Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with that alphabet. Is it an m or an ṃ? If the latter, it should be showing the accusative case
I suspect that म् would be ṃ -- the letter m with a dot under it.
I think asaṅkhata would be the same as asaṃskṛta in Sanskrit. I am seeing this written असंस्कृत. I gather that is an Indic script.
In the passages cited, it is written asaṅkhataṃ. I gather, in Sanskrit, that would be asaṃskṛtaṃ असंस्कृतम्.
I had to review accusative versus nominative. I now recall we distinguish that when we use pronouns in proper English. I, who, he would be nominative; me, him, whom, would be accusative. I see some parallel there. An m or m like sound seems to mark the accusative. In the passages cited, the 4 negative past participles are written with ṃ at the end. I just wondered about that. It would seem to make them objects rather than subjects?
But where is the subject in Ud 8.3? Maybe the normal grammatical rules don't apply in Udānas?
In translation, it's what is called an expletive construction. The word 'there' looks like the subject. Just in terms of English, the sentence 'there is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated' ought to be something like:
'An unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unfabricated are present.' Or,
'An unborn, unbecome, unmade, and unfabricated is present.' Or,
'An unborn, unbecome, unmade, unfabricated state is present.'
The first sentence treats the 4 negative past participles as distinct adjectival nouns expressing abstractions. In the second sentence, they are adjectives with an unknown noun implied. The last treats them as adjectives modifying the word 'state.' None solve the problem that they are apparently given in the accusative case.
You can see this in the -ssa declension highlighted in red above. This form principally functions in the genitive case, although it is also used for the dative
And a few other ways too?
I sort of see what is being said about the ssa ending, marking the genitive case of the positive past participles, as in saṅkhatassa I had wondered about that as well. I read somewhere a while back that ssa marks the genitive (possessive?) case of masculine singular nouns in Pali. Example: Buddhassa dhammo = the Buddha's Dharma. In English, possessive pronouns as examples of genitive case -- my, his, whose.
Now, I shall go and ruminate on the rest.
Thank you for your patience.