Old school data analysis of Similes

This is again from the Introduction of Hellmuth Hecker’s Similes of the Buddha. This post is aimed at members of the forum who are interested in data-centric approaches to studying Buddhist texts, early or later (@josephzizys, @BethL, …). I was pleasantly surprised to see “old-school” counting/enumeration/classification type approach to similes employed by the author. What is even more remarkable is that it was probably done manually!

My point is: Purely data driven approaches usually fall short for broad themes or big claims but there are issues which are small and specific enough where such an analysis could actually be fruitful and interesting. This, I believe, is one such case. If a similar analysis is undertaken for similes with currently available tools and technologies, a far more detailed study can be done and may provide some new insights if their context is taken into account as well. If anyone knows of such studies, it would be nice if you could share citations. I am pasting some passages from the Introduction to give an idea of what I am talking about.

Every turn, in almost every discourse, one comes across a simile.
In the whole of the Pali canon there are about a thousand of
them. Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids counted 568 concepts for which
similes are used in the Canon, and mentions, for example, that
water is the most used of the four elements, and of animals the
elephant is most used
.

Now, if we group under earth, water, air, fire, all the
figures in my index bearing on one of each of these elements, we
find the numbers as follows: Earth, etc., 41; air (with clouds and
space), 32; fire (aggi, pāvaka, jātaveda, teja, etc., with the sun as
‘burner,’ ādicca), 58; water, 114. Of this 114, water in any shape—
drops, etc. (udaka, vāri)—numbers 31; pool (rahada), 14; sea
(samudda, sāgara, etc., aṇṇava), 21; flood (ogha), 14; and river
(nadī, saritā, sota), 35. ‘Mountain’ might gain, in the question
above, a good many votes. And, indeed, under ‘earth,’ (pabbata,
giri, sela) recur 18 times.

Of animals, the elephant (kuñjara, gaja, nāga, hatthi), as might be expected,
recurs oftenest; next to him coming that ‘chief friend of ours,’ the cow.
With her appurtenances—bull, calf, herd, and butcher—she
occurs some 30 times or more. Horse, snake, deer, and bird
(excluding bird species) follow in fairly close succession,
approximately 24, 17, 16, and 14 times, the camel, goat, wolf,
watchdog, cat, and mouse appearing at the bottom of the list. The
lion (sīha) makes a fairly good third, while the relative silence
respecting the tiger (vyaggha) is a feature shared by the oldest
Vedic literature. …

Forest, grove, jungle, and creeper all play their part, but tree,
as tree unspecified, is used in some 24 varieties of figure. The
moderate but interesting role allotted to the lotus (uppala,
kumuda, paduma, puṇḍarīka, pokkhara) marks a midway position
between its non-appearance in the Vedas and its prominence in
later poetry. Of human contrivances the most prominent images
are the house (24), the way or path (27), the field, seed, and
plough (about 30), the ship or boat (13), vehicles and drivers (30),
and the snare, trap, and hook (23).

:pray:t5:

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