Pāli word study: “paṇḍitā" for US Election Day

[BethL]

PUNDITS?!

Where did this English word come from?

It’s an appropriate pāli word study for today, the US Election Day for my country’s president, as well as numerous members of the US Congress, and state-level officials. I provide a short summary of how this confusing presidential election process works. Just skip to below the graphic if you’re interested in the pāli word study only.

Electing a president every four years seems complicated by the constitutional process we have – the Electoral College. Technically it means there are electors for all 52 states who represent the popular vote in their respective states. (Popular = whichever candidate receives the most votes.)

The electors are real people serving a civic duty – that’s all. Each elector represents an electoral vote. This country’s founders determined, in the constitution, that the number of electoral votes per state would be proportional to the state’s population. This was meant to help avert a national popular vote that could be dominated, feasibly, by a large vote count in specific geographical areas.

(Similarly, every state is limited to two senators (the Senate). The number of House representatives (the House) is proportional to a state’s population. House representativ.es are elected by people in their districts. The re-drawing of district lines, which is based on the US census every 10 years, is fraught with controversy for the obvious reasons.)

This is why whoever wins the popular vote nationally does not win the presidency. For example, in 2016 Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. But Donald Trump won the electoral vote.

In 2000, there was the infamous “hanging chad” controversy in the state of Florida, which at that time was positioned as a swing state (defined below). By the time all the votes were counted nationally, Al Gore won the popular vote; however, George W. Bush won the electoral vote because he “won” the state of Florida. This is because the US Supreme Court ruled a couple dozen voting sheets had insufficient visual evidence to prove that voters were selecting Al Gore – parts of the voting sheets had gotten stuck with “hanging chads”.

So we now have a setup where the presidential election, every four years, is basically determined by 7 or 8 so-called swing states. These are the states with a large number of electoral votes that, historically, vote down the middle. (Whereas all the other states historically almost always vote one way or the other.) That is, potentially, every four years a swing state could vote Republican or Democrat.

As such, we’ve seen both candidates (Kamala Harris and Donald Trump) vigorously campaigning in these swing states only.

In early January 2021, Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol Building in an attempt to prevent the outgoing Vice President from certifying the results of the electoral college. The Vice President’s certification is pro forma part of the normal constitutional process.

This was after numerous state-level attempts to pressure state-level Secretaries of State from pro forma certifying their respective state electoral votes. The argument was that the electoral votes were not valid because of misconduct by voting officials tallying the votes from machines and mail-in votes. (Due to the 2020 Bush v Gore Supreme Court decision, all voting machine models of the type used in Florida were removed from the national voting process.)

It’s expected that, absent a statistically overwhelming result for one candidate or the other in the swing states, the state-level voting processes will again come under scrutiny. In this scenario, we Americans may not know until many days from now who won the election.

I’d been seeing references to “pandits” in a book I’m reading, A Survey of Hinduism by Klaus K. Klostermaier (it’s excellent). Historically, a pandit refers to a teacher specializing in the study of Vedic scriptures. A Sanskrit language word. But what kept bugging me about the word?

Ah! virtually identical to a new Pali word I’ve been learning in my glacially moving project to memorize the Maṅgalasutta Kp5 — with all the correct diacritics.

Asevanā ca bālānaṁ,
paṇḍitānañca sevanā

Not to fraternize with fools,
but to fraternize with the wise

OK, that solves my pandit conundrum. It’s the same word in Sanskrit.

For pāli nerds like me, I also learned that sevanā meaning fraternizing with [someone] actually takes the genitive. Hence the plural genitive paṇḍitānaṃ ([the] wise) which takes on ñ preceding ca. Presumably, ca (literally the word "and’ in English) is used for poetic device throughout? @stephen can let us know.

I thought, sure sounds like our word “pundit” meaning all the people on social media today sharing opinions about the US Election Day.

And indeed, it’s a loan word directly from the Sanskrit.

Can’t make this stuff up

[stephen]

Ca can often have the sense of ‘but’ in verse.
It also fills out the meter.

[sujato]

Thanks, awesome analysis.

It’s a tricky word to translate, I sometimes think “scholar” would be the best. But in Buddhism the applied meaning doesn’t really mean “scholar”, so I use “the astute”.

[stephen]

The word seems to have the sense of ‘being knowledgeable about’, learned.

It’s not clear to me how the word acquired its negative connotation in the west.

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@stephen

It’s not clear to me how the word acquired its negative connotation in the west.

British colonialism and racism, of course. Is there ever any other answer?

The word appears to have entered English in the 19th century as a somewhat neutral word to refer to Indian teachers and intellectuals:

Its association with the suspicious, untrustworthy natives running the British Raj was cemented at about the turn of the century:

So that, by the 1920s “punditry” had come to have its predominantly negative connotation in English:

[stephen]

Well, this very well may be true.

An online etymology gives:

“ 1670s, “learned Hindu,” especially one versed in Sanskrit lore, science, law, or religion, from Hindi payndit “a learned man, master, teacher,” from Sanskrit payndita-s “a learned man, scholar,” a word of uncertain origin. Broader application in English to “any learned man” is recorded by 1816. Related: Punditry.”

It would be interesting to see how many loan words take on negative connotations in their new language context.

“avatar” , “mantra”, and “guru” come to mind as neutral.

[BethL]

@sujato

But in Buddhism the applied meaning doesn’t really mean “scholar”, so I use “the astute”.

Bhante @sujato, I saw where you translate it as “the astute” elsewhere. But in Kp5 I assume you translate it as “the wise” because of its relationship to “fools” in English expression?

@Khemarato.bhikkhu

refer to Indian teachers and intellectuals:

@stephen

“avatar” , “mantra”, and “guru” come to mind as neutral.

Unfortunately in the case of “pundit” it was borrowed to convey a superiority sentiment toward “the other”, based on Ven. @Khemarato.bhikkhu’s research.

But it does seem to have evolved to fill a need (in modern American society, anyway) to mean someone in the media who opines on stuff regardless of whether they’re spot-on.

Stephen, these are good examples. I refrain from using “guru” anymore because it feels largely misunderstood by Western culture (as it relates to the specific Hindu context). I mean, borrowed words like “avatar” and “mantra” land in that category too, technically. But they feel more adaptable to secular contexts without causing offense.

[Snowbird]

In Sinhala, if you say that someone is paṇḍitai, it means that they are an arrogant know-it-all. Not sure how that connotation came about either. Perhaps some native Sinhala speakers can fill us in.

[sujato]

@BethL

I saw where you translate it as “the astute” elsewhere. But in Kp5 I assume you translate it as “the wise” because of its relationship to “fools” in English expression?

Oh, thanks for pointing out, no that’s just oversight really, I’ll change it.

I’m not super-happy with “astute” as a rendering, but I wanted something that:

• would help to disambiguate the overloaded term “wisdom”;
• would not convey negative connotations (“smart”; perhaps “clever” would do);
• is somewhat less exalted than similar terms like muni (“sage”, usually reserved for arahants, whereas paṇḍita is any person with moral discernment)
• is less specific than “scholar” or “intellectual”.

@Snowbird

In Sinhala, if you say that someone is paṇḍitai, it means that they are an arrogant know-it-all.

Ha ha. In Thai, it’s abbreviated as tit, and is a respectful term for a learned disrobed monk.

[stephen]

“Learned” or “well versed” might work better than “astute”.

“Astute” seems to have more of the sense of good at sizing up a situation and acting accordingly, rather than being knowledgeable about a particular subject.

It would be strange to say someone is ‘astute concerning Pali metre’, for instance.

[BethL]

It’s interesting that when the devā asks the Buddha to declare what constitutes the highest blessing, he starts with not fraternizing with fools but with the astute.

So how would these alternatives work:

not fraternizing with fools but with the wise (too loaded)
not fraternizing with fools but with the smart (possible)
not fraternizing with fools but with the clever (possible)
not fraternizing with fools but with the sages(too exalted)
not fraternizing with fools but with the scholars (too specific)
not fraternizing with fools but with the intellectuals (too specific)

Per this method, Stephen, I would say “too specific” for your two terms in that they virtually assume an object:

not fraternizing with fools but with the learned (learned in something)
not fraternizing with fools but with the well versed (well versed in something)

“Astute” probably also assumes an object, on that line of reasoning and how Stephen fleshed it out.

“Smart” doesn’t, IMO. “Clever” might.

Begs the question: What constitutes a fool?

FWIW I only find two other occurrences of bālānaṃ (fools) and paṇḍitānaṃ (the astute) in the same sutta using the Digital Pali Dictionary.

Don’t mean to get people bogged down in the minutiae!

[BethL]

And as it happens, I find Bhante using “clever” here, in MN27:

khattiyapaṇḍite = clever aristocrats

Maybe an oversight in not switching it over to “astute” but it betrays a leaning toward “clever” ?

[Vaddha]

@sujato

would not convey negative connotations (“smart”; perhaps “clever” would do)

‘Clever’ can also have a negative connotation. To me at least, ‘clever’ seems to incline towards that sneaky meaning more than ‘smart.’

[Dhammanando]

@BethL

not fraternizing with fools but with the wise (too loaded)

Loaded in what way?

[stephen]

I think wise could be ok.
‘Spend time with people who know things!, not ignorant ones. ‘

Yes, we want to spend time with those who are learned or well versed in the Dhamma.

[BethL]

@Dhammanando

Loaded in what way?

As noted by Bhante, which is my source:

@sujato

I’m not super-happy with “astute” as a rendering, but I wanted something that:

• would help to disambiguate the overloaded term “wisdom”;

[BethL]

@Vaddha

‘Clever’ can also have a negative connotation.

Ah, this helps clarify Bhante Sujato’s comment. Thanks.