Thig15.1:26.1: Evaṁ bhaṇito bhaṇati,
When they spoke to him like this he said, Thig15.1:26.2: ‘Yadi me attā sakkoti alaṁ mayhaṁ;
“Even if you worship me, I’ve had enough. Thig15.1:26.3: Isidāsiyā na saha vacchaṁ,
I can’t stand to live together with Isidāsī Thig15.1:26.4: Ekagharehaṁ saha vatthuṁ’.
staying in the same house.”
He replied, “Whatever I can do for myself is enough for me,
I don’t want to live in the same house as Isidāsī.”
—which seems to make more sense to me. Bhante, could you please explain what led you to the translation “even if you worship me”?
Thig15.1:31.3: Annena ca pānena ca,
Satisfy ascetics and twice-born brahmins Thig15.1:31.4: Tappaya samaṇe dvijātī ca’.
with food and drink.”
Does anybody know what it is about with the “twice-born” brahmins? (And where do the “brahmins” come from? I don’t actually see them in the text. Is this a brahmanical concept?)
Twice-born, or Dvija, in medieval to contemporary Hinduism refers to the three higher castes who typically undergo a ritual second birth as an initiation. I think there’s a lot of hypothesizing about what the term meant in the time of the Buddha, because there is one isolated use of the term in the Mahabharata (very old) but nowhere else for literally a thousand + years, so maybe it’s being translated as “twice born Brahmins” under the hypothesis that at the time of the Buddha only Brahmins were allowed to be twice born.
An interesting question.
Prof. Hallisey seems to take the line, “Yadi me attā sakkoti alaṃ mayhaṃ”
quite literally? It’s the answer to the question above, “kiṃ te na kīrati idha…” - “what hasn’t been done for you?”
I see that KR Norman translated the line as, “Even if I myself were honored, I have had enough.”
Yes, it’s not an easy line to parse out. As Stephen hinted, I followed Norman in this case. He reads sakkoti as sakkito, itself derived from sakkaroti to honor or worship. The sense would be then, that even a homeless beggar would rather be despised on the street than honored at home with Isidasi. (It may seem like an over-the-top thing to say, but the idea that the husband should be revered is strong!)
The reading of Hallisay (and also CAF Rhys Davids) follows the commentary, which glosses sakkoti with attadhīno bhujisso. The sense of this we can glean from DN 10:
Suppose a person was a bondservant. They belonged to someone else and were unable to go where they wish. But after some time they’d be freed from servitude and become their own master, an emancipated individual (attādhīno aparādhīno bhujisso) able to go where they wish.
This clearly derives sakka from the sense “capable, able”. One problem is that this usually means “competent”, it’s a bit of a stretch to read it as comm. does.
In any case, it’s not really clear to me how the grammar falls. Norman evidently thinks the line is corrupt. But given the commentary, I might emend my translation.
