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nonsense of it, as the later commentators appear to have done, by correlating 'like it' in the phrase 'go his way like it with ‘horn' rather than with “rhinoceros' (Nidd II E€ 129):
yathā khaggassa nāma visāņam ekam hoti adutiyam, evam eva so paccekabuddho takkappo tassadiso tappațibhāgo ... eko adutiyo muttabandhano sammā loke carati.
*As the rhinoceros has one single horn, so he, being individually enlightened, should go his way in life properly, like it, as one single individual rid-of-encumbrances'.
The syntax would readily confuse later commentators. It is an interesting attestation of the correlation of tat- in the posterior clause with the genitive khaggassa as the logical subject of the prior clause, for it is not obvious how the horn could share with the individual either the quality of lack of encumbrance or non-attachment. Nor does the Niddesa's explanation of -kalpa as 'like, having its qualities in a high degree't support the idea that the ascetic's 'loneness' is being compared with the horn's ‘uniqueness'. The Niddesa can be attempting to combine the text's rational meaning with its explanation of the word khaggavisāņa ‘rhinoceros' as 'onehorned khagga', hence ‘he should be minimally encumbered like the one-horned rhinoceros'. This agrees with the opening verses of both the Pali and the Gandhari, which proscribe, not the society of one companion, but that of a plurality of companions. Nevertheless, it is an error, for the verb care shows that the idea of solitary perambulation is paramount.
Niddesa's postulation of a neuter vişāņa is as implausible as its gloss ‘one single horn’. Feminine vişáņā, possibly also vişánāká (Whitney-Lanman, ad AV 6.44.3), was used to denote 'hartshorn as a medicinal substance (AV 3.7.1), with explicit etymological reference to the fact that the antlers are 4. yathā atiloņam vuccati loņakappo....
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