1.2. Samaṇabrāhmaṇasutta Ascetics and Brahmins (SN 56:5; V 416–17) Flashcards
ye hi keci
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“whatever,” a general pronoun. Ye is a relative pronoun, masculine plural in the nominative case; hi, a mere emphatic; keci, an indefinite pronoun. The general pronoun extends to all instances of the noun it qualifies, here samaṇā and brāhmaṇā. It is correlated with sabbe te, “all those,” where te is the demonstrative pronoun and sabbe a pronominal adjective qualifying te (see p. 20).
atītam
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“past”; a past participle of acceti, “goes by, elapses.” It is here used as an adjective qualifying addhānaṃ; through sandhi with the following vowel, -ṃ becomes -m.
addhānaṃ
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“period of time”; an accusative of addhan, “an extent [of space or time].” Accusatives are used adverbially to represent a period of time (Duroiselle §598,viii; Perniola §247h).
samaṇā . . . brāhmaṇā
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“ascetics [or] brahmins”; the subjects of the relative clause, masculine plurals in the nominative case.
vā
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“or,” a disjunctive particle. In Pāli, the copulative particles ca or pi and the disjunctive particle vā are usually repeated after each term in the series.
abhisambujjhiṃsu, abhisambujjhissanti, abhisambujjhanti
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
These are respectively the aorist (past), future, and present tense forms of the verb abhisambujjhati, here third-person plurals. The primary verb is bujjhati, “understands, becomes enlightened to, awakens to,” with two prefixes, abhi and sam, which respectively suggest superiority and completeness. Abhisambujjhati is used only in relation to the perfect enlightenment of a buddha.
sabbe te
”Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“all those”; a pronominal expression completing the relative pronoun ye hi keci that opens the sentence.
cattāri
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
the number “four” in the accusative neuter plural.
ariyasaccāni
“Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhiṃsu.”
“noble truths”; the compound can be understood as either a kammadhāraya consisting of an adjective and a noun, “truths that are noble,” or a genitive tappurisa, “truths of the noble one.” In support of the former, see p. 108; in support of the latter, p. 109. As the object of abhisambujjhiṃsu, the compound is a plural accusative.
katamāni
“Katamāni cattāri?”
the interrogative pronominal adjective “what?” in the neuter plural nominative (Duroiselle §342; Perniola §43).
anāgatam
”Ye hi keci, bhikkhave, anāgatamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhissati, sabbe te cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhissanti.”
“future,” literally, “not yet come.” Āgata is a past participle of āgacchati, “comes,” negated by the prefix an-.
etarahi
”Ye hi keci bhikkhave, atītamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā . . . anāgatamaddhānaṃ samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā . . . etarahi samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhanti, sabbe te imāni cattāri ariyasaccāni yathābhūtaṃ abhisambujjhanti.”
“now, at present.”
dukkhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ . . . dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā ariyasaccaṃ
”Dukkhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ, dukkhasamudayaṃ ariyasaccaṃ, dukkhanirodhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ, dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā ariyasaccaṃ.”
There is a disparity between the grammatical construction of the first three truths and the fourth. In the first three, the name of the truth takes on the gender of saccaṃ, as is evident in the second and third truths, where the masculine nouns samudaya and nirodha form neuter compounds, presumably because they function as bahubbīhis qualifying neuter ariyasaccaṃ. However, in the fourth truth paṭipadā occurs as a feminine, its own proper gender, qualified by a compound ending in -gāminī, a feminine termination.
