Proceedings of the Seminar on Prakrit Studies 1973

Author(s): K R Chandra, Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 103

62
[Trans : The man who is free from credulity, who knows the uncreated,
who has severed all ties, who has put an end to all occasions (for the performance of good or bad actions), who has renounced all desires, he, indeed, is exalted among men. -
S. RADHAKRISHNAN.7
Here akataññū stands not for an ungrateful person but for one who knows the Nibbūna which is a-kata or uncreated and sandhiccheda also means not a thief' but one who has cut the knots of rebirth'. At another place we find the Buddha saying jocularly that the ajjhāyakas (Sk. adhyāyaka) are so called as they do not meditate (a-jjhāyaka-unmeditative). These puns and quibbles however have not raised to the status of synonyms and we do not find elsewhere in the Tipitaka the word akataññū used for the knower of the Nibbana' or the word Sandhiccheda used to mean "a liberated person'.
2.4. A Purposive twist effecting a shift in the Meaning: A bright example of this tendency is to be found at the beginning of Pārājika. The Brahmin Veranjaka comes to the Buddha asking whether the latter is really a venayika, appagabbha, jegucchi4 etc. as his adversaries report him to be. The Buddha instead of rejecting the charge says that there is a way (pariyāyo) by which even a righteous speaker can truly characrerize him as venayika etc. He then gives a different turn and a fresh and healthy interpretation of all these expressions, accepting the allegations to be true only in these specific meanings. Here the Buddha exploited the puas possible on the words venayika5 etc. But we do not find these expressions used eulogistically in the context of the Lord except in some very isolated instances like Upāli-sutta (M. II p. 59), where venayika ('the averter or diverter of passions', Miss. I.B. HORNER) is used in praise of the Lord.
2.5. Establishment of the pseudo-etymological relation etc : The glowing example to illustrate this variety is the Dhaniya-sutta from the Sn. This is a 'poetical duel' (see JAYAVIKRAME. UCR. Vol. VIII. No. 2. p. 88)between the two chief interlocutors, the herdsman Dhaoiya and Lord Buddha; the one rejoicing in his worldly security and the other in his religious conviction. The Buddha used invariably the words of the herdsman either giving a slight twist to the meaning or revaluing them from a religious point of view. Thus when the heardsman expresses his satisfaction because he is a pakkodhano and duddhakhiro. The Lord tells him that he rejoices equally because he is exactly the opposite of it, i.e. akkodhano and vigatakhilo. This means that the Lord purposely twists pakkod hano (really intended for 'one who has cooked his rice' pakka todano so as to extract from it the 'excess of wrath or anger' (pa+kodbano), taking advantage of the fluctuation common in Pali, between