What is paccaya

What is paccaya in this verse
Imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti, imass’uppādā idaṃ uppajjati; yadidaṃ avijjāpaccayā saṅkhārā, saṅkhārapaccayā viññāṇaṃ, viññāṇapaccayā nāmarūpaṃ, nāmarūpapaccayā saḷāyatanaṃ, saḷāyatanapaccayā phasso, phassapaccayā vedanā, vedanāpaccayā taṇhā, taṇhāpaccayā upādānaṃ, upādānapaccayā bhavo, bhavapaccayā jāti, jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇaṃ sokaparidevadukkhadomanass’ upāyāsā sambhavanti; evam etassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samu

Cause or support for

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Thank you Sir and I need to start using that. I have another Pali question that’s just a curious thing I’ve wondered about . Hypothetically if two monks well versed and fairly fluent in Pali met could they engage conversationally strictly in Pali vs it being only a liturgical language? Thanx again Venerable, and to anyone else that may jump in

I am not fluent in Pali but have used it to have a ‘conversation’ with a monastic who only spoke Sinhala to find out monastery protocol - should I wear my robe on one shoulder or two for lunch?
It was functional

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That is just awesome. I’ve been reading a lot of Pali in Nanavira’s “notes on Dhamma’ book and coupled with sutta study it’s just a joy to learn I really need to start using this very sutta central site to enhance my study

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From the PED:

Paccaya Paccaya [fr. paṭi+i , cp. Ved. pratyaya & P. pacceti, paṭicca] lit. resting on, falling back on, foundation; cause, motive etc. See on term as t.t. of philosophy Tikapaṭṭhāna I, foreword; J.P.T.S. 1916, 21 f.; Cpd. 42 sq. & esp. 259 sq. — 1. (lit.) support, requisite, means, stay. Usually with ref. to the 4 necessaries of the bhikkhu’s daily life, viz. cīvara, piṇḍapāta, senāsana, (gilānapaccaya-) bhesajja, i. e. clothing, food as alms, a dwelling-place, medicine: see under cīvara . Sn 339 (paccaya=gilāna-paccaya SnA 342); Miln 336; Mhvs 3, 15. — 2. (appld) reason, cause, ground, motive, means, condition M i.259 (yaŋ yad eva paccayaŋ paṭicca by whatever cause or by whichever means);

It’s in the ablative in your quoted usage, so very literally something like, ‘from the cause/condition of’…

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I heard that that happened quite a bit at the Sixth Council in Burma. The invited monks were largely fluent in Pāli and often had no other common tongue.

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It would be possible, but as long as nothing modern needed to be discussed…

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You’d be surprised! People are pretty good at coming up with intelligible neologisms. The revival of Hebrew, for example, required inventing lots of terms for new things. On this forum, @NgXinZhao even came up with Pāḷi names for the Pokemon!

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Pali was not a spoken language historically by the wider population, but Theravada monks who are comfortable in it have still tried throughout history to use it as a spoken language, as it is their liturgical language, much like Church latin in use by the Vatican.

A Sri Lankan monk speaking in Pali (pronunciation is not entirely accurate but still reasonably good).

Another interview in Pali by the same person with another Pali speaker (speaking about his own new Pali book called “The birth of the 10 bodhisattas”)

Other than by the most dedicated students of Pali, speaking fluently in Pali is impossible - as it is an order of magnitude more complex to think ex-tempore/spontaneously in Pali for those who are not native or near-native speakers of an Indo-Aryan language.

Towards the end of the interview, he gives his opinion of how Sri Lankan students can be taught how to speak in Pali (which is currently not a spoken language except among a few monks) following the spoken style of Sinhala and Sanskrit and Tamil.

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The Vatican also does this via an associated institution. I do like humani ánimi investigator for psychologist and máizae grana tosta (pl.) for popcorn :smile:


I second this. It can be done but it’s really hard.

One Latin teacher I know does some dry practice for the students before translating by inflecting (nonsensically) in the native language.
For Pali, he would probably do something like this: I break the window with a hammer → windoaṃ hammena breakāmi

vātāyanaṃ muggarena bhindāmi

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Good to know! You’ll never know when phrases like this come in handy! :smile:

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For Buddhist fire alarms? :police_car_light:
Yaṃ āpadatthāya, taṃ vātāyanaṃ muggarena bhindāmi

I’m sure my case is wrong :thinking:

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Even SuttaCentral has some!

  • computer assisted translation (CAT) = Bilara
  • Markdown = Nilakkhana

:smiley:

Well now we are a bit off topic I guess, but it’s fun!

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