Pāli word study: "The perishable proceeding from..."

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First, verse 1.19 from Manusmriti (translation by Ganganatha Jha)

teṣāmidaṃ tu saptānāṃ puruṣāṇāṃ mahaujasām |
sūkṣmābhyo mūrtimātrābhyaḥ sambhavatyavyayād vyayam || 19 ||

From out of the Subtile constituents of the frames of the said exceedingly potent principles is produced this (Gross Body)—the perishable proceeding from the imperishable.

I focus on:

sambhavatyavyayād vyayam
proceeding from the imperishable – the perishable

The Laws of Manu wasn’t my starting point :upside_down_face: … it was the DN 22 (and MN 10) refrain:

Samudayadhammānupassī vā dhammesu viharati, vayadhammānupassī vā dhammesu viharati, samudayavayadhammānupassī vā dhammesu viharati.

They meditate observing [body, feelings, mind, principles] as liable to originate, as liable to vanish, and as liable to both originate and vanish.

I focus on:

samudayavayadhammānupassī
as liable to both originate and vanish – they meditate observing the principles

where
samudaya (originate) + vaya (vanish) > samudayavaya

I became curious about this contrasting pair of terms.

We have, for example, in AN 8.6:

anicco dukkho vipariṇāmadhammo
[It’s] impermanent, suffering, and perishable.

where the DPD tells us vipariṇāmadhammo = of a nature (dhammo) to change (vipariṇāma).

We have SN 47.42:

Catunnaṁ, bhikkhave, satipaṭṭhānānaṁ samudayañca atthaṅgamañca desessāmi.
Mendicants, I will teach you the origin and the ending of the four kinds of mindfulness meditation.

where samudayañca = a form of samudayo (the origin) + ca (and)
and atthaṅgamañca = a form of atthaṅgamana (the vanishing of) + ca (and)

Revisiting DN 22, we recall the verb form samudayati (DPD: appears, manifests) in the refrain:

…[body, feelings, mind, principles are] liable to originate

So the same root pāli word for “origin” is used in two similar but different refrains. (Both share the sanskrit root √i.)

In DN 22, the meditator observes how X is subject to originate; in SN 47.42 (Samudayasutta), the meditator learns the origins of the four kinds of satipaṭṭhāna. Both refrains use the same root “origin.”

Noticeably different, in DN 22, X vanishes with use of vaya whereas in SN 47.42 the four kinds of mindfulness meditation vanish with use of atthaṅgamana.

Moreover in AN 8.6 (above) there’s the term vipariṇāma (+ dhammo) to convey what is “perishable” or, I would say, subject to vanish.

To close out, I focus on avaya (imperishable). As @stephen pointed out in his comment below, this term doesn’t appear in the pāli suttas. The DPD has it showing up in a few commentaries.

Its opposite vaya (perishable) only appears in a few places – contemplation refrains and the principle of conditionality:

  • in the DN 22 and MN 10 satipaṭṭhāna refrains about X that is subject to origination and vanishing (which I note above), and also in SN 52.1
  • in SN 22.126 and SN 22.127 concerning the aggregates (Samudayadhammasutta and Samudayadhammasutta 2nd) (Liable to Originate)
  • in SN 12.20 (Paccayasutta) (Conditions)
  • in SN 23.20 (Vayadhammasutta) (Liable to Vanish)
  • and, quite delicately, in Snp3.12:

Phussa phussa vayaṁ passaṁ
they see it vanish with every touch

This takes us all the way back to verse 1.19 from Manusmriti:

teṣāmidaṃ tu saptānāṃ puruṣāṇāṃ mahaujasām |
sūkṣmābhyo mūrtimātrābhyaḥ sambhavatyavyayād vyayam || 19 ||

From out of the Subtile constituents of the frames of the said exceedingly potent principles is produced this (Gross Body)—the perishable proceeding from the imperishable.

where:

sambhavatyavyayād vyayam
proceeding from the imperishable – the perishable

There is our sanskrit root word vyayam = perishable. We also see its opposite avyayam (in the form avyayād) = imperishable.

I learned from this obscure word study that, in the Rig Veda and Bhagavad Gita – indeed, in any occurrences in the Vedic texts – vyayam is never used except when it is paired with its opposite avyayam.

Reading the Manusmriti verse, it makes sense ontologically because “the perishable” only comes or proceeds from “the imperishable.” That is, the gross body can only originate from an eternal, unchangeable abode.

Did the Buddha teach about origination as a rework of this Vedic thought?

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are you sure it’s not ‘vaya’ ?

vayadhammānupassī vā dhammesu viharati
“or he dwells contemplating the nature of dissolution in things” (Ven. Anandajoti)

I don’t recall ever seeing this word.

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Thanks… fixed!

@stephen I edited the OP. Thanks again for your correction. It led me to a new supporting conclusion in this word study.

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You might also want to look at the Pali words byaya and abyaya, which is another attested way to phonemically ‘Pālify’ the Sanskrit vyaya & avyaya.

Also ‘baka’ is a third attested way in which vyaya has been Pālified, see What is the Chronology of the "Thousand-Eyed" Brahma Concept? - #26 by srkris

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It took a while for me to unravel this.

In Dhp113 we read

Yo ca vassasataṁ jīve,
apassaṁ udayabbayaṁ;
Ekāhaṁ jīvitaṁ seyyo,
passato udayabbayaṁ.

Better to live a single day
seeing rise and fall
than to live a hundred years
blind to rise and fall.

Here everyone agrees (apparently) that udayabbayaṁ = udaya + vaya > baya where the sanskrit = udaya + vyaya.

This being the same vyaya I noted in the OP meaning “perishable” or liable to vanish or disappear. I also listed the pāli suttas where I found vyaya but missed this one, for obvious reasons :thinking:.

You linked to a November 2024 thread where Bhante Sujato shared his note on MN 53 (“On the Invitation of Divinity”). In that thread, you expressed doubt about reading “Baka the Divinity” where baka literally means the bird (stork or crane).

You were saying the pāli may be an accidental corruption by way of

vyaya > byaya > baya > baka

where baka does mean, literally, a stork or crane (sanskrit and pāli).

In the Nov 2024 thread, you shared a link to:

The Gandhari Dharmapada : Brough,john : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Beginning on pg. 45, John Brough explains how he thinks this corruption happened. He uses a passage in the Asokavadana that is strikingly similar to Dhp113 but for which we have no sanskrit original.

In the passage (I can’t find a free English translation), in the last days of Ānanda, he overhears a monk reciting (likely) Dhp113 like this:

If a man were to live for a hundred years, and not see a water-heron, it were better that he live for only one day, and see a water-heron.

Whereupon Ānanda gently corrects the monk with the Dhp113 version we are now familiar with. An elder monk tells the younger one to ignore Ānanda’s correction.

With this, John Brough walks back to what he assumes is the original sanskrit used by the first Chinese translators of the Asokavadana:

apaśyan udaka-bakam or
apaśyan udaka-bakaḥ

which by then, he says, was corrupted. Because we don’t have the original sanskrit of the Asokavadana, it is all conjecture of course.

(Brough also describes corruption of apaśyan by Tibetan translators such that their version reads “To live for a hundred years is undoubtedly birth and death.”)

If baka as in “Baka the Divinity” is an accidental corruption of vyaya (sanskrit), it still doesn’t resolve that there isn’t a Brahmin divinity associated with vyaya either.

Am I reading you correctly?

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Yes.

In the late Vedic religion (circa 4th century BCE), Brahman was considered the eternal and unchanging essence (avyaya). Brahmā is a personified form of the impersonal Brahman, for whom a single day spans a near-eternity for humans.

So calling Brahmā by the epithet ‘vyaya’ (here in the EBTs) is to polemically divest him of any presumption of his avyaya-ness.

By the way, this original-attestation of baka is a ‘Gandhari’ original inherited by the Pali in MN53, it is not phonetically-accurate in Sanskrit. The ‘underlying’ (phonetically accurate and etymologically-original) form of the word would be vyaya (which is the Sanskrit / Vedic form)

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