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Kaccāyana

Review of Pind, Kaccāyana and Kaccāyanavutti (2013)

Pind, Ole Holten (Hg.): Kaccāyana and Kaccāyanavutti. Bristol: Pali Text Society 2013. XV, 326 S. 8°. Hartbd. ISBN 978-0-86013-490-9.

Besprochen von Aleix Ruiz Falqués: Taunggyi / Birma, E-Mail: arfalques@cantab.net

https://doi.org/10.1515/olzg-2018-0129

In scholastic cultures the role of grammar is as important as the role of logic and hermeneutics. The Sanskrit and Pali traditions, being good examples of scholastic culture, have developed their grammatical traditions as an integral part of the religious and philosophical lore. But whereas the great Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini, for instance, is unanimously hailed by scholars as one of the central figures in Indian intellectual history, Pali grammar or vyākaraṇa, conversely, occupies only a little corner in the field of Pali studies. This is probably to be considered a modern anomaly, for vyākaraṇa has been revered in South and Southeast Asia for centuries, and is still a compulsory discipline in Buddhist education. The oldest Pali grammar extant, known after the author to whom it is attributed as Kaccāyana (approx. sixth century CE), has been a staple at every Theravāda monastery in countries like Myanmar or Thailand since ancient times. But since texts of such a type have rarely attracted the attention of modern philologists, there are practically no critical editions of Pali grammatical texts available. This is regrettable, because, as Helmer Smith pointed out in the short “Avant-Propos” to his Saddanīti (= Sadd) edition,1 the study of Pali grammar represents an invaluable tool for understanding the textual history of the canonical texts of Theravāda Buddhism. Furthermore, it proves a fertile field for the study of Theravāda scholastic thought, which is a vast and mostly unexplored area of Buddhist culture. Given these circumstances, the critical edition of the Kaccāyana (= Kacc) and its commentary Kaccāyanavutti (= Kacc-v) by Ole Holten Pind has to be welcomed as an exceptionally positive event in the world of Buddhist studies, Pali philology and even in the study of vyākaraṇa in general.

Pind’s edition is the first original critical edition of a Pali grammar published by the Pali Text Society (= PTS) (and not a reprint as in note 1 above). But it is not the first complete critical edition of Kacc to be published in Europe. In 1871 Emile Senart published an edition of Kacc and Kacc-v, together with a French translation of the rules and explanatory philological notes.2 Before that, James D’Alwis had in 1863 published the Pali text of the Ākhyātakappa (“Chapter on Verbal Morphology”) of Kacc and Kacc-v, with an English translation,3 and two chapters of Kacc and Kacc-v had been published and annotated in Latin by Ernst Kuhn in 1869 and 1871,4 based on Thai manuscripts presented to him by the traveller and pioneer ethnographer Adolf Bastian. Senart used the works of D’Alwis and Kuhn in his edition. Later on Albert Grünwedel, a disciple of Kuhn best known for his contribution to the Turfan expeditions and his essays on Buddhist art history, published the Ākhyātakappa of Buddhappiya’s Rūpasiddhi (a twelfth-century recast of Kacc with an original vutti) with notes in 1883.5 In 1902 Satis Chandra Acharyya translated the entire Kacc and Kacc-v into English, accompanying the translation with a Nagari text not critically edited.6

The Kacc tradition also exerted a determinant influence on the earliest Pali grammars written by Westerners. Benjamin Clough based the first Pali grammar written in a European language on the Bālāvatāra, a summary of Kacc and Kacc-v.7 Francis Mason based his Pali Grammar on Kacc itself.8 Charles Duroiselle9 and Tha Do Oung10 followed suit. As Eisel Mazard has pointed out,11 the end of the nineteenth century witnessed remarkable interest in Pali vyākaraṇa, an interest that, however, very soon dwindled. The critical edition of Sadd by Smith remains an exception during the twentieth century. There seems to be no interest on this field until we arrive at the nineties. Then Pind published seminal articles on the history and development of Pali vyākaraṇa from Buddhaghosa (fifth century CE) onward,12 superseding R. Otto Franke’s 1902 work on the same subject.13 In 1992 Eivind Kahrs published a full annotated translation of the Kārakappakaraṇa (“Book on the Factors of Action”) section of Sadd.14 In India, several scholars such as Lakshmi Narayan Tiwari and Mahesh A. Deokar have also made very important contributions to Pali grammatical studies, especially in its relationship with the Kātantra and Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī.

After the publication of his critical edition of Kacc and Kacc-v, there is no doubt that Pind has become the specialist, at least in the West, on Pali vyākaraṇa. What he has done with regard to Kacc can be compared to what George Cardona did with regard to the Aṣṭādhyāyī. There is no doubt that all Pali scholars will benefit, directly or indirectly, from the present work. But precisely because Pind is a privileged master of the subject, it is a pity that his critical edition of Kacc and Kacc-v is not preceded by a bibliographical essay. Instead, the reader is left with a few references (five, to be exact) that do not do justice to the varied, if limited, existing scholarship on Pāli vyākaraṇa. The four and a half page introduction is simply an excerpt from a previous long article.15

It is also regrettable that the sources of this edition are not discussed, especially given the fact that no manuscripts have been directly consulted. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first PTS edition of this kind. I believe that a note on editorial principles should be added in later reprints. However, the editor does discuss textual problems of the Kacc text in the introduction. As Eivind Kahrs has pointed out in his review,16 “Kaccāyana is a very unstable text, a fact that creates a serious difficulty for anyone seeking to edit it” (p. 204). The multiple layers of text and interpolations make a recovery of an Ur-Kacc and Ur-Kacc-v virtually impossible. Indeed, it is even impossible to determine whether this work is a single body of text or an accumulation of layers.

The question is not new at all; the authorship of Kacc and Kacc-v has been controversial over the centuries. The locus classicus is perhaps the following verse from Uttamasikkha’s Kaccāyanabhedanavaṭīkā17 129,29 f.:

kaccānena kato yogo vutti ca saṅghanandinā
payogo brahmadattena nyāso vimalabuddhinā

Most scholars, both traditional and modern, understand that these are four author names and four works or layers of text corresponding to the respective names. But Uttamasikkha has a different interpretation, which corresponds to the following translation:

The yoga- [i. e. sutta] and the gloss (vutti-) were composed by Kaccāyana Saṅghanandin, the [examples with the] application [of the suttas] (payoga-) by Brahmadatta, the commentary (nyāsa-) by Vimalabuddhi.

Should Kaccāyana and Saṅghanandin be the same person, then Kacc and Kacc-v have the same author. Many modern scholars, however, interpret this quotation in the opposite way. Indeed, the opinion of Uttamasikkha has been considered an eccentricity, though G. E. Fryer defended it in front of the members of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1882,18 in a session in which A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, who presided over the session, criticised him mercilessly.

In his long article mentioned above (see note 15), Pind also seems to dismiss the possibility of Kacc and Kacc-v being the work of the same author. But there are reasons to think that this is not so sure. I had the privilege of attending a conference featuring George Cardona in 2015. His paper was about the vyākaraṇa tradition outside Sanskrit, and he made a few references to Kaccāyana. As a matter of fact, Professor Cardona was citing Kacc-v as if this were the text of Kacc itself, making no distinction between the two. I asked him whether he did so intentionally and whether he considered these two works to be a single unit. He replied that it is difficult to determine, but if he had to choose, he would think the author is the same. I am also inclined to think of a common authorship.19 But even if this view be wrong, it is not by chance that the two works are perceived sometimes as a unit. With regard to this, there is something that Pind has not stated in his introduction, namely that the textus receptus of Kacc and the textus receptus of Kacc-v, both mentioned in the footnotes, are the same textus receptus. There are no manuscripts of Kacc without Kacc-v.

Nevertheless, the fact that Pind has not made explicit his editorial approach does not mean that he made the wrong choice. He has based his edition on printed editions of the text and printed editions of its commentaries. Perhaps some indications of the printed editions of the commentaries should be added to the desiderata for the next reprint. For instance, for the Kaccāyanasuttaniddesa of Saddhammajotipāla, which is one of the main authorities for the textual transmission of Kacc and Kacc-v, Pind uses the Sinhalese edition. This edition is significantly different, and significantly worse, than the Burmese edition, clearly because the Kaccāyanasuttaniddesa was written in Burma and the Sinhalese edition derives from a transcription of the Burmese. The same can be said of the Mukhamattadīpanī (= Mmd) or Nyāsa, a major witness here, where Pind seems to rely on the Sinhalese edition of Wẹliwiṭiyé Dhammaratana and H. Sumáṇgala,20 with occasional references to the much better, reliable Burmese edition.21 Depending on the edition, the readings of its Burmese ṭīkā, which is also an important witness, will not match. I am well aware that consulting all the printed editions from Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar would not lead to a much better result, but at least a reference to the editions consulted would be very helpful.

With regard to the manuscripts that have been used indirectly, they are the ones of Senart’s edition (see note 2); these manuscripts are Sinhalese and Thai. No Burmese manuscript has been consulted, but the Burmese edition of Kacc and Kacc-v occupies its place. But again, the Burmese edition is not specified.

These are all minor issues that can easily be fixed in the second edition. As has been said, the textual tradition of Kacc and Kacc-v is very unstable. The problem Pind had to face in order to offer a sound text was huge, but with a careful reading of the different commentaries he has managed to purge and consolidate the text in a very admirable manner. He also offers copious references to Sanskrit grammatical literature, both Aṣṭādhyāyī and Kātantra, and their respective commentaries. The editorial principles that are not explicitly stated in the introduction can be easily grasped from the copious critical notes. Pind includes long quotes every time he considers it necessary. This becomes a strong support for his readings and imparts the feeling of almost having the commentaries at one’s disposal, which is a great advantage as these texts are extremely rare. It is hardly possible that any student of Pali vyākaraṇa will ever exhaust the stupendous erudition embedded in the notes.

Pind’s edition of Kacc and Kacc-v is the first to take into consideration the historical development of the text. Before Pind, the commentarial tradition on Kacc was at best overlooked, at worst simply ignored: Senart did not mention Mmd, Acharyya (see note 6) thought that the Nyāsa was one of the four parts of Kacc-v mentioned in the Kaccāyanabhedanavaṭīkā, Franke (see note 14) does not mention Mmd in his dismissive assessment of the Kacc tradition.

The rich grammatical literature in Pali is mostly unexplored and it will be difficult, after Pind, to find a scholar who combines with such proficiency Pali philology (Pind worked for many years on the Critical Pali Dictionary), Buddhist scholarship (Pind reads Chinese and Tibetan, he actually received a doctorate for his work on Dignāga’s linguistic theory) and a thorough knowledge of the Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali vyākaraṇa traditions. The broadness of his interests and his philological insight is conspicuous in the articles he has published. Anyone who has grappled with Pali grammatical texts will immediately recognise in Pind’s edition of Kacc and Kacc-v a command and familiarity with a wide range of sources that can only inspire awe and admiration. This edition should become a constant companion to all serious students of the Pali language.

Footnotes

Section titled “Footnotes”

  1. Saddanīti. La grammaire palie d’Aggavaṃsa. Texte établi par Helmer Smith. I. Padamālā (Pariccheda I–XIV). Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup (et al.) 1928. All five volumes of this work (1928–1956) have been republished by the Pali Text Society. ↩

  2. Kaccâyana et la littérature grammaticale du Pâli. 1er partie. Grammaire pâlie de Kaccâyana, sûtras et commentaire, publiés avec une traduction et des notes. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale 1871. ↩

  3. An Introduction to Kachcháyana’s Grammar of the Páli Language … . Colombo/London/Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate 1863. ↩

  4. Ernestus Kuhn: Kaccâyanappakaraṇae specimen. Dissertatio inauguralis philologica … . Halis Saxonum: (printed by A. W. Schade in Berlin) 1869; Ernestus W. A. Kuhn: Kaccâyanappakaraṇae specimen alterum i. e. Kaccâyanae Nâmakappa. Halis: Orphanotropheus 1871. ↩

  5. Das sechste Kapitel der Rûpasiddhi nach drei singhalesischen Pâli-Handschriften herausgegeben. Inaugural-Dissertation der Philosophischen Facultät zu München… . Berlin: A. W. Schade 1883. ↩

  6. Kaccayana’s Pali Grammar (Edited in Devanagari Character and Translated into English). Calcutta: Mahabodhi Society 1901. ↩

  7. A Compendious Pali Grammar with a Copious Vocabulary in the Same Language. Colombo: Wesleyan Mission Press 1824. ↩

  8. A Pali Grammar on the Basis of Kachchayano with Chrestomathy & Vocabulary. Toungoo: Institute Press 1868. ↩

  9. A Practical Grammar of the Pāli Language. Rangoon: British Burma Press 1906. ↩

  10. A Grammar of the Pali Language (after Kaccâyana). 4 volumes. Akyab: Orphan Press 1899–1902. ↩

  11. P. 2 of revision 3 of the 4th edition (2008) (by Eisel Mazard) of Duroiselle 1906 (see note 9), available at <*http://pratyeka.org/duroiselle/Duroiselle2008.pdf.zip*> (last accessed on April 4, 2018). ↩

  12. E.g. “Studies in the Pāli Grammarians I”, Journal of the Pali Text Society 13 (1989): 33–81; “Studies in the Pāli Grammarians II.1”, Journal of the Pali Text Society 14 (1990): 175–218; “Buddhaghosa – His Works and Scholarly Background”, Buddhist Studies (Bukkyō Kenkyū) 21 (1992): 135–156; “Pāli and the Pāli Grammarians: The Methodology of the Pāli Grammarians”, in: Mirja Juntunen, William L. Smith, Carl Suneson (eds.): Sauhṛdyamaṅgalam. Studies in Honour of Siegfried Lienhard on his 70th Birthday. Stockholm: The Association of Oriental Studies 1995, pp. 281–297; and the work cited in note 15. ↩

  13. Geschichte und Kritik der einheimischen Pāli-Grammatik und Lexicographie. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner 1902. ↩

  14. “Exploring the Saddanīti”, Journal of the Pali Text Society 17 (1992): 1–212. ↩

  15. “Pali Grammar and Grammarians from Buddhaghosa to Vajirabuddhi: A Survey”, Buddhist Studies/Bukkyō Kenkyū 26 (1997): 23–88; revised version in Journal of the Pali Text Society 31 (2012): 57–124. ↩

  16. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78 (2015): 204 f. ↩

  17. In: Saddā ṅay ṭīkā pāṭh (khrok coṅ tvai) 3. (Dhammacetī tō 265.) Rankun: Sudhammavatī cā puṃ nhip tuik 1929. ↩

  18. Pp. 126 f. of “Note on the Páli Grammarian Kachcháyana”, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1882: 116–127. ↩

  19. I have discussed this issue in my article “On the Authorship of Kaccāyana, the Oldest Pāli Grammar”, in: Bimalendra Kumar, Ujjwal Kumar (eds.): Pariyatti. Studies in Pāli Language and Literature. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 2017, pp. 251–268. ↩

  20. The Mukhamattadípaní, with the Kaccáyana Vụtti … . Colombo: H. C. Cottle, Acting Government Printer Ceylon 1898. ↩

  21. Presumably Nyāsa pāṭh. (Dhammacetī tō 149.) Rankun: Sudhammavatī cā puṃ nhip tuik 1933. ↩