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