If I remember, the term sutta is found in a passage describing the views of one of the Ājīvikas (suttagul̥e khitte), where it clearly refers to a thread. Is the term sutta as a kind of text found anywhere other than in the titles of texts? In other words, does the word sutta as a kind of text belong to the oldest stratum of Pali, or is it only a sort of editorial usage?

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Tue, May 11, 2021 at 6:52 AM Uskokov, Aleksandar via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Interestingly Śaṅkara gives a similar illustration in his BSBh 1.1.2: vedānta-vākya-kusuma-grathanārthatvāt sūtrāṇām; vedānta-vākyāni hi sūtrair udāhṛtya vicāryante; "The sūtras ae for knitting the flowers that are the Upaniṣadic passages; for, the Upaniṣadic passages themselves are examined through the sūtras." 

One benefit of reading sutta as sūkta is that it is no longer mysterious why Brahmanical sūtras are so economical and Buddhist having so much repetition. Later Brahmanical definitions all associate sūtra with being short and having few worlds and syllables. 

Best wishes
Aleksandar  

Aleksandar Uskokov

Lector in Sanskrit 

South Asian Studies Council, Yale University 

203-432-1972 | aleksandar.uskokov@yale.edu 

From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of Lubin, Tim <LubinT@wlu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 9:22 AM
To: Rupert Gethin <Rupert.Gethin@bristol.ac.uk>; INDOLOGY@list.indology.info <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] The Buddhist term sutta
 

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

https://lubin.academic.wlu.edu/ 
http://wlu.academia.edu/TimothyLubin 
https://ssrn.com/author=930949
https://dharma.hypotheses.org/people/lubin-timothy

 

 

 

From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>
Reply-To: Rupert Gethin <Rupert.Gethin@bristol.ac.uk>
Date: Monday, May 10, 2021 at 7:29 PM
To: INDOLOGY <indology@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

 



On 10 May 2021, at 21:13, Lubin, Tim <LubinT@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@list.indology.info> on behalf of INDOLOGY <INDOLOGY@list.indology.info>
Reply-To: Andrew Ollett <andrew.ollett@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, May 10, 2021 at 3:28 PM
To: Jim Ryan <jim_ryan@comcast.net>
Cc: INDOLOGY <INDOLOGY@list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] The Buddhist term sutta

 

Dear Jim,

 

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

 

 

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@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


_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology


_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

 


_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology