Paṭisambhidā as Tools for Textual Analysis

Aha! Bhante @sujato, I found an article on topic! This is what you might have been looking for! CATUPATISAMBHIDA by Bhikkhu Kusalaguṇa

Many thanks to @knotty36 and @cdpatton for their replies. I really appreciate your comments on a matter that is not particularly clear to me.

The reason I was seeing 辯 as oral skill is that 辯 can translate less ambiguously for patibhāna…in context 無礙解 (as fourth member of the list) :thinking: 無滯之言說即辯也。辯 indicates unobstructed speech. 辯 [biàn] also resembles bhāna phonetically…a point which shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Honestly I was just following what I could grok from Ding Fubao’s Foxue Da Cidian. In context of term 四無礙辯, 辯 (辨) meaning bhid is not impossible…but the risk of there being some (very murky) link to patibhāna was why I was not certain. However, I was called to this thread for the Indic phonology, not the Chinese hehe, so I am content to let such opaque matters as 解 and 辯 rest for now. :relaxed:

[edit: I have also since reread Ding Fubao’s statement: 是為諸菩薩說法之智辯,故約於意業而謂為解,謂為智,約於口業而謂為辯。 and I conclude that 辯 does in fact have the sense of discriminating knowledge (of speech) here, and of patibhāna elsewhere. Many thanks to @cdpatton @knotty36 for showing me this]

I meant “glossed” in a very loose sense of some dictionaries giving the alternative translation, 四無礙智 to explain 四無礙解.

无碍 is a bit of a mystery, it may come from the " saṃ" in " saṃvida", which has the idiomatic sense of “thoroughly” here (implying conjunction or completeness) . Thoroughly known in the case of samvida. We also see this in Pali verbal form paṭisaṃvidita.

Personally, I would not try to explain the meaning of the prefix sam in the word paṭisambhidā due to its weak attestation. But this is what the Pāli commentaries have said:

Vibhaṅga Aṭṭhakathā defines it as “paṭisambhidāti pabhedā”, “paṭisambhidā means category”.

The Pācittiyādiyojanapāḷi, on the other hand, defines ‘paṭisambhidā’ as “Atthādīsu pati visuṃ sambhijjatīti paṭisambhidā, paññā”. (loosely)paṭisambhidā is the wisdom that analyses separately into categories as attha, etc’.

The Pāli tradition introduces a new verb, sambhijjati, which we did not see in this context in the canon. It takes us down the root of defining paṭisambhidā as “knowledge of the categories” or, the wisdom which knows the categories.

This Pāli commentarial way of thinking does not appear to show up in the Northern commentaries or post-canonical literature.

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Also I just found the Tibetan…so so yang dag par rig pa and tha dad pa yang dag par shes pa (as given in Nance, Speaking for Buddhas: Scriptural Commentary in Indian Buddhism p 225). Nance says these are from root vid. I do not have the advanced Tibetan to comment on his understanding, but I gather:

so-so yang-dag-par rig-pa
so-so, the individual points
yang-dag-par, perfect awareness of
rig-pa, knowledge.

tha dad pa yang dag par shes pa
tha dad pa: the different points
yang-dag-par, perfect awareness of
shes pa, knowledge.

tha dad pa might be intended to convey the sense of bhida as it can have a sense of bhinna. Or it might just translate prati (as per Nance).

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And the rabbit hole gets deeper!

Quick admission: I can never get enough of language studies; it just sucks me in. And, to be in a situation like this: doing linguistic analysis of terminology about how to do linguistic analysis!.. So, I just want to say thanks to everyone for their contributions.

Because I’ve never trained in it, translators–especially really good ones–almost mystify me; you’re like magicians when it comes to finding the right word. “Freeing something”! 妙!

That would be my guess, too. There may have been two (or more?) lines of transmission: one based on vid, and one on bhid. (Perhaps even just in their understanding of the term as a whole, irrespective of what the text actually read!) Again, I don’t have the Indic language background, but, if I’m understanding it correctly, @Suvira 's very comprehensive, very plausible historical reconstruction of the possible evolution seems to show great lexical as well as semantic confusion/conflation even at an early date.

Yes, it was to me, too: which is why I asked you. Thank you, though. We may not have solved the mystery, but the additional information you cited was informative nonetheless

Again, “twists and turns.” Is it finally just impossible to tell from the texts if there was ever a time and place in history where the two meanings were even clearly distinguishable, let alone which one was primary and which secondary?

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