Hi Frank
It’s this point I had raised earlier -
Bearing in mind that the wanderers were enquiring on the Buddha’s dispensation regarding various subjects, viz kāmā (plural), forms, and feelings, it is clear to me that the kāmānaṃ (ablative plural of kāma) and kāmesu above (locative plural of kāma) would be on the same subject of the plural kāmā.
To reiterate, in the EBT universe, chandarāga is directed towards the external sense bases. It is only in Ven T’s translation that we find this bizarre chandarāga for sensual desires. You really need to ask - why is he translating a plural noun (sensual objects) into the singular (sensuality)? Pls forgive me if I am too lazy to trawl through his essays on ATI to locate his statement that kāmā/sensuality = sensual desires.
Thanks for this, but I was really asking about their beliefs, insofar as such beliefs inform this discussion on what kāmā means.
Most definitely! In this case, the first member of the compound kāmāsava would be kāma (sensual desire) and not kāmā (sensual stuff). It would not be very different from the parsing of kāmasaṅkappa, where the first member is also the singular kāma and not the plural kāmā. This is the difficulty with the parsing of such tappurisa and kammadhāraya compounds, since the first member is in a stem form, showing no inflection for case or number.
Post script - I think Ven T painted himself into a corner with his reading of kāmā as sensuality = sensual desires, which he had to correct in his translation of a section in AN 6.63. The passage in question is -
Saṅkapparāgo purisassa kāmo (nominative singular of kāma) ,
Nete kāmā (nominative plural of kāma) yāni citrāni loke;
Saṅkapparāgo purisassa kāmo,
Tiṭṭhanti citrāni tatheva loke;
Athettha dhīrā vinayanti chandanti.
He’s forced to acknowledge that kāmā actually means “sensual pleasures”, when he translates -
The passion for his resolves is a man’s sensuality,
not the beautiful sensual pleasures
found in the world.
The passion for his resolves is a man’s sensuality.
The beauties remain as they are in the world,
while the wise, in this regard,
subdue their desire.
Nibbedhika Sutta: Penetrative