣa > accha (given in Geiger’s grammar, p.9-10) seems to be unique. Unlike any of the other examples, the two words mean different things. Pāli accha “clear, transparent”; while Sanskrit ṛkṣa “bald, bare”. In all the other examples the two words are identical in meaning and only the spelling has changed. Moreover, the spelling accha also appears in Sanskrit, meaning “transparent, clear” but Monier-Williams derives it from √chad “cover”. Mayerhofer (Kurgefaßtes etzmologische Wörerbuch des Altindischen) disagrees with Monier-Williams. He considers accha to be a Middle-Indic loan word and “most likely from ṛkṣa”. When Mayerhofer knows, he says so. So “most likely” means he doesn’t know. And neither do we.
In every clear case of initial ṛ in Sanskrit, the Pāli has initial i or u.
In an example like kṛta > kata the ṛ is medial. And, as you suggest, in these cases the preceding consonant affects the outcome. See, for example, Steve Collin’s A Pali Grammar For Students p. 1-2. But this doesn’t apply to initial ṛ.
(Incidentally: Indo-Iranian short e and short o were both assimilated to short a in Vedic, and now since there is no short e or o, we don’t mark the fact that ē and ō are long).
You might wish to take into account that ṛta is very much associated with the religion of the Early Vedic period and the Ṛgveda, and is not such a feature of, say, the religion reflected in the Upaniṣads. In the Late Vedic texts, brahman has taken over as the word indicating the existence of a “natural order”.
It’s not clear to me that the Indian Buddhists would ever have encountered this word (ṛta). The Brahmins who migrated east from the Kurukṣetra—where they first encountered Buddhists—tended be splitters who were making a break from the authority of Ṛgveda (and its priests) and were actively composing new scriptures (the Upaniṣads) for a new religion that was focussed on Brahman and ātman, rather than ṛta.
For example, the Bṛhadāranyakia Upaniṣad is often cited as being indirectly referred to by early Buddhist texts (by Gombrich for example). The BU was likely composed in or around Kosala. (See Signe Cohen’s intro to the Upaniṣads for an exposition on splits amongst the Brahmins).
While some of the Upaniṣads do mention ṛta, it’s usually in passing and vague. As far as I can see, ṛta is not found in BU.
It seems likely to me that the word had largely fallen out of use by the time of the encounters between Brahmins and Buddhists in and around Kosala, because of major changes in the religions of the Brahmins. Hence, it was not translated into Pāli because it was either not encountered, or not important enough to be noticed.
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This is true of Prakrits in general but not of Pali. Vedic ṛkṣa, for example, is cognate with Pali accha.
Pages 9-10 of Geiger’s grammar has a comprehensive list of the possibilities.
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Thanks. I looked at two grammars while composing my answer, but I don’t have a copy of Geiger.
I have amended my answer. You will see that I don’t find ṛkṣa > accha entirely plausible for several reasons: there is no other example of initial ṛ > a. The etymology is uncertain and, unlike any of the other examples in which only the spelling changes, in the case of ṛkṣa/accha the meaning also changes. If ṛkṣa did go to accha in Middle Indic, no one has yet described the process by which this happened.
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Thansk to Khemarato.bhikkhu
One word that is derived from the Vedic word “Ṛta” is “Ritu,” which is used in many Indian languages to mean “season,” such as “Grishma Ritu” for the summer season and “Shishira Ritu” for the winter season. Since “Ritu” fundamentally refers to the natural course of phenomena, the equivalent word for “season” in Pali is “Utu.” This word is quite similar to the Vedic “Ritu.” As we know, Pali rarely uses the sound “R,” so it seems that “Utu” is the Pali equivalent of the Vedic “Ritu.” or “Rtu”.
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There are a few others, e.g., ṛnjati (“to straighten”) and ṛṇa (“debt”). From the former we get the pp. añjita (“erect”), and from the latter the doublets aṇa and iṇa.
There are about half a dozen accha homonyms in Pali and a similar number of ṛkṣa homonyms in Sanskrit. I think you’re focusing on the wrong ones. The relevant ones are ṛkṣa and accha in the sense of “bear” (this is the meaning stipulated by Geiger) and ṛkṣa and accha in the sense of “painful”.
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WRT añjati: already in Sanskrit we see forms of √ṛj such as archati, arṇa which might be better assigned to a root √arj. Whitney notes that this change was already visible in the Middle Vedic Brāhmaṇa literature, long before Pāli came along.
Similarly, aṇa is a special case since it only occurs in compounds, e.g. anaṇa and sāṇa, where ṛ would have been medial rather than initial, and thus affected by the previous consonant.
I’m happy to keep fielding examples if you have more, but it would be useful if you did some basic checking to make sure they are apposite before you posted them.
In any case, as far as I can see, there is still no suggestion that Pāli has a word corresponding to ṛta: be it ata, ita, or uta (or for that matter aṭa, uṭa, or iṭa).
And this is what the thread is about. Right?
You are confusing two terms here ṛtu “season” and ṛta “order, harmony”. To be fair they are from the same root √ṛ “go” and hence related in meaning.
Ṛtu does come into Pāli as utu “season” but no equivalent of ṛta can be found in Pāli. The word is simply absent from the Pāli language, probably because it fell out of use amongst Brahmins before they encountered Buddhists, to be replaced by brahman.
By the way, the fact is that utu does mean “season” and not “heat” as Ledi Sayadaw suggests in his exposition of the utu-niyāma. As Buddhaghosa says in the Atthasālinī (As 272-274):
"The fact that trees acquire flowers, fruits, and sprouts all in one go is called the fixed course of seasons (utuniyāma). [My translation].
But perhaps this is another thread.
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Taking a step back from the expected reflex in Pali, it is much more likely that Vedic rtá- is ultimately to be connected with and Indo-European root *H2er- ‘to fit, put in order’. It was an adjective (cf. RV 9.62,30) which was also used as a substantive, meaning ‘what is fitted, ordered’ > ‘order’.
There’s a great deal of Iranian evidence, from Old Persian, through Avestan and Middle Persian which is supportive and well detailed in the literature.
Sir Jayarava,
Your research is extensive and your knowledge is profound. I merely offered my perspective as a layman. Thank you, and best regards. Rajeev
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The Pāli cognate of Sanskrit Ṛta is Ata.
Ata is not attested in the Pali Canon to my knowledge but is attested in the Saddanīti of Aggavaṃsa (in the Dhātumālā chapter under the heading Dakārāntadhātu) in the locative compound anatabhāsane i.e. an-ata-bhāsana (= an-ṛta-bhāṣana in Sanskrit) meaning “speaking untruth”.
So Ṛta/Ata in this case means ‘truth’ both in Sanskrit & Pali
The Śatapatha-Brahmaṇa says “Brahman verily is Ṛta” (brahma vā ṛtam)
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Would you happen to know if the ṛt part of ṛtvija is related to or identical with either ṛta or ṛtu?
Yes, ṛtvij is explained grammatically as ṛtu + √yaj + kvin (affix) = “He who performs yajñas at the appropriate ṛtu (season/time) - or in due season”
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Since you don’t have an example of ṛta you can’t claim that ata is the cognate. All you can say is that in late Pāli exegesis there is a single example anṛta becoming anata. Unless you have corroboration from elsewhere?
As noted above, in a compound like anṛta, the Sanskrit ṛ is medial rather than initial, and thus tends to go to a in Pāli rather than i or u, because of the influence of the preceding consonant.
The expected Pāli cognate would be ita or uta, neither of which occur. I haven’t seen any convincing examples of initial Sanskrit ṛ becoming initial a in Pāli if it didn’t already become initial a in Sanskrit, which thus requires a different explanation.
Also as noted above, ṛta means “truth” only figuratively. What it denotes is “gone” (passive past participle of √ṛ). The connotation of “truth” relies on some quite complex reasoning. Ṛta is “that which has gone” > “that which has always been” > “how things really are” > “truth” (or “reality” since the two are virtually indistinguishable in Skt/P).
The quote from ŚB is interesting because it supports the idea that ṛta was already in the process of being replaced by brahman in the author’s minds.