John Kelly Pali course 2023: lesson 15a

Thread for discussing chapter 15 of Warder for the class on November 7th.

Meeting ID: 829 5896 1475
Passcode: anicca

** Note the change of Zoom room. **

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Hi everyone. I’m looking forward to continuing with the class over the coming weeks. My plan is to continue at least up until just before Christmas. Then, we’ll review and see where we are.

I know many of you in this discussion forum have talked about being ā€˜overwhelmed’ (or similar wording) with the amount of material that has been covered and is expected to be covered each week. And I totally agree, and especially so as Warder seems to be packing more into each lesson now. So we will now all take a deep breath and slow down a little and review several key grammar aspects that have been introduced in the last few lessons. [I can already hear some of you saying ā€˜Phew!’]

My plan for next week. Please do read all the lesson material in Warder Lesson 15, but don’t feel you need to do all the exercises. Just try and translate as best you can the Passage for Reading from this chapter. We will catch up with the rest of the exercises the following week.

I would like to also do a quick review of relative-correlative constructions (from Lesson 12), tappurisa compounds (from Lesson 13), and comparison with dvandva compounds (from Lesson 15), and finally a review of the optative (from Lesson 14). These are all very common elements in Pāli and must be understood by all to have any competence in Pāli translation.

I think all of that will keep us busy enough!

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Phew… as you predicted…

Then, … :scream:

I wish you would do the review before we move on (subjunctive mood in English).

A post was merged into an existing topic: Bhante Sujato Pali Course 2023: lesson 14

Sorry to see you go, Alison and Hugo, but I completely understand your dilemma. I’m full of admiration that you have persisted this long staying up so late at night in the the land of the long white cloud! :pray:

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Hello John,

So up until Christmas the class day and time will remain at Tuesday 9pm AEDT (Sydney time)?

Thank you so much for continuing these classes! :pray:t5:

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Yes, we will start the lesson with the review as indicated, Dheerayupa. But still a good idea for everyone to prepare with the material from Lesson 15.

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I was planning to start from Lesson 1 to be ready for your review. I’m not sure one week would be enough. :grin:

But that’s ok. I’ll try. :slight_smile:

Thank you. :pray:

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I was hoping for a week off dealing with new material too.

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I should link my website again Pāli Course. I just added more (and you won’t need to hard refresh anymore). Although the primary use is memorizing, it can be used to review parts of the recent lessons, but the earlier lessons (1-5) are completely fleshed out. Give feedback if you wish, I can’t totally tell how usable it is.

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Question 1:
tassa evaṃ jānato evaṃ passato kāmāsavā pi cittaṃ vimuccati bhavāsavā pi cittaṃ vimuccati avijjāsavā pi cittaṃ vimuccati

My Answer: For one knowing and seeing thus, the mind is freed from the outflowing of sensual pleasure, the outflowing of becoming, and the outflowing of ignorance.

Ajahn Brahmali: When he is knowing thus (and) seeing thus, the mind is freed from the outflowing of sensual pleasure, the mind is freed from the outflowing of existence, and (pi) the mind is freed from the outflowing of ignorance.

I missed picking up that tassa evaṁ jānato evaṁ passato is a genitive absolute construction. I had tassa, jānato, & passato as m. singular dative. Is this OK too?

Question 2:
Not-memorizing that speech, I left.
My Answer: N’ahaṁ taṁ bhāsitaṁ uggaṇhāmi, nikkhamiṁ

Ajahn Brahmali: taṃ vācam (or bhāsitam or vacanam) anuggaṇhanto pakkāmiṃ.

If you were to translate my version back into english would it be: ā€œI do not learn that speech, I left?ā€

Question 3:
Why (is) this unexplained by the recluse Gotama?
My answer: Ko ayaṁ abyākato samanena gotamena?
Ajahn Brahmali: kasmā idaṃ samanena Gotamena avyākataṃ?

In Ajahn Brahmali’s answer kasmā is in the ablative, idaṁ is in the nominative, and avyākataṁ is in the accusative… is that right? :thinking:

I seem to have issues getting the case of the participles correct…

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Q1.

I had tassa, jānato, & passato as m. singular dative. Is this OK too?

Yes

Q2.

If you were to translate my version back into english would it be: ā€œI do not learn that speech, I left?ā€

That would be a literal rendering, but Pāli doesn’t generally put two main verbs in the same sentence like this. The first would generally be put as an absolutive [Not having learned that speech …], or as a participle as the example requests.

Q3.
Kasmā, is literally ā€˜from what’, more generally translated as ā€˜why’. The ko in your solution means ā€˜what’.
And idaṃ (neut) should be used instead of ayaṃ (masc) as you did, since the ā€˜this’ in question is non-specific. Yes, it is nominative, and avyākataṃ is also nominative - neuter agreeing with idaṃ.

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Ok, going way back to Lesson 1 and @acala 's question about upasaṇkamati versus upasaṃkamati. Bhante said:

Before the gutteral consonants (k, kh, g, gh), the nasal sound is spelled į¹…. In Romanized Pali we typically spell such conjuncts as į¹…k, į¹…g, and so on.

However the sound is exactly the same as ṁ. It is technically possible to spell the same words ṁk, ṁg. Thus sometimes you might see saṁgha instead of saį¹…gha.

Well, thankfully I revisited Lesson 1 for the q&a thread. I had previously spent, oh, about 20 minutes trying to solve this. The prompt was Lesson 14’s reading passage with the verb conjugation upasaṃkamissāma. (Yes, I’m working on Lesson 14’s reading passage because I then need to work on Lesson 15’s reading passage, which follows on Lesson 14’s reading passage! :crazy_face:)

The dilemma was that I couldn’t find the present tense verb in the DPD using the spelling upasaṃkamati. This is how Warder spells it on page 11. And I had no luck with the PTS online dictionary either. I simply haven’t been studying long enough to recognize the ṃ for ṇ (and vice versa).

OK…so just to be clear: Warder spells it differently than the DPD. Make a note. However, the DPD spells the absolutive upasaṃkamitvā. I don’t understand why, based on Bhante’s answer above. It seems like DPD is being inconsistent.

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Good! I’m planning to go through this passage during next Tuesday’s class.

On the nasal consonant before g, gh, k, and kh issue, all I can say is that editors of romanised Pāli scripts have created a nightmare of inconsistency!
saį¹…gha is absolutely correct
saṇgha is absolutely incorrect (please never write it this way)
sangha, saṃgha, saṁgha are often used by editors and are okay but not really correct. Will explain in more detail on Tuesday as well.

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Yes, DPD is inconsistent. Bhante had suggested that I could let DPD know and ask them to simply link both spellings, which I have done.

Also it is upasaį¹…kamati not upasaṇkamati.

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Yes, exactly same principle as I mentioned above with saį¹…gha, not saṇgha.

Btw for anyone hasn’t figured out why it’s like that (I don’t think I’ve seen an explanation for this):

Say the word ā€œpuntā€ and take note of where your tongue is during the ā€˜n’. Now say the word ā€œsunkā€ and note there. For me at least, the contact of the tongue is at the teeth / dental in punt, and in the back / guttural for sunk. This is because t in punt is dental and k in sunk is guttural, and the physically closest nasal sound is used (Also, onion for Ʊ and maybe turn for ṇ)

upasaį¹…kamati is like sunk, and the tongue is in the back, and we made that sound without thinking about it. So you don’t have to memorize what ṃ matches to per word, just hum as you wish, naturally.

image

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Why is candimasuriyā plural but Sāriputtamoggallānaṃ singular?? They didn’t have multiple moons back then, did they???

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full moon, quarter moon, new moon, August moon, Vesak moon?

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Ahhh, thank you @johnk and @acala for the instruction. I’m a bit embarrassed (but not too much!) that it’s not until Lesson 14-15 that I’m getting the guttural į¹… (opt+k on the mac) and the cerebral ṇ straightened out. And this is due to the reading passages :heart_eyes:

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