Cittasanto wrote:
Hi Sylvester,
not saying he is at fault for doing so in any way, I wasn't referring to word for word translations with Bodhi. I see Bodhi siding with the commentaries more in rendering or explaining a meaning, not the grammars which you seam to be referring to.
Hi hi!
I think it's important to note that while the Pali grammars will probably govern more than 90% of the meaning of an inflection, Pali retains significant traces of Vedic and other Prakritic morphologies that cannot be accounted for by the standard Pali grammars. Leave aside those examples which KR Norman shows to be the influence of Classical Sanskrit on the suttas. If you pop into Geiger, he gives an astounding list of Pali declensions that cannot be accounted for by using a Pali grammar, but can be demonstrated to be traceable to a "donor" form from Vedic or another Prakrit, which carries a different sense.
One example -
tena, the instrumental for
ta. Typically translated as "with that", using the standard instrumental meaning. But the form "-
ena" can be shown in the donor languages to have carried a locative sense, which accounts for weird Pali phrases such as
tena samayena.
Another notoriously tricky one is the genitive "-assa", which scholars acknowledge became more fashionable and overwhelmed the traditional form of the dative.
I was just reading Wijesekera's "Syntax of the cases in the Pāli Nikāyas", and he gave examples of the Comy preserving connotations, despite changing morphologies, and this is borne out by independent studies into those forms in Vedic and Prakrit.
It just goes to show that, while the grammars are very important, some readings are so ridiculous if read grammatically, that one needs to dig deeper to see if the form might have suffered stylisation. Sometimes, the Comy does a great job preserving the sense, sometimes not so great.
I get the sense that where the Comy is dealing with the grammar of narratives, this is where the Comy is usually spot-on in noting the old connotations. I'm not all that confident when it comes to the grammar of some doctrinal issues...
PS - as to -
....Tanissaros choices for word - word renderings ...
I do not think he is consistent on this. I notice that where it suits his purpose, he will render a phrase word for word, instead of acknowledging that it is actually an idiom that means something else, eg kāyena phusati with reference to the jhanas and formless attainments.