Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T09:23:14.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The classification of nouns (nāma) in Buddhaghosa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2022

Paolo Visigalli
Paolo Visigalli*
Affiliation:
Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper provides the first detailed analysis of the models for classing nouns found in the early Pali exegetical texts traditionally assigned to the fifth-century monk-scholar Buddhaghosa. It identifies three fourfold models and argues that: (a) each model has a distinctive distribution; (b) the original occurrence in each model serves a specific purpose, which can be identified through studying the relation between these original occurrences and their respective context; (c) Buddhaghosa did not invent these models but repurposed pre-existing models to fit specific exegetical needs; (d) Buddhaghosa's reuse of these inherited models is consistent with his view expressed elsewhere that Pali is a sacred, perfect language; and (e) in developing these models, the unknown authors combined influences from the Pali canon and Sanskrit grammatical sources. Finally, I briefly consider whether studying the models sheds new light on the early history of Pali grammar.

Keywords

BuddhaghosaLinguistic speculationsPali canon and commentariesPali grammarNouns (nāma)Sanskrit grammar
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 73 - 97
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Maria Piera Candotti and Charles Li for supplying references and texts, and the two reviewers for their perceptive comments. A special thanks to Professor George Cardona for sharing many insights and providing me with a masterful outline of how nouns are classed in the Sanskritic tradition. The revision of this paper was sponsored by the National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 20&ZD304.

References

Abhyankar, K.V. 1986. A Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar. Baroda: Oriental Institute.Google Scholar
Balbir, N. 1991. “Le discours étymologique dans l'hétérodoxie indienne”, in Chambon, J.-P. and Lüdi, G. (eds), Discours étymologique. Actes du Colloque International organisé à l'occasion du centenaire de la naissance de Walther von Wartburg. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Bodhi, B. 1995. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya Translated from the Pali. Original translation by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, translation edited and revised by Bhikhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Bodhi, B. 2000. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikyāya. Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Bodhi, B. 2017. The Suttanipāta. An Ancient Collection of the Buddha's Discourses Together with Its Commentaries. Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Bronkhorst, J. (ed. and trans.) 1987. Mahābhāṣyadīpikā of Bhartṛhari, fascicule IV: āhnika I critically edited by Johannes Bronkhorst. Poona: BORI.Google Scholar
Candotti, M.P. 2005. Interprétation du discours métalinguistique: la fortune du sūtra A.1.1.68 chez Patañjali et Bhartṛhari. Firenze: Firenze University Press.Google Scholar
Cardona, G. 2019. “Philology, text history and history of ideas”, Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: saṃbhāṣā 35, 1–34.Google Scholar
Collins, S. 1993. “The discourse on what is primary (Aggañña-Sutta). An annotated translation”, The Journal of Indian Philosophy 21, 301–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, S. 1998. Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities. Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, S. 1991. The Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali with Annotations (āhnikas I-IV). Edited by S. Bhattacharyya. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research.Google Scholar
Deokar, M.A. 2008. Technical Terms and Techniques of the Pali and the Sanskrit Grammars. Sarnath, Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies.Google Scholar
von Hinüber, O. 1996. A Handbook of Pali Literature. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Hinüber, O. 2015. “Building the Theravāda commentaries: Buddhaghosa and Dhammapāla as authors, compilers, redactors, editors and critics”, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 36/37, 353–88.Google Scholar
Jayatilleke, K.N. 2008 [1963]. Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Joshi, S.D. 1966. “Adjectives and substantives as a single class in the ‘parts of speech’”, Journal of the University of Poona 25, 19–30.Google Scholar
Levman, B.G. 2017. “Language theory, phonology and etymology in Buddhism and their relationship to Brahmanism”, Buddhist Studies Review 31/1, 25–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mīmāṃsaka, Y. 1985 [1973]. Saṃskṛta vyākaraṇa-śāstra vol. 2. Haryāṇa: Bahālagaḍha.Google Scholar
Ñāṇamoli, B. 2010 [1956]. Visuddhimagga: The Path of Purification, Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.Google Scholar
Ñāṇamoli, B. 1977. The Guide (Netti-ppakaraṇaṃ) according to Kaccāna Thera, Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli. London: The Pali Text Society.Google Scholar
Ñāṇamoli, B. 2009 [1982]. The Path of Discrimination (Paṭisambhidāmagga) Translated from the Pāli by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli with an Introduction by A.K. Warder, Second Edition. Oxford: The Pali Text Society.Google Scholar
Norman, R.K. 1991. “The dialects in which the Buddha preached”, in Collected Papers Vol. II, 128–47. Oxford: The Pali Text Society. (Originally published in H. Bechert (ed.), The Language of the Earliest Buddhist Tradition, Göttingen 1980, 61–77).Google Scholar
Oberlies, Th. 2019. Pali Grammar: The Language of the Canonical Texts of Theravada Buddhism, 2 volumes. Bristol: Pali Text Society.Google Scholar
Ogawa, H. 2010. “Bhartṛhari on unnameable things”, in Balcerowicz, P. (ed.), Logic and Belief in Indian Philosophy, 403–18. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Pind, O.H. 1989. “Studies in the Pāli grammarians”, The Journal of the Pali Text Society 13, 33–82.Google Scholar
Pind, O.H. 1992. “Buddhaghosa – his works and scholarly background”, Buddhist Studies (Bukkyo Kenkyu) vol. XXI, 135–55.Google Scholar
Pind, O.H. 2012. “Pali grammar and grammarians from Buddhaghosa to Vajirabuddhi: a survey”, The Journal of the Pali Text Society 31, 57–124.Google Scholar
Smith, H. (ed.). 2001 [1949]. Saddanīti La Grammaire Palie D’Aggavaṃsa, texte établi par Helmer Smith, Padamālā (pariccheda I-XIV). Oxford: The Pali Text Society.Google Scholar
Yamashita, J.M. 1998. “A translation and study of the Pāṇinidarśana chapter of the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha”, PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar