[INDOLOGY] The Buddhist term sutta

Tue May 11 13:22:50 UTC 2021

But this is not really much to support sutta < sūkta, since the regular Pāli form parallel to sūkta includes the glide -v-, as Skt ukta ~ Pāli vutta and similarly in other MIA languages, which all seem to preserve the initial v- of the verbal root *vac- (Pischel §337), despite the vowel change a > u before a labial (§104).

And anyway, Buddhaghosa here is offering multiple exegetical “etymologies” (an old technique beginning already in the Vedic brāhmaṇa-prose), which are alternative or mutually complementary.  The last of the six offered here relies on the “thread” meaning, explained using two distinct analogies which, if anything  about the author’s sense of the basic literal meaning of the term is to be inferred from that fact, would point rather to a stronger awareness of sutta as connected with threads:

… suttasabhāgañ c’etaṃ yathā hi tacchakānaṃ suttaṃ pamāṇaṃ hoti evaṃ etam pi viññūnaṃ, yathā ca suttena saṅgahītāni pupphāni na vikirīyanti na viddhaṃsiyanti evam etena saṅgahītā atthā.

The trans. of the whole passage:

This Scripture shows, expresses, fructifies,

Yields, guards the Good, and is unto the wise

A plumb-line; therefore Sutta is its name.

For it shows what is good for the good of self and others.

It is well expressed to suit the wishes of the audience. It has

been said that it fructifies the Good, as crops fructify their

fruit; that it yields the Good as a cow yields milk; and that

it well protects and guards the Good. It is a measure to the

wise as the plumb-line is to carpenters. And just as flowers

strung together are not scattered nor destroyed, so the Good

strung together by it does not perish. Hence it has been said,

to facilitate the study of the word-definition:

This Scripture shows, expresses, fructifies,

Yields, guards the Good, and is unto the wise

A plumb-line; therefore Sutta is its name.

(tr. Maung Tin, The Expositor, v. 1, PTE (1920), p. 24

Best,
Tim

_________________________________________
Timothy Lubin
Jessie Ball duPont Professor of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Law
204 Tucker Hall
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia 24450
American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 2020–21
National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 2020–21
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From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
Reply-To: Rupert Gethin <Rupert.Gethin at bristol.ac.uk>
Date: Monday, May 10, 2021 at 7:29 PM
To: INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] The Buddhist term sutta

Oskar von Hinüber suggests here that the Theravāda tradition offers no support for a derivation of sutta from sūkta. (In der Theravāda-Überlieferung findet die Annahme, daß sutta- eigentlich sūkta- entspräche, nirgends eine Stütze, wie die lange Erörterung  zu sutta-, As 19, 15–26 mit aller Deutlichkeit zeigt.)

However, the Atthasālini passage cited here (= Sp I 19 = Sv I 17) quotes and explains a mnemonic verse that offers 6 ways of taking sutta; the second of these is precisely sūkta (Pali suvutta):

"As revealing benefits, as well spoken (suvutta), as productive, as yielding,
as sheltering well, as a universal measuring cord, it is called sutta.”

"For a sutta reveals various benefits for ourselves and others. And in it these benefits are spoken well (suvutta) since they are spoken in accordance with the disposition of those who are to be trained …"

atthānaṃ sūcanato suvuttato savanato ’tha sūdanato |
suttāṇā suttasabhāgato ca suttan ti akkhātaṃ ||

taṃ hi attatthaparatthādibhede atthe sūceti. suvuttā c’ ettha atthā veneyyajjhāsayānulomena vuttattā ...

Rupert Gethin
--
Rupert Gethin
Professor of Buddhist Studies
University of Bristol
Department of Religion and Theology
3 Woodland Road ● Bristol BS8 1TB ● UK

Email: Rupert.Gethin at bristol.ac.uk<mailto:Rupert.Gethin at bristol.ac.uk>

On 10 May 2021, at 21:13, Lubin, Tim <LubinT at wlu.edu<mailto:LubinT at wlu.edu>> wrote:

Oskar von Hinüber (1994: “Die Neun Aṅgas,” p. 132) approvingly cites Mayrhofer’s judgment (EWA III/ 492) that the derivation from sūkta is “entbehrlich”; he cites a long discussion of the term in Buddhaghosa’s Atthasālinī 19.15–26 as evidence against it.

Tim Lubin

From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info<mailto:indology-bounces at list.indology.info>> on behalf of INDOLOGY <INDOLOGY at list.indology.info<mailto:INDOLOGY at list.indology.info>>
Reply-To: Andrew Ollett <andrew.ollett at gmail.com<mailto:andrew.ollett at gmail.com>>
Date: Monday, May 10, 2021 at 3:28 PM
To: Jim Ryan <jim_ryan at comcast.net<mailto:jim_ryan at comcast.net>>
Cc: INDOLOGY <INDOLOGY at list.indology.info<mailto:INDOLOGY at list.indology.info>>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] The Buddhist term sutta

Dear Jim,

See Max Walleser's 1914 book, footnote on p. 4:

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K. R. Norman and Gombrich accepted this suggestion. I suppose Pollock got it from Gombrich.

Andrew

On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 2:22 PM Jim Ryan via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
Dear all,

Sheldon Pollock in The Language of the Gods in the World of Men (p. 52) suggests that the Buddhist term “sutta” does not derive from the Sanskrit sūtra, but rather from sūkta. Sanskrit double consonant clusters do show regular assimilation, regressively and progressively, in Prakrit, where two different consonants become a double of one of them. I’m interested in hearing learned opinion on Pollock’s suggestion. I had not noticed this interesting detail, when I first read this book some years ago.

James Ryan
Asian Philosophies and Cultures (Emeritus)
California Institute of Integral Studies

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