Learning the Pāli like a young monk

Last updated on: January 9, 2010 at 9:33 pm by Justin Whitaker

Learning the Pāli like a young monk 2010-01-09T21:33:00-07:00 Justin Whitaker

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My fellow Pāli learner, Matt, and I have taken to memorizing suttas (nutty, yes, but helpful too) as a way to cram yet more of the language into our minds. Matt is much better at this and managed to memorize the entire Karaniya Metta Sutta in Pāli and English while I only managed about half the English and a couple stanzas at best of the Pāli.

Now we’re on to a couple more suttas, the first of which is one that is traditionally taught to novice monks and nuns as a tool for them to begin to memorize the basic structures of Buddhist wisdom. Here it is in the Pāli:

Kumārapañhā (aka Samanera Pañha — The Novice’s Questions)

1. ‘‘Ekaṃ nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Sabbe sattā āhāraṭṭhitikā’’.

2. ‘‘Dve nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Nāmañca rūpañca’’.

3. ‘‘Tīṇi nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Tisso vedanā’’.

4. ‘‘Cattāri nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Cattāri ariyasaccāni’’.

5. ‘‘Pañca nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Pañcupādānakkhandhā’’.

6. ‘‘Cha nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Cha ajjhattikāni āyatanāni’’.

7. ‘‘Satta nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Satta bojjhaṅgā’’.

8. ‘‘Aṭṭha nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo’’.

9. ‘‘Nava nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Nava sattāvāsā’’.

10. ‘‘Dasa nāma kiṃ’’? ‘‘Dasahaṅgehi samannāgato ‘arahā’ti vuccatī’’ti.

Kumārapañhā niṭṭhitā.

I HIGHLY recommend it for those wishing to learn some Pāli and/or about the structure of early Buddhist thought. First, it teaches you how to count to ten (sort of). That goes: eka, dve, ti, cato, pañca, cha, satta, aṭṭha, nava, dasa. Right away a student of languages will note the similarity between the English seven, eight, nine/or the Spanish ‘nuevo’ (and the Latin ‘deca-,’ from which we get the common word ‘decimal’) and the Pāli satta, aṭṭha, nava, dasa.

We needn’t be reminded that these are both Indo-European languages and thus spring from common roots and as we study them we’ll find plenty of cognates.

Nāma is another word students will find sounding familiar. It can literally mean ‘name’. And students of Buddhism should call to mind the term ‘nāma-rūpa’ which is generally translated as ‘name and form’ or ‘mind and body’ which gets us into the more technical, metaphysical use of the word. But in the above it simply means ‘name’ in the same sense of when I point at the tall spikey headed metal woman on an island outside of NYC and ask “what is that?” or “what is that called/what is the name of that?”

kiṃ is just an interrogative pronoun meaning “what, why?”

So the whole first sentence can be rendered, “what is (the name of) one.”

Sounds a bit hokey with the ‘name’ part in, so translators understandably drop it. Again, think about how in English the questions “what is that?” and “what is the name of that?” basically mean the same thing.

The answer, ‘‘Sabbe sattā āhāraṭṭhitikā’’ is pretty boring and I, even after many years studying Buddhism and a year or so in Pāli, have no idea what exactly to make of it. It simply reads, word for word: all beings (on/by) food stand [subsist/rely]. Whoopedy-do. I’d guess there is some deep meaning that novices learn later about this, but I don’t know what that is. Any help/ideas?

What about “what is two?” There we get nāma again in the term I mentioned above: nāma-rūpa. Here it gets an extra letter ‘ñ’ for what reason I don’t know and ‘ca’ (meaning and) is attached – in ancient texts there were much fewer spaces than we’re used to; often transliterators do separate words for us, sometimes not. So the answer to “what is two?” is simply name and form. Again we could go down the road into metaphysics – mind/body dualism – but that’s off the topic for now.

3. ‘‘Tisso vedanā’’. Tisso is a way the number three, ti, is conjugated in use (you be forced to learn a lot about grammar in studying Pāli; I’m skipping all of that here for time/space sake). Vedanā is another semi-common term in early Buddhism, meaning “feelings/sensations.” So the answer is, “the three feelings,” which are elsewhere elaborated as good, bad, and neither-good-nor-bad. Sounds hokey again, but this is important in meditation and understanding the arising of suffering.

4. ‘‘Cattāri ariyasaccāni’’. This is the four noble (ariya) truths (saccāni). You should know these.

5. ‘‘Pañcupādānakkhandhā’’. A big Sandhi. Broken up it is five, Pañca+, clinging, upādāna+, aggregates, kkhandhā. The five aggregates of clinging.

Moving along a bit more quickly

(I’m due to actually go study the Pāli in a few minutes):

6. ‘‘Cha ajjhattikāni āyatanāni’’. The six internal sense-faculties.

7. ‘‘Satta bojjhaṅgā’’. The seven awakening-factors (or parts or constituents).

8. ‘‘Ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo’’. The Noble 8-fold (or part…) path.

9. ‘‘Nava sattāvāsā’’. The nine beings-abodes/abodes of beings. This refers, we found to the development of the jhānas, or meditative absorptions.

10. ‘‘Dasahaṅgehi samannāgato ‘arahā’ti vuccatī’’ti. The ten parts/constituents, one endowed with, is called an arahāt. Basically the ten qualities which, if one has them, one is called an arahāt or ‘worthy one’. I’m not sure what these are now, but I’ll have a peek later and let you know!

Fun stuff. Memorize it, learn the words, then learn and study the meanings of the words and their philosophical importance.

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